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Stunning Galley Kitchens in Modern Design Build

Galley kitchens are often regarded as a thing of the past. However, what if a galley kitchen was given a bit more breathing room and a stylistic facelift? With some help from modern design build, you can achieve some truly stunning galley kitchens. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can modernize a galley kitchen.

What Is a Galley Kitchen?

If you’ve never heard of a galley kitchen, you’re either very young or very old. This type of kitchen was a dominating design choice in the mid to late 20th century. Tons of houses had them. So, what exactly is a galley kitchen? The hallmark of a galley kitchen is that it’s as if a hallway and a kitchen had a baby. Basically, the kitchen is divided into two pieces, which face each other. Walking through this kitchen typically leads to a breakfast nook, dining room, or other space. The important thing is that the kitchen leads between two spaces and is walled on both opposing sides.

More Space

One of the biggest complaints people have about galley kitchens is that they’re too cramped. Opening the dishwasher completely blocks the walkway through the kitchen. Moreover, two or more people trying to get something to eat blocks the whole kitchen. Not to mention, they can hardly get by each other to find what they need.

But, what if a galley kitchen had more space? Imagine how nice a galley kitchen could be if you did have room to walk past each other and even walk by the open dishwasher. A galley kitchen with adequate space could be really nice.

Bigger Windows

One way to help a galley kitchen feel more open is to put in bigger windows. A typical mid-century galley kitchen would have had a standard double-pane, sliding window above the sink. Or, perhaps even a single-hung window. Therefore, to make the kitchen feel more spacious, imagine if one upper cabinet on either side of the sink were removed to make room for more windows. From counter to ceiling, this would allow windows to reach half the length of the kitchen.

Modern Design Features

Much of the reason existing galley kitchens feel so dated is because, well, everything in them is dated. With modern cabinets, countertops, and hardware, a galley kitchen would look decidedly more modern. Therefore, if you’re interested in a galley kitchen, check out galley kitchen renovation photos online to get inspiration for your own stunning galley kitchen designs.

More Open Concept

A classic galley kitchen would have a solid wall on the innermost half of the kitchen. However, you can still maintain the general layout of a galley kitchen while opening it up a bit. Cutting out the part of the wall between the counter and upper cabinets creates enough space to put a small breakfast or serving bar. Furthermore, if you want to make it really cozy, you could even add some bi-fold shutters to the new opening.

Modern Design Build in Toronto

If you’re looking for assistance with modern design build, Heidan Construction is at your service. We specialize in design build for modern and luxury houses. Therefore, if you’re looking into custom home design, you may be our next happy client. Let us know if you have any questions or are interested in a consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Add a Touch of History to Modern Home Design

Historically, humans have had some pretty interesting design ideas. While those in our more recent history tend to be a bit unpleasant to our sensibilities, if you simply go back far enough, things get good again. So, how can you add a touch of history to modern home design? Let’s take a look!

Historical Meets Modern

The first thing you may be wondering is, how can you mix historical and modern design elements? Does that even look good? The answer is: it really depends on what you’re mixing. Just like warm and cold colors can look good together, you don’t want to pair primary red and primary blue… unless you’re really into that. Likewise, certain historical elements work well with modern home design. You just have to have a keen eye for what and where.

Historical Door Styles

One of the easiest historical design elements to bring to modern architecture is the door. Doors have gone through many stylistic evolutions over the centuries. In some of their older forms, they had an awful lot more character than they do now. So much so, in fact, that you can completely revitalize and otherwise blank canvas of a house by simply throwing on some medieval doors.

White walls, white cabinets, and white decor can only hold so much personality. However, if you pair those with some dark, recycled-wood floors and some medieval doors of the same type, you’ve suddenly got a house with an abundance of personality. Think: vertical board, arched top, horizontal anchor boards, and wrought iron handles. Not only will these old doors look stellar, they’ll also do a lot better at sound-proofing rooms than a hollow box of plywood will.

Wood Colors

One of the easiest ways to bring some history into your modern home design is by incorporating older wood colors. I know what you’re thinking; you’re imagining wooden paneling from a house built in 1965. That’s not what we mean. 

Modern houses use a lot of very light wood – almost white – and very dark wood – almost black. A lot of these woods have been specially grown for use in interior construction, or have been treated with chemicals to alter the color.

Instead of going with the least saturated wood of the highest contrast possible, consider using some reclaimed wood of a more middle tone. Reclaimed wood is a great way to bring some character into your home. The variance in color really helps add some interest to your interior. Once the wood is sealed, the fact that it’s reclaimed won’t make a single difference in the quality of its texture.

Custom Home Builders in Toronto

If you want a custom home built in Toronto, Heidan Construction is the place to call. We’ve got an expert team of design builders ready to craft your perfect floor plan and then make it real. If you have questions or would like to schedule a consultation, just give us a call and we can get started with planning your home.

