Apt Kitchen & Closet Installations Pty Ltd

I remember growing up in an era when a kitchen space was not much more than a pantry. If you were fortunate, there might have been a concrete slab in one corner with a few equally bland storage spaces underneath—a couple of drawers and a single-door compartment, perhaps. In our case, however, there was nothing but the ubiquitous pantry that served all manner of functions, and this monolith—both in size, relative to the rest of the kitchen, and in weight, being of solid cast iron—a wood or coal-fired stove that dominated the space. My sisters customarily fired up that stove on the 1st of June each year—a date on which, as it happened, two of my older siblings had been born—and baked all sorts of treats for us as they experimented with their growing kitchen skills. And when the baking was done, I would sometimes become the subject of a different kind of experiment—taking turns, my sisters would plait my hair, even though I was a boy. I suppose, in the absence of dolls, a younger brot...

This article, largely informed by recent interactions with potential clients, is Part IV and the last Part of a four-part series designed not only to inform you of the material options available on the market today, but to serve as a lasting reference—a repository of information you can return to whenever you need to make informed, confident decisions on all matters of kitchen design and installation. --- In Part I, we explored the boards that form the body of your kitchen. In Part II, we examined the finishes that give those boards their face. In Part III, we surveyed the countertops that bear the daily work of cooking and living. Now we turn to the space that most kitchen guides ignore entirely: the inside. Open a standard kitchen cupboard. What do you see? If the answer is a plain white interior—bright, functional, and entirely unremarkable—then you are looking at a missed opportunity. The inside of your cabinets is not merely a storage void. It is the surprise your kitchen reveals ...

This article, largely informed by recent interactions with potential clients, is Part III of a four-part series designed not only to inform you of the material options available on the market today, but to serve as a lasting reference—a repository of information you can return to whenever you need to make informed, confident decisions on all matters of kitchen design and installation. --- In Part I, we explored the boards that form the body of your kitchen. In Part II, we examined the finishes that give those boards their face. Now we turn to the surface you will touch more than any other: the countertop. It bears the weight of hot pots, the scratch of knives, the spill of coffee, and the daily rhythm of family life. It is the hardest-working surface in your home, and choosing it well is one of the most consequential decisions you will make in your kitchen design. The countertop is also where I have seen clients' expectations collide most sharply with their budgets. A recent quotat...

This article, largely informed by recent interactions with potential clients, is Part II of a four-part series designed not only to inform you of the material options available on the market today, but to serve as a lasting reference—a repository of information you can return to whenever you need to make informed, confident decisions on all matters of kitchen design and installation. --- In Part I of this series, we explored the full universe of board materials—from the melamine-faced workhorse to the niche promise of polypropylene. We ended with a question: once you've chosen your board, how should it be finished? That choice, as I've learned through direct experience with clients, is rarely straightforward. I recently quoted a client who wanted a cream kitchen. The spray-painted option returned at a certain price. Searching for a more accessible route, we explored a wrapped veneer in a closely matched cream tone. To my genuine surprise, the wrap came in more expensive than th...

This article, largely informed by recent interactions with potential clients, is Part I of a four-part series designed not only to inform you of the material options available on the market today, but to serve as a lasting reference—a repository of information you can return to whenever you need to make informed, confident decisions on all matters of kitchen design and installation. You may have heard me say before that I'm something of an accidental renovator, a path borne from my background in direct sales and marketing. When I first embarked on this journey of kitchen renovations, I had absolutely no idea of the sheer variety of board colours and materials one could choose from. For my very first project, some fifteen years ago, my choice of board was simple: natural oak melamine. Why? Because, as you can imagine, it looked like wood to me. That was the full extent of my design philosophy back then. It was only later, as I continued to find my feet in the sector, that I realised...

Lighting was once the last thing anyone thought about when designing a kitchen. Today, it is often the first. The journey from a single bare bulb to meticulously layered illumination is, in many ways, the story of the kitchen itself—from a utilitarian backroom to the soul of the home. The Humble Beginnings: One Bulb, One Purpose For most of the 20th century, kitchen lighting was a purely functional affair. A single pendant or surface-mounted fixture in the centre of the ceiling, casting a pool of yellowish incandescent light. It was there so you wouldn't chop your fingers off. Shadows were deep, corners were dark, and under-cabinet areas were black holes. The kitchen was a workspace, not a living space, and the lighting reflected that. Efficiency meant brightness, not beauty. The Rise of Task Lighting: Seeing What You're Doing As kitchens became more sophisticated in the 1980s and 1990s, so did the demands placed on them. The single overhead fixture gave way to a two-tier appro...