We should design or plan our kitchen to be highly functional as well as comely! Kitchen is one of the most used room in a home. While planning a new kitchen, the first and very important step is to plan the layout that makes the best use of your space. Having a functional layout is vital to enjoy the luxury of your home and running your life and family smoothly. There are a lot of things to keep in mind to design your kitchen layout!
“Women’s cook in their kitchens, so it’s really important to make it perfect. Otherwise it’s heartbreaking!”
Kitchen is mostly used for:
- Preparation of Meals
- Preservation of Food
- Storage to Food & Utensils
- Washing of Utensils, Vegetables, etc.
- Chatty corner during family get-together
Things to Keep in Mind While Planning Kitchen
To “design your Kitchen” the following are the basic considerations that should be taken care of!
- Different Work Centers required in kitchen!
- How to Arrange the Counters in your kitchen layout?
- Materials to be used for your kitchen counter tops, counters, cabinets, floor, etc.
- How much Storage is required in your kitchen?
- How much lighting is needed for your kitchen?
- Ventilation criteria for your kitchen.
- Safety points to be keep in mind while cooking in your kitchen!
- Necessary Critical Dimensions (standard heights-widths, spacing between counters, circulation, etc) to be known for your smooth working.
- Other Kitchen Activities carried out!
Regardless of above points, make sure that your new kitchen must follow these points to make it more functional & comfortable:
- Redirect your kitchen traffic away from your “Work Triangle“. Make sure that the placement of sink, Fridge and Cooking area has the maximum distance of 7 meters (26 feet). This makes your cooking easier owing to travel a shorter distances while cooking.
- Try to keep dishwasher near sink area and dustbin within easy reach of food preparation area, hob zone (Gas Stove) and Dishwasher.
- It’s easier to design your kitchen around appliances than to find appliances to match your kitchen design! Hold-off on buying these appliances, as you may have to tweak things during your kitchen design. It’s great to have appliances in mind when building/planning your cabinets.
- It’s hard to accommodate large appliances in a small kitchen. Make right choice, you might have to compromise on large appliance.
- Make sure that you avoid placing your gas stove in the corner of your kitchen counter op, because you won’t be able to work due to lack of space around them.
- Utensil drawers, pans and pots should be stored next to the Hob (Gas stove) and oven.
- If you cook the lot of oily food and use many ingredients for cooking, then use the darker shades of granite or marble, this will prevent your kitchen counter top from getting stained.
- Try to use plain or glossy wall tiles for your kitchen dado/wall, rather than using textured & Matt finish tiles; as this tiles get sticky and greased easily due to cooking & frying and becomes very difficult to clean!
- If your are planning to have a breakfast corner in your new kitchen, make sure that it is not too far and too close from the cooking area of the kitchen, so that it is easy to serve.
- Design your kitchen flooring in Matt finish and slip resistant so that if something spills down on the floor & less chances of any accidents.
- Though the standard height of the kitchen counter is 0.85 to 0.92 meters (2’9” to 3′-0″), you can adjust the height of the counter or platform considering the height and comfort level of the person going to work in a kitchen.
- Ensure that elbow height of the cook or the housewife is a few millimeters above kitchen counter tops.
- Use a swan neck faucet for the sink of your kitchen, as this will give you comfort while cleaning your dishes
We hope that these guidelines will be helpful to design your kitchen is a perfect way!
Tell us….What we have missed? Share your suggestions or any difficulties faced here!