Touchstone Design Solutions

How to get the best design for your kitchen

The kitchen is one of the important rooms of your home, so when it comes to choosing your perfect kitchen, it’s no wonder you want to get it right. If you’re looking to update or redesign your kitchen, then here are some ideas and tips to help you choose the right kitchen for your home.

In today’s market, there are plenty of gorgeous bespoke kitchen designs to choose from, in a range of styles and suitable for varying budget needs. It’s a good idea to take some time browsing the options available online, as well as going to visit ranges in store so you can get a clearer idea of what the products look like.

One of the important aspects of a kitchen design is the layout. When designing the right layout for you, it’s important to consider issues such as the size and shape of your kitchen, as well as the location of essential kitchen appliances, such as the cooker, hob, fridge and sink.

If your current kitchen layout doesn't meet your needs – perhaps you feel the sink would be better placed under the window or the oven moved from an under counter position to higher up in a tower - then re-designing the positioning and layout of items can help it work better.

A good level of storage is important too and when you’re choosing a new kitchen, it’s a good opportunity to think about how you can incorporate all your storage needs. Simply adding more cupboards and putting away items that were previously left out on a countertop is one easy way of clearing the clutter in your kitchen. There are also lots of very clever kitchen storage solutions available too, such as pull out larders, that help you make the most of every bit of space.

Sometimes it can be hard to visualise how a new kitchen will actually look when it’s completed, especially if you’re changing the existing layout of the room. This is where online kitchen planners are incredibly useful, as you can use them to design and plan out your kitchen before you part with your hard earned cash.

There are some planning tools that help you work out where things are going to go, and the basic layout of a room, but don’t give you much visual idea of what your room could actually look like when it’s finished.

The Palette Cad interior design software can be used so you can get a good idea of what the end result could look like. You can use the kitchen planner to help you decide what works and what doesn’t in your kitchen. The designs can be saved and printed out and are useful to have if you’re planning to book a free kitchen design and planning appointment.

Design Space Ltd, Abuja

Affordable solutions for better living

phone: +2348091144234

email: designspaceltd@gmail.com

I Though You Knew ( Darwin's Frog)

In this weeks edition of 'I Thought You Knew' we will be discussing an unusual amphibian. Darwin Frog!

World’s Weirdest: Frog Father "Spits Out" Young

Darwin's frog is a small species of frog, native to the forest streams of Chile and Argentina. Darwin's frog is named after Charles Darwin who came across it on his famous "Voyage of the Beagle".

Darwin's frogs can be found inhabiting beech-tree forests and fields, in the cooler regions of South America. Darwin's frogs can also be found living near and in slow streams and swamps throughout Chile and across the border into Argentina.

Darwin's frog has a very distinct appearance, having evolved to look a bit like a leaf. This means that when the Darwin's frog feels threatened by approaching predators, it simply remains very still on the forest floor looking like a dead-leaf until the danger has passed.

Darwin's frog is a small, yet round species of frog that has a triangular shaped head and pointed snout. Despite having some webbing on their back feet, Darwin's frogs do not have webbed front feet as this helps them when moving around on the forest floor.

Like many other amphibian (and indeed frog) species, the Darwin's frog is a carnivorous animal that uses it's long, sticky tongue to catch it's prey. Darwin's frogs feed on a variety of small invertebrates including insects, worms, snails and spiders.

The Darwin's frog is well known for the way in which it takes care of it's young. The female lays her eggs, which are then guarded by the male for about 2 weeks. Once hatched, the male Darwin's frog carries the developing tadpoles in a pouch in his throat until they are tiny froglets and are able to hop away.

The male Darwin's frog is the epitome of daddy daycare. His tadpoles develop in his vocal sac. But things take a turn for the weirdest when he coughs them up as full-fledged frogs ready to survive on their own.

Today, the Darwin's frog is a species that is considered to be vulnerable from extinction mainly due to habitat loss in the Darwin's frog's native habitat, primarily caused by deforestation.

(Image credits: Google)

Design Space Ltd, Abuja

Affordable solutions for better living

phone: +2348091144234

email: designspaceltd@gmail.com

Wardrobe Cabinets

Wardrobe cabinet in Sienna Calvado laminate

A wardrobe, also known as an armoire from the French, is a standing cupboard used for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that separate accommodation was provided for the apparel of the great. The name of wardrobe was then given to a room in which the wall-space was filled with cupboards and lockers, the drawer being a comparatively modern invention. From these cupboards and lockers the modern wardrobe, with its hanging spaces, sliding shelves and drawers, evolved slowly.

