It's Entertaining Season

It’s Entertaining Season

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

One of the main motivating factors for taking on a home remodel is the desire to entertain friends and family and to welcome them to a beautiful, well-appointed home. This time of year we are all thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the joyful winter holiday gatherings ahead. Many of us are taking a good look at our own homes and wishing we had more time to make some major updates.   

We have been talking with our home remodeling clients since the day we started our business in 1997, and we have a good understanding of what drives people to update their homes. We all share a desire to be together and, for so many of us, the idea of cooking for family in a beautifully appointed kitchen, or inviting them to stay in a guest suite filled with thoughtful amenities, is a big part of the appeal of the holidays.

Our own Melissa Hurst sat down with the Hurst Design Team to come up with some pro-tips for holiday entertaining. Melissa is well known as a prolific entertainer. Whether it’s a celebration or school event for one of her five children, ongoing fundraising events for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, hosting seemingly non-stop events at her own home, or planning monthly events for clients and team members for her role with Hurst, Melissa is in non-stop party-planning mode.

While she has been with Hurst since day one supporting her husband Pat Hurst, Owner and Founder of the company, Melissa officially joined Hurst as Event Coordinator in 2023 and now serves as Marketing Manager. She and the design team have some great advice that may help with this year’s gathering or help you plan ahead for some more extensive updates to take on before next year’s winter holidays.

Where to Begin? - A high-functioning kitchen means one thing for weeknight meals for a family of four, and something else entirely for those that like to entertain for a crowd. When you are planning your holiday entertaining wishlist, start by reflecting on how you envision your event and how you would like to use the kitchen and surrounding spaces. A few questions to consider:

How many people do you typically host when you entertain for the holidays? Do you want to have sit down meals or do you prefer buffet style? Do you cook or bring in food from a local restaurant or caterer? Do you need more oven space? Do you need to keep food warm? Do you need a separate bar area? How do you manage the dishes while preparing the food and after the meal?

Open Concept - It almost goes without saying that an open floor plan between the kitchen and surrounding rooms makes for a better flow for entertaining. Keeping the family cooks connected to the fun is always a priority. Working with our professional kitchen designers provides us with some great insight into how to open up the space, but still make it beautiful and intentional. They recommend keeping the cooking areas separate from the seating areas.  For example, don’t set up a bar area near the cook top or sink area. Have the working part of the kitchen out of the flow of the entertaining areas keeps the traffic flow moving and the guests out of the way.

Make sure some design elements carry from one space to the next; whether it is flooring, paint and fabric colors, or wood tones, make sure the design flows nicely between the open spaces.

Consult a designer to select beautiful and functional lighting throughout. For work areas and entertaining areas, the lighting should be tailored to the space. Follow this link for more lighting advice:

Expert Lighting Advice

Allow lots of space for guests to circulate, but try to draw guests away from the working areas of the kitchen with smart design.

Separate Bar/Cocktail Station - One sure-fire way to draw people out of the kitchen this holiday season is by setting up the cocktail bar area elsewhere in the house, even if it is a temporary station just for the party. A designer was working on her own total kitchen remodel and considered adding a wet bar adjacent to the kitchen. When she and her husband talked about traffic flow and the types of parties they typically hosted, she came up with a beautiful new plan. By using an antique hutch to create a bar area in a separate room they could draw the traffic elsewhere. They added a wine fridge to the piece to add a modern amenity to the antique hutch. The result is that guests now congregate in the larger family room and leave more space in the kitchen for final meal preparation.

Dessert Station - The same idea for the bar works for desserts. Set up a special area in a separate room with a beautiful dessert display using leveled serving dishes to create interest. Many of us love to play games after a big family dinner so we set up coffee and dessert in the living room near the game tables. This gets the crowd out of the kitchen so the hosts can tackle some quick clean up before they join the fun.

Butler’s Pantry/Prep Kitchen - If you are lucky enough to have the space for a butler’s pantry or small prep kitchen you have the secret to a successful gathering. The butler’s pantry can tackle any number of party prep tasks or serve as an extra area to serve food or to create a drink station. Some of our clients’ homes approach the butler’s pantry like a secondary kitchen with prep and clean up functionality. A real entertaining luxury is having a large sink and extra dishwasher in the butler’s pantry for prep and clean up.

You can hide the butler’s pantry behind a closed door when the party gets underway. Other ‘wishlist’ features include a built in microwave, coffee station, and lots of storage space. Having shelves for items that are display-worthy like beautiful dishes and glassware. Food storage in nice organized containers can go on the shelves, while bulky cookware, food staples, and small appliances can be stored away out of sight in closed cabinets. A fun way to differentiate the butler’s panty or prep kitchen from the main kitchen is with complementary, but unique, cabinet colors or by adding a fun floor tile or backsplash.

Duplicate Appliances - There is no question that most cooks could not live without two ovens.  Even for smaller family gatherings most meals call for two different cooking temperatures, but more oven space is essential for the holidays. If you plan to roast a traditional turkey this year you know the oven will be occupied all day.