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Built-In Features for Your Custom Home: Part 2

Last time, in part 1, we talked about built-in bookshelves and built-in bed frame. This time, we’ll tackle something different: built-in seating and built-in storage features for your custom home. 

Built-In Seating

This one is a classic when it comes to window seats. Everyone loves a good window seat. But, have you considered built-in seating in other parts of the home?

If your custom home has a large bathroom, you could add built-in bench seating there. That bench could have a soft bench pillow added to it to make it more comfortable. This seating space would make it more comfortable to go about your post-shower or bath routine. It would give you a place to sit while brushing your hair or applying lotion. After a long day at work, sometimes a comfortable place to sit is just what you need.

Even if you don’t have the master suite type bathroom required for a bench, there are other parts of the home perfectly suited to built-in seating. For example, the dining room or breakfast nook! Americans and Canadians alike have made it standard for a dining table to be surrounded by chairs, that’s not the only way. 

If you’ve ever looked at some European cultures, you’ll notice that they’re big fans of the bench! Often, dining rooms will have a large, wooden bench – with a back – up against the back wall. Then, there will be chairs for the walkway-adjacent part of the table. This setup allows you to make better use of a tight space, since a bench doesn’t need room to pull back. Plus, you can use a bench as storage if the seat is liftable.

Built-In Storage

Built-in storage on a large scale is common practice in most places. For example, every home has a closet or three. Most homes have an attic or basement. People love stuff and memories, and so, love storage spaces. However, built-in storage doesn’t have to be an empty room. You can build storage into most facets of your home. In fact, the standard for space usage in most homes is pretty abysmal. If you like efficiency, you’ll love built-in storage features for your custom home.

A great example of max efficiency, built-in storage is the use of stairs as drawers. This is something you’ll see often in tiny home designs – because they don’t have any space to waste. If you like to use as much of your space as possible, you can adopt this concept even in a more spacious home. Stairs can have drawers put into them from the get-go. Even better, you can decide whether you want wide drawers or deep drawers. Wide drawers would open from the front of the stair, while deep drawers would open from the side.

One of the benefits of deep drawers is they can work alongside an understair bookshelf. If the side of your stairway is exposed, the entire space beneath those stairs can be used for storage of one kind of another. Not enough access to the far side of the storage? Well, there’s no need to be able to reach 3 feet back. Simply divide the understair space down the middle and make another built-in bookshelf on the opposite side of the staircase. You may not even know it’s under the stairs if the bookshelf is in an adjacent room!

Custom Homes From Heidan Construction

Getting creative with custom home design is what we do here at Heidan Construction. We’ve been happily designing and building custom homes for many years. If you’re interested in built-in features for your custom home, just give us a call and we can talk home design.

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Built-In Features for Your Custom Home: Part 1

Custom homes come with a lot of room for creativity. But, even when it comes to standard furnishings – seats, shelves, storage – custom homes offer more ways to play. Standard homes have to appeal to standard buyers. Designers and builders have no way of knowing where a potential buyer will want their books displayed. So, they offer blank walls which all have the potential of housing a moveable bookcase. However, there is something really visually compelling about taking everyday home features and just building them into the home. So, here are 3 built-in features that could really enhance the appearance of your custom home.

Built-In Bookshelves

Having your bookshelves built into your walls is great for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it looks great. It looks really nice to have the spines of your books flush with the wall. The shelf being inset allows that. However, a built-in bookshelf is also more stable than a separate one. There’s no tipping hazard and no need to anchor anything to the wall, damaging the plaster.

Additionally, there’s also the fact that a built-in bookshelf can be a lot more creative than a standard bookcase. While there certainly are bookshelves in wacky shapes that can be bought, they’re often extremely expensive and tricky to put together. Plus, if they’re modern, they’re probably made of flimsy parts that are lightweight and don’t anchor well to the floor. That poses a tipping hazard. 

Built-in bookshelves for your custom home offer the chance to be creative without the instability. For example, you could have slanted shelves. If you want something a bit wild, some back and forth slanting shelves could be just the thing. Even better, you can put bookshelves on either side of a built-in entertainment space. Even if you opt for level shelves (Most people would) you can still get interesting by framing in a nice big space for your flat screen and gaming consoles. You could even have some built-in drawers lined up at the bottom of it all. And, if you’re not so much for gaming, use that center space for a fireplace. Everyone loves a fireplace sided by two built-in bookcases!

Built-In Bed Frame

While built-in bookshelves are much more well-known, they’re not the only way to permanently inlay your furniture into your home’s structure. A built-in bed frame is also a fun way to build outside the box. Or, rather, build the box.

If you’re a fan of sleeping nooks, you’ll be a fan of this. Imagine, if you will, a room with two square, walk-in closets – one on either end. Then, nestled between them, is a built-in bed frame. Your bed would be framed in on three sides and open on the face. You could go so far as adding a bay window on the back wall of it, giving you the perfect place to stack your books and a cup of coffee. Under the bed, you could build some deep storage drawers to take advantage of the space to the max.

