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Chic inner-city kitchen design

Display Room

An 'off the plan' apartment gets a customised kitchen that's something to write home about.

Blame it on the red cabinetry, the mirrored splashback or the spectacular city views, but this is a kitchen that more than lives up to its inner-city Sydney location.

Part of an open-plan layout that stretches into the dining area and the lounge room beyond, it's glossy, it's expensive and it's a room most of us would love to have in our homes. Which probably makes good sense when you consider that its owner is also the woman who designed it.

After buying it off the plan, Lynn Malone has put more than a few finishing touches to it. "I bought the apartment off the plan, without an opportunity to select any of the interior finishes," says Lynn. "But after settlement I made changes, particularly in the kitchen. It has a north-western aspect and a view towards Sydney's city skyline, so it was already an amazing room. I just made some changes to improve the interior finishes and 'feel' of the room."

So, while the kitchen was originally fitted with creme-coloured, glass-panelled cabinetry with a timber trim, it's now kitted out with semi-gloss polyurethane two-pak cupboard doors and top-of-the-range appliances.

"I replaced the sink mixer with a polished chrome mixer and upgraded the standard appliances to ones that were top of the range. I also did something about the lighting, which I felt was particularly important because, apart from being the key to getting a room's ambience right, the kitchen and dining areas work so closely together.

"So I replaced the fluorescent lighting with low-voltage halogen lighting that was dimmable. I also installed additional halogen lighting over the kitchen benchtop, in the dining area and on other interior walls that feature art works."

According to Lynn, the fact that the kitchen is part of an open-plan dining-come-lounge area is what drew her to the apartment in the first place. "Open plan suits my lifestyle and how I like to entertain guests. The generous dining area comfortably seats as many as 10 people for dinner but it also works well when it's set up for a cocktail party for 40 guests."