Most families that entertain also love to have multiple refrigerators. The main refrigerator in the kitchen for day-to-day living and one in the garage, basement, or butler’s panty that has wide shelves for large platters and space for lots of back up beverages. Some of our most well-appointed client homes also feature a small beverage fridge in the basement, a separate wet bar area, and even a refrigerator as part of the outdoor kitchen. A second dishwasher means pots and pans, serving platters, as well as dishes and drink ware can all fit so the mess does not have to wait for the morning.

Appliance Garages - Some of the small appliances we use everyday like the toaster and coffee maker usually sit on the counter day and night. When you are getting ready to entertain you need all the counter space you can get. We recommend you hide away as much counter clutter as possible before guests arrive. One way to keep your counters looking clean and organized year-round is with appliance garages. Built into the cabinet design, these small compartments allow you to keep appliances handy and plugged in, but when not in use, you can just close or roll down the door and they are out of the way leaving a much cleaner look.

Coffee Station - In some homes the morning cup of coffee is just something you make quickly and grab on your way out the door. In other homes, coffee is an experience. Especially for those who entertain often and have house guests, creating a dedicated coffee station has been on many of our clients’ wishlists. We have dedicated large amounts of cabinet space for coffee stations with storage for cups, top of the line coffee and espresso makers, refrigerators for creamers and iced coffees, and all the needed supplies to start the day off with a special brew or a beautiful blend with holiday desserts.

Built in Cabinet Ice Maker - Both of the Hurst Design Center kitchens feature a built in ice maker. What looks like another cabinet door is actually a high-capacity ice maker which is tremendously convenient for hosting large gatherings. How many times have you had to run out for a bag of ice right before guests arrive? With no freezer space to store it, ice is always a last minute hassle. These built in ice makers are great for filling up ice and wine buckets and even can even fill outdoor coolers for backyard parties.

Large Island or Double Island - Depending on how much space you have, we recommend keeping the island free of sinks and cooktops if possible. It is inevitable that guests gather around the island and if you need to use the space to clean pots and pans that is not the best focal point for a good party. The same is true for a hot cooktop. You don’t want your guest in the way if you have several things going on at the cooktop.

Outdoor Kitchens, a New Holiday Tradition - Here in Northeast Ohio the outdoor entertaining season is wrapping up, but if we are lucky enough to have another warm Thanksgiving day, you can expand your cooking and entertaining space to the backyard. With many families using smokers and fryers to cook the holiday turkey, the backyard is now a key part of many families’ holiday traditions.  The best part is, this new trend is freeing up the indoor oven for other dishes.

Whenever possible we plan our home remodels with easy access from the kitchen to outdoor entertaining spaces. Melissa Hurst tells us, “When we were designing our own home the outdoor entertaining space was key to our plans. My husband Pat loves to grill and use the smoker so he designed the outdoor kitchen tailored to the way he likes to entertain. The grill and smoker are under the covered outdoor space so the weather won’t stop him. The outdoor kitchen also features a prep sink and refrigerator so there is not a lot of running back and forth to the indoor kitchen. There is a fireplace and outdoor TV so he is right in the middle of the action when he is cooking for guests. We made sure there was a lot of countertop space to serve food and seating to welcome guests. No matter what holiday or occasion we are hosting we try to use the outdoor space as much as possible.”

The Guest Suite

Who is coming home for for the holidays? Grandparents, adult children, friends, grandchildren, or all of the above? Having a dedicated space for overnight guests is such special way to welcome visitors. A few tips from the Hurst Design Team to make the space as fresh and welcoming as possible:

First start with a thorough cleaning. If you have more time, consider a few quick but impactful updates. How is the flooring looking? Do you have time for a fresh coat of paint or new cabinet hardware? Updated lighting and mirrors always make a space look inviting. Simple things that you can accomplish just days ahead include providing fresh flowers, along with fresh linens and extra blankets and pillows on the bed, and plenty of fresh towels in the guest bathroom.

Be sure to empty a couple of dresser drawers and open up some space in the closet so guests can unpack. A fun idea is to provide a welcome basket with a few snacks, bottled water, and essentials. Think of the items a nice hotel would provide. New bottles of shampoo and conditioner, lotions, nice soaps, washcloths, toothbrush and paste and anything else that will make your guests feel more at home. The room should also have a fan, a TV with a simple remote, some books or magazines, a clock, and none of the clutter you usually store in the guest room.

For younger guests we have helped clients design bunk rooms in a spare bedroom or in the basement or attic. These creative, space-saving designs allow for many kids, or an entire family to sleep comfortably and enjoy being all together for special occasions. These are especially great for vacation homes when visitors are frequent, but there are not enough bedrooms for everyone.

The bunks often feature double beds on the bottom and single beds on top with a small staircase for a fun easy way to reach the top bunks. Clever designs include lighting for each bunk for reading, and stylish rails and finishing touches to make the space safe and special.

However you plan to celebrate this year, we hope you enjoy every minute. While all of us at Hurst love a beautiful home and making clients’ home dreams come true, we know that the true joy of the holidays is just being together, sharing a meal, and making memories.

Wishing you a joyful and safe holiday season. Cheers to family and friends!