The modern wardrobe differs in one respect from the historical one for its triple partitioning: there are two linear compartments on either side with shelves as well as a middle space made up of hanging pegs and drawers, the latter being a latter-day addition, besides a clothes’ press in the higher central space on level with a person’s chest.

Shoe rack and open shelves in Elemano Beech laminate

Wardrobe cabinet with two layers of open shoe rack in Romana Cherry laminate

Wardrobe cabinet in Wenge laminate

Wardrobes cabinet in Piemount Cherry laminate #3D

Wardrobe cabinet in Mahogany laminate

Design Space Ltd, Abuja

Affordable solutions for better living

phone: +2348091144234

email: designspaceltd@gmail.com

Small Kitchen? Sliding Cabinet Doors Save Space

In tight kitchens, even something so small as the swing of a cabinet door can feel intrusive and confining. One way to save space? Install sliding cabinet doors!

Sliding cabinet doors from Ellen and Greg's Renovated Loft Kitchen

In the first photo, which shows a custom project by Workstead, the kitchen and a nearby display shelf are designed with a mixture of open shelving and sliding cabinet doors. Holes act as finger pulls that mean no additional cost for hardware and no projections to catch on your clothing in close quarters.

Via Houzz

We love this streamlined look and wish there were more affordable, off-the-shelf options for sliding kitchen cabinet doors. What do you think of the prospect of sliding vs. swinging when it comes to kitchen cabinet doors?

(Image credits: Workstead; Lucy Hewett; Webber + Studio Architects, via Houzz)

Design Space Ltd, Abuja
Affordable solutions for better living
phone: +2348091144234
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
email: designspaceltd@gmail.com

I thought You Knew! Brand name? Product name? What's your view?

We are going to be doing something very interesting on this blog every Friday and it will be tagged "I thought you knew". In this series we will look at topics everyone is well aware of and bring out stuffs about that topic we were not fully conscious of.

For our first 'I thought you knew' series we will be discussing Brand name and Product name.

I was having a chat with some of my colleagues recently when someone mentioned a brand name and when he was corrected, he kept on insisting that he was right. So we had to Google the name, he was surprised at the result.

A lot of people have been making the same mistake in calling a brand name the product name. Below are few examples of common mistaken brand names. They are:

Flit
Flit is the brand name for an insecticide.
The original product, invented by chemist Dr. Franklin C. Nelson and launched in 1923[1] and mainly intended for killing flies and mosquitoes, was mineral oil based and manufactured by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey before the company, now part of Exxon Mobil, renamed itself first Esso and later Exxon.

Flit Early 80's

Some folks even call it shelltox till date.

customer: madam i want to buy flit.
seller: which one be flit again.
customer: i mean shelltox
seller: oh, i see....which one
customer: which ones do you have
seller: em, Mobil, Raid, Baygon em, em, Total sef dey

Flit 2013

Shelltox

Generalized name: Insecticide spray

Maggi

Maggi is an international brand of instant soups, stocks, bouillon cubes, ketchups, sauces, seasonings and instant noodles. Owned by Nestlé since 1947, the original company was founded in Switzerland in 1872 by Julius Maggi.

Generalized name: Seasoning cube

Indomie

Indomie is a brand of instant noodle by Indofood, the largest instant noodle manufacturer in Indonesia with 72% of market share. It is distributed in Australia, Asia, Africa, New Zealand, the United States and European and Middle Eastern countries. Indofood is one of Indonesia's largest pre-packaged food companies, and was founded in 1982 by Sudono Salim. Outside its main manufacturing plants in Indonesia, Indomie is also produced in Nigeria since 1995 where it is a popular brand and have the largest instant noodles manufacturing plant in Africa.

Generalized name: Instant noodle

When I was younger, every insecticide spray was flit to me, because I thought I is the generalised name for all insecticide spray. Even when I am sent to get seasoning, I will ask the seller for maggi wether I was sent to buy knorr, royco, or any other seasoning. I am sure most of us still confuse this.
This was my experience with product name and brand name. What's yours? Share your experience in the comment section.

Design Space Ltd, Abuja
Affordable solutions for better living
phone: +2348091144234
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
email: designspaceltd@gmail.com

For PaletteCad Installation and training, contact +2348039403620, +2348091144234