Essential Elements of Minimalist Kitchen Design

What Is Minimalist Kitchen Design?

Kitchen design is like going to the local scoop shop – so many ice cream flavors and combinations all right there for your choosing! Let’s think about minimal kitchen design like a classic chocolate or vanilla– they can be stunningly perfect and surprisingly delicious or boring and blah depending on the quality of the ingredients and how they’re mixed.

Minimal design is sometimes interpreted to mean cold or sterile, but it can be warm, inviting, and interesting. So, what is minimalist design?

Aligning Mimimalism with Your Home's Style

Minimalism is generally defined as clean-lined design without excess ornamentation or unnecessary details. To me, it also means making choices that are both functional and good-looking; minimalist doesn’t mean devoid of interesting details. People often interchangeably use “minimalism” with “simple” or “clutter-free,” but those can be different, but often overlapping, goals. As an interior designer, when a client asks for a minimalist design for their kitchen, I ask whether they want minimalist for the look and style of the components or are they describing a desire to reduce counter-top clutter or add more storage? It’s also a good idea to look at how a minimalist kitchen will fit it in withthe rest of the rooms in their house.

Considering Your Home's Architecture 

We have a fair number of mid-century modern homes in our area, and those are often the homes where we see clients wanting a more clean-lined kitchen design to work with the architecture and style of the home. A true minimalist-stye kitchen could look out of place in a lot of the typical traditional homes around here (not that you can’t mix styles, but that’s for another post!). Condos and townhomes are also good places to employ a more a minimalist look.

Expressing Personality Through Minimal Choices

When I think of minimalism, I think of each component carrying a lot of weight in the overall design. I want each choice to amplify the desired feel, and even within minimalism, there’s a wide range looks and styles that can be achieved from warm and woodsy to more neutral and sterile, and from richly colored to all one tone or black and white. There’s still a lot of personality and interest that can be woven into a minimal kitchen. Minimal doesn’t necessarily mean fewer choices or less expensive, as each addition to the design is critical to the overall success of the plan.

Starting with the Right Countertops

Counters are a really great way to begin the design work of a minimalist kitchen as there are so many flavors of stone and quartz. Falling in a love with an exotic natural stone, or a stunning quartz may help you focus your decision-making for the other details. Typically, a minimalist design begins with a cabinet with a slab door (meaning without a frame around the perimeter like you see in Shaker-style or traditional raised-panel style) or a small, rounded bead or frame around the perimeter. Slab doors can be painted wood, wood-look paint or laminate, and matte or shiny. The door hardware choice the interesting jewelry that pulls it all together – it can be clean, functional, and gorgeous.

Choosing the Right Appliances

Appliance choice is another way to add a minimalist feel to a kitchen. Look for multi- functional options to reduce the number of appliances and choose sleeker options with cleaner panels and details that will blend in better as opposed to standing out. Combi- ovens are a great choice – they have a microwave oven with a convection feature combined with a traditional wall oven and can take the place of a double wall oven and separate microwave. And appliance garages or wall cabinets that come down to the counters are another way reduce visual clutter and add interest at the same time.

Ready to Transform Your Kitchen? Contact Kitchen Tune-Up

At Kitchen Tune-Up we want to help you make the most of your home. We would love the opportunity to see your kitchen, show you door and hardware samples, and create a plan to update and upgrade your space to meet your needs. Contact us today for a free design appointment and estimate.