Small tiles for backsplash?! Inside a modern Spanish style kitchen

103

Mid-Century Modern
HDB (BTO)
~1,000 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Hello everyone, in this post we’re sharing about the more practical aspects of our BTO kitchen designing process. If you are interested in how we styled the kitchen aesthetically, we talk about that in very first post (house tour) as well. The kitchen is where my favourite things are - FOOD! So we had put a lot of thought into our design process here. 🚪OPEN/CLOSED KITCHEN? We decided to go with an open kitchen and hacked our kitchen wall. This was so that our (small) bto could look more spacious. Our compromise is that we cannot frequently cook greasy / smelly foods. 🍽️ COUNTERTOP CONFIGURATION? Generally there are only so few countertop configurations that would make sense in an apartment. However to facilitate movement in and out the kitchen, we decided to leave our entry to the kitchen very open, and didn’t build in a kitchen island. Instead we have countertops along our kitchen walls.
Our L shaped countertop from another angle! 🥘 INDUCTION OR GAS? In our cooking we use lots of appliances (and not just the stovetop) so we wanted to maximise countertop space. Although both of us had never used induction stove before, we decided to go with it for our BTO as it can function as a tabletop when we don’t use the stove! It’s incredibly useful. Also, it is generally safer as the tabletop is not so hot that it would burn me. I can also control my heat level better.
- #inductionstove
- #inductionhob
Electrical switch placement is something to think about as well! We placed 4 around our L shaped countertop and thus far that has worked well for us! We also concealed them so that they don’t disturb the aesthetics of the beautiful tiles 😌
- #hiddensockets
Another look at how the appliances look with our concealed switches! 💡LIGHTING OPTIONS? Generally, the kitchen is where you need to focus and work so our ID recommended bright white light (which you can see in our first photo). We use that light for our daily living. However, for added aesthetics and to bring out the beauty of our feature tiles, he installed a warm strip lighting. It was not cheap and also not very necessary, but it definitely adds a lot in terms of aesthetics. We always switch it on when we have guests over and it adds a lot of charm to our home. No regrets!
- #warmlighting
🧱MATERIAL FOR COUNTERTOP? These days we have lots of options for countertops! We were choosing between quartz, sintered stone, and compacplus. We ended up with sintered stone as the stony look fits our aesthetic, and it is able to take a lot of abuse! It doesn’t scratch or stain easily, and can tolerate high heat - this helps it to last a lot longer in the kitchen! We heard that quartz tends to discolour over time, and the quartz countertop in my parent’s home cracked so I didn’t have a great experience. For Compacplus, it looked great but we did not like the thinness of the material in terms of looks. For us, countertops have to be thicccc 😝
🀄️BACKSPLASH We were considering between tiles, tempered glass or sintered stone for our backsplash. We actually went with the least practical option - small(ish) feature tiles 🤣 Here’s why - we just loved the look so much, and it has such a big impact on the aesthetics of our kitchen. We really wanted a mediterranean feel to our home, and this really hit a home run for us. A sintered stone or tempered glass backsplash would not bring out the look we wanted. It also helps that we always clean the kitchen after cooking anyway, so it was already part of our habit! That’s it for our kitchen tour! Thanks for reading!