Harmony Within The Home
Your home should be a place of tranquility, with areas that allow you to escape the hustle and bustle of work and everyday life. Kitchens and bathrooms are often the spaces in your home where you’ll spend most of your time, but maintaining order and harmony in these spaces can prove more difficult than other, less trafficked areas of your home.
Tristan Lott speaks with Lena Gatti, senior interior designer at Gatti Design, to learn some expert tips on creating harmonious designs in the busiest areas of our homes.
Finding ways to keep kitchens and bathrooms orderly and aesthetically pleasing can seem impossible when faced with a need to accommodate plentiful storage, a bounty of appliances and utensils, and necessary fixtures like showers and toilets, fridges and ovens. Lena Gatti provides Queensland Kitchen + Bathroom Design with a plethora of options and invaluable professional insight to help you create the harmonious home of your dreams, whether you’re building anew, renovating or simply looking for tips to revitalise your existing spaces. When designing these spaces, there are plenty of ways you can ensure the final product is highly functional, and undeniably stylish. By creating innovative storage solutions, carefully selecting materials, and considering flow, a holistic design can be easily attained.
FUNCTIONALITY FIRST
When thinking about how to optimise harmony and balance within your kitchen and bathroom, Gatti recommends that you think first of functionality and what you need to achieve from the space. “I design the room for its purpose and then apply the pretty aesthetic elements lastly,” she says.
Gatti Design strives to “understand how clients live and use spaces prior to any design.” You should think about your routine, and how you can optimise your space to ensure that your priorities are reflected in the final design. Gatti has found that having “zone areas” within kitchens and bathrooms can help to create functional flow in the room. For example, if you’re a caffeine aficionado you could create a coffee station with all your beverage needs in close proximity. If you love to entertain, installing a bar fridge near or amongst entertaining areas will make social engagements a breeze.
Having a space that feels well-suited to your unique preferences and habits can alleviate stress during busy times, such as breakfast and dinner, and ensures that your home is customised to you and your family’s schedule.
STORAGE WARS
When creating spaces that feel calming and harmonious, clutter can be your greatest enemy. “Storage provides for uncluttered benches and areas,” Gatti says. “The design of storage plays an integral part in keeping spaces clutter free.”
When deciding how to organise your space, think about what needs to be kept close by and curate storage solutions that suit your purpose. Clever inclusions such as spice racks in the kitchen or towel and linen closets in the bathroom can ensure that space is used practically and efficiently. Inventive storage solutions can easily be created without having to renovate or remodel an existing space. Drawer inserts offer smart storage for utensils, make-up and other small items, while tubs and boxes can help segment larger cupboards and keep everything neat and accessible.
DÉCOR DECISIONS
Furnishings play an important role in creating unified designs. When it comes to styling your harmonious home, Gatti says, “simplicity is key, especially in smaller spaces.” The most straightforward way to ensure your rooms feel cohesive and stylish, is to adhere to a strict colour scheme and choose pieces made from similar materials.
“The repetition of colour, details, and both the building’s architectural information and furnishings creates cohesiveness,” Gatti confirms. Consider art pieces, rugs, vases and other décor pieces in complementary tones, adding accents in contrasting colours and patterns to create interest without detracting from the overall atmosphere of the space.
If you’re unsure how to create cohesive flow throughout your home, Gatti recommends consulting a qualified interior designer. “[Interior
designers] are trained to review, understand and attend to all aspects of selections and detail that bring about uniformity and cohesiveness,” she says.
HARMONIOUS HAMPTONS
Queensland is replete with beautiful, historical homes. Hamptons design, favoured by Gatti Design for its polished and sophisticated features, integrates beautifully with the classic structure of a Queenslander home. Gatti ascertains that Hamptons design “lends itself to precision and symmetry”, allowing ample opportunity for harmonious flow throughout your home.
“All design performed well is harmonious in its own way,” Gatti says. Selecting design features and materials that work well together is a fail-safe method of creating a coordinated zone within your home. Furthermore, working with even proportions and spacing between features is an easy way to create the optimal balance of functionality and style. There are design styles, like classical Hamptons, that are especially well-suited to creating evenly proportioned and balanced spaces.
“[Hamptons and classical] design … almost always has a feature product or design centrally, and all other parts of the design work out from the central point,” Gatti echoes.
When renovating and refreshing a historical home, Gatti strives to retain the nostalgic charm and beautiful aesthetics wherever possible. “Consider any detail that is repetitive and lovely, retain it, and replicate it into new areas,” Gatti says. “Do not feel that you have to tear everything down.” Simple changes like a fresh coat of paint, updated fixtures and new furniture can totally revitalise a room. Making similar changes throughout the space will effortlessly ensure cohesion.
Creating harmony within your home can involve a lot of careful planning and prior considerations, but if you’re smart and consistent with your choices, even the busiest areas of your home will be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
