Designing A Custom Kitchen Hood – According to LiLu

Custom Kitchen Hood Ideas

Why would you want a custom kitchen hood? It’s a great spot to create a bespoke statement that up levels the aesthetic of your kitchen. We’ve written in the past about how a backslash is a great spot to make a statement in your kitchen. (See the post here) However, for a truly unique look in a kitchen, LiLu recommends you consider a custom hood. Today we are going to share the stories behind three hoods designed just for our clients. We based the designs on factors we discovered by delving deep into the clients cooking style, lifestyle, and goals for their home. We also noted the architecture of their home. This deep understanding of the client and their home allowed us to create meaningful designs for their kitchen hoods.

Can a Custom Kitchen Hood Tie Rooms Together?

Our first hood was designed as part of a large kitchen, office, pantry and great room remodel.
When our client moved into their home it was a bit of a hodge-podge of styles. The home didn’t know whether it was traditional or modern. Our client wanted to embrace the more traditional side of the architecture.
The kitchen was the best of 80’s modern with cream slab doors and cream Corian. Our client wanted it to look more cohesive with the adjacent great room. We took our cues from the fabulous ceiling detail in the great room to tie the rooms together.
We designed three concepts for the hood. One was strictly traditional and echoed the barrel vault of the great room ceiling. The second concept was a bit more modern but repeated the combination of the flat center of the ceiling and used zinc with a v-groove on either side. The v-groove repeated the v-groove wood on the great room ceiling.
The final and winning concept took a very traditional hood form with brackets on the sides and used a center panel of the v-groove zinc. This hood was a winner because it did what the client desired. It embraced the more traditional aspects of the architecture of the home and tied the rooms together.

Can a Hood be More Than a Hood?

When we start to explore designing a kitchen for any client, we get to know the nitty-gritty of their cooking habits and storage needs. This hood is an example of form following both function and creating meaning in a custom form.
This client loves to stand at the cooktop and continually cook while people eat. He cooks courses, serves wine in a flow that is endlessly entertaining for guests. This custom kitchen hood was designed to store both pans and wine glasses that he could grab while never turning his back on a guest. He loves people as much as he loves cooking for them.
In addition, he is a sentimental person who has taken his family business to the next level. As a nod to the family business the center of the hood repeats subtly the shape of his logo, a reminder that his father left him the wonderful company that he runs today.

A Rustic Touch from a Custom Kitchen Hood

This custom kitchen hood was designed for a new construction home “up north” that is a family gathering spot for multiple generations of this family. They love to cook together and wanted the home to have a rustic lake home look. Metal was a great material choice because our client made his living building prototype vehicles (often from metal) in Detroit.
We had used metal mesh in the cabinetry insets and used the metal mesh in combination with copper to create a custom hood that is a one-of-a-kind statement in the main room where this family gathers to cook, eat, and bond.