Creative Kitchen

No space in the home serves as many functions or stirs as much passion as the kitchen.

To celebrate this heart of the home and highlight good kitchen design and new material choices, the Reed Residential Group partnered with home builder D.R. Horton Inc. to create the Farmer's Market Kitchen at Rockefeller Center in New York. The free-standing kitchen is the centerpiece of the weekly Farmer's Market and the site of Friday morning celebrity chef cooking segments on the Today show.

Designed by Julie Howes of The Strober-Haddonfield Group, the kitchen showcases some of the latest trends in kitchens today.

Commercial/industrial look: Stainless steel, long a standard in restaurants, is the hot finish in kitchen appliances. While the look usually drives a homeowne's decision, the easy cleanup and durability of this finish are additional selling features.

Modified golden triangle: Every kitchen has a work triangle defined by the stove, sink and refrigerator. No absolutes dictate the placement of these three stations or the space between them, but Howes says kitchens function better and are safer if these appliances are within 8 feet of each other. She also refuses to negotiate with clients on "set-down space" next to the stove or cooktop. "This is one appliance that must have countertop to the left, right or within 4 feet," she says. "When a hot pan comes off the stove or out of the oven, having an immediate and handy space to set it down is critical."

Solid surfaces: New material choices exist throughout the kitchen, but the greatest number of new options are in countertop materials. The fastest-growing countertop category is solid surfaces, which offer myriad color choices and styles and are durable and easy to maintain.

Stepped cabinets: In the Farmer's Market Kitchen, Howes created visual interest throughout the space by varying the cabinet height throughout. "The number of choices in stock and custom cabinets has changed the face of the kitchen," she explains. "If we can engineer it on paper, most cabinet companies can build it." More and more often, Howes says, consumers ask for more cabinets in a greater variety of configurations tall walls, stacked, corner, etc. to maximize storage space in the kitchen.

The products used in the Farmer's Market Kitchen shown in the pictures above include:

Samsung Staron

Jenn-Air

Celebrating the Heart of the Home