The kitchen is the most important room of your home in more ways than one. It isn’t only where the family congregates in the morning, prepares meals and read the paper, it’s the beating heart of the home. That’s why, when designing or remodeling a kitchen it’s so important to get it right.
If you’re planning a new kitchen, planning is everything. Sure, it might be boring, but the more time and thought spent at the planning stage, the less money and pain you experience at the remodel stage. Trust me, I have done enough of these to experience both sides of the coin plenty of times!
The first consideration of any kitchen remodel is the style. Ideally, the kitchen should reflect the rest of the house, or be the catalyst around which everything else is built. If you’re planning a complete home makeover, you have free reign on the kitchen, if you’re just planning a new kitchen you don’t.
To a lesser extent, your kitchen should ideally reflect the architectural style of your home. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but some kitchen designs can look out of place if they don’t at least complement the space around them.
Once you have the style sorted, it’s time to talk about flow. If you’re starting a kitchen remodel from scratch you have the freedom to design the flow around how you live. Spent a little time considering how you use the room and the typical things you do there.
For example; if you’re right-handed, consider having your refrigerator on the right of a work surface, then a working area, then a cleanup area. Place the cooker within easy reach of the work surface so meal preparation flows. Setting your kitchen up this way provides an almost production line experience and we know how that helped Ford!
There is a kitchen design concept called the “work triangle.” This is a tight area with all three essentials within reach of each other. The refrigerator, work area and cleaning area all being within a step of each other. You would be surprised at how much difference using this concept makes when remodeling a kitchen.
So with practicality out of the way, we should also look at how else you use the space. If you tend to gather there in the morning or evening, consider opening up the space and making it more casual. Consider adding a breakfast bar or dining table to one end.
Integrate some technology like a TV, satellite feed, music, internet or cable. Make it a room where the living room and kitchen collide. It means the family can all do their thing while still being in sight and sound of the kitchen. Of course, this isn’t going to work in all cases, as some parents want a kitchen to be a haven from the hustle and bustle of everyday family life.
Kitchen remodeling is all about making the room suite your lifestyle. The more time you spend studying that lifestyle, the better kitchen you will end up with.