Keep Reading

Not done investing in built-in features for your custom home? Keep reading with part 2!

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Luxury Condo Design Build in Toronto

Having an entire house isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. All of the yardwork must be done yourself, and the property costs can really eat up your savings. Instead, owning a condo comes with many of the same benefits of an apartment. Plus, they’re easier to fit into those tight city lots, which just so happen to be closer to all of the work opportunities Toronto has to offer. If you’re looking to capitalize on these truths, you may be considering building a condo. Let’s check out the perks of luxury condo design build in Toronto.

What Is Design Build?

First and foremost, you may be wondering what design build is. This is a term that is becoming more and more common in real estate, so now is the time to learn it. Design build is simply the idea that one team should do the designing and building.

Design build is the perfect solution for someone who doesn’t enjoy being a middle-man. And who does? Instead of working with a design team and then passing their blueprint off to a construction team, get it all in one. Then, when your construction team has questions about something on the blueprint, you don’t have to shrug your shoulders. They can, instead, ask the designer on their very own team, since they’re the one who made the design.

Design build ensures the design and construction process goes much smoother than it would divided. If you want to save time and effort, this is the way to save both.

What Is a Luxury Condo?

Now, to many people, the idea of a condo is a luxury in and of itself. After all, most people who don’t buy homes end up renting. But being able to buy a condo in the heart of Toronto isn’t the only luxury we’re offering. A luxury condo – like any type of luxury home – comes with more.

Firstly, there’s the difference in technology. Luxury condos may include technology such as intercoms, biometric security, and smart appliances. Ever wanted to control your thermostat without leaving bed? You can do that these days with a smart thermostat controlled from a smart phone. Modern day condos can come with any number of smart technology, improved security, and more.

And, second, there’s the difference in quality of life. A normal apartment may have forced air or baseboard heating. A luxury condo, on the other hand, could have heated floors. Additionally, bathrooms could have radiant towel warmers to keep your bathroom warm and assist in drying your used towel. Stepping out of the shower just got a lot more comfortable!

Luxury Condo Design Build in Toronto

If you’re interested in building a luxury condo in Toronto, Heidan Construction is your team. We do design build all over the GTA and specialize in luxury homes and offices. Want a quote? Need your questions answered? Call us today and we can discuss the possibilities.

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Using Dark Colors to Achieve a Luxurious Interior

If you’re like many people, you grew up hearing that dark colors are bad interior design. Since the turn of the century, homes have just gotten whiter and beiger with time. Contemporary home design of 2023 has hardly any color left in it – at least if you do it like popular media and celebrities think you should. But, there are ways to use dark colors to achieve a luxurious interior that time simply cannot overpower. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Dark Wood and Light Wood

One of the most timeless ways to achieve a luxurious interior that incorporates darkness is by using dark and light wood. 70’s particle-board wood paneling has given wood interiors a bad name. You might not think you like a lot of wood in your interior, but you may be wrong. Getting it to look amazing requires some color balance.

In order to make your interior look timeless and attractive with a lot of wood, use a very dark, desaturated wood, with a very light, desaturated wood. Woods with more color to them can become overwhelming in large amounts. Whether that tint is red or yellow is irrelevant. Desaturated wood, on the other hand, is perfect in large quantities.

Whether you use light or dark wood as the accent is up to preference. One wood should be used for exposed, wooden ceilings – crossbeams included – and flooring. The other should be used for accents, such as furniture. 

Picture dark wood, nearly black, above and below you. Then, in the middle of it all, a light wood table and chairs with a black runner on it. The visual is stunning!

Black and Gold

If you intend to incorporate a lot of black into your home, the most important way to prevent that darkness from swallowing the house is by counteracting it with rich colors or stark white. While nearly and rich color can be paired with black, one of the most classic and timeless colors is gold. A black table with a saturated, gold table runner is a great example. Another is a black-painted wall with golden or brass sconces decorating it. Perhaps, between the sconces, is a painting with a gold or brass frame. This turns the black into a backdrop for contrast instead of a void.

Lighting Is Key

The biggest difference between a somewhat depressing cave of a home and a really classy, elegant home – both full of black – is lighting. If you fill your home with black, or extremely dark colors like blue or red, you need good lighting. A room that’s 90% black or black-adjacent with one little desk lamp is going to feel like a hole in the ground. 

Counteract this with:

  • Huge windows, ideally facing north or south to get light the entire day
  • Lots of light fixtures, especially where window light doesn’t reach
  • Additional lights where needed

Build a Luxury Home

If you’re looking to build a luxury home with a lot of dark colors, the experts on the matter are found at Heidan Construction. Let us know you’re not looking for a sterile, white home and we can certainly be of service.