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From your style choices in everything from hardware to lighting, you have many options for personalizing this heart of your home.
Kitchen Faucets More than just the tap in your sink, the faucet is one of the kitchen fixtures that provides both a decorative accent and an important function.
Today's kitchen faucets are available in a broad spectrum of styles-from the conventional single handle faucet to more contemporary designs, like the Moen 90 Degree or the Kohler Karbon Wall Mount Faucet.
The popular gooseneck style offers a high arc that makes it easier to wash large pans or fill oversized containers.
A pull-out spray feature gives you even greater freedom with your faucet, allowing you to reach beyond the confines of your sink to use the water, like watering potted plants.
To complement the color in your room, kitchen faucets are available in many finishes, including brushed or polished chrome, brass, nickel, copper, and the now-trending oil-rubbed bronze.
Styles like the Herbeau Flamande present true faucet artistry in a wide range of finishes, including polished or weathered copper, and can be customized in your choice of a wooden or ceramic handle.
In addition to your sink faucet, think about adding a pot filler faucet to your wish list of kitchen fixtures.
This wall-mounted, articulated (i.
e.
, swing arm) faucet used to be found only in commercial kitchens, but today's serious cooks enjoy the convenience of an additional faucet mounted on the wall near the stove top.
With a pot filler faucet, you can do just that-swing out the faucet and fill a pot right on the stove and avoid carrying heavy pots of water from the sink.
Cabinet Hardware Known as the "jewelry" of the kitchen, cabinet hardware-knobs, handles, pulls-are more than just a way to open and close your doors and drawers.
With hundreds of designs, you can customize your cabinets any way you like with these kitchen fixtures.
A whimsical frog or seahorse, colorful ceramics, or the elegance of cast pewter or bronze can take a simple cabinet and showcase your personal style.
Dress up simple cabinets with more ornate knobs and pulls-like the Notting Hill Florid Leaves knob or the Amerock Euro Stone Square knob-and even add a backplate to bring more attention to the hardware.
Elegant cabinetry should be matched with simple hardware that doesn't overpower the cabinet's design.
When choosing the hardware for your cabinetry, you don't have to match every one, particularly if you have an eclectic design style, but keep your choices within the same color range.
You should also choose a style that will work not only with your cabinet style, but the countertops, flooring and any areas that adjoin the kitchen, like your dining room-especially if it's an open floor plan.
Before you commit to purchasing enough cabinet hardware for every door and drawer in your kitchen-which can add up fast-purchase a few samples of each design you're considering to see how they will look in the room.
When you buy two or three of a particular style, you can get a better sense of the overall look than with just one knob or pull.
Kitchen Lighting Your kitchen lighting performs a variety of roles.
The overhead ambient fixture sheds light on the entire room.
Task lighting is placed in areas where you need specific light, usually over workspaces, like under cabinets or above the sink or island.
Then you have decorative lighting to create the atmosphere, like pendant lights suspended above a bar.
Your functional ambient lighting, like recessed or track, has a job to do, but can be accented by decorative lighting fixtures that better reflect the decor of the room.
In addition to the many metals used in kitchen lighting fixtures, you can often find a variety of glass choices, like frosted, tinted, or rippled, that will cast a very different light on your kitchen.
Some fixtures even feature an additional function.
The Golden Lighting Heartwood and the Jeremiah Lighting Brookshire Manor double as a pot rack.
Consider adding dimmers to your kitchen lighting so you can change the mood from fully functional prep to intimate gathering, or anywhere in between.
Whether you're planning to remodel your kitchen or just want to freshen it up, take a look at the your kitchen fixtures to find simple ways to customize the room, enhance the function, or both!
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