Kitchen Design Tidbits to boost Your Space for storage and Efficiency, But Decrease Your Kitchen Size
As an Architect, I attempt to apply the best means of design to make a house more efficient and well utilized for the square footage. In this article, I’m coping with kitchen design, and the ways to help it become better in use and storage, make it feel more open than the usual standard kitchen, but do it within a smaller size (sq footage is expensive).
I am a big believer within the “Open Floor Plan” which has fewer walls and doors, with rooms tied together as open visual space. Maintaining your Great Room, Dining Room and Kitchen “open” (meaning no walls bewteen barefoot and shoes) help make each room “feel bigger”. The wall removal helps facilitate outside communications relating to the rooms. You do not feel isolated with the food prep when wall barriers are removed, thereby folks don’t ought to walk into living rooms approach you. They are able to get it done external to your home zone.
Keep your ceilings tall by applying scissors trusses. You can create your walls 8 foot tall, but by adding the scissors truss (peak at 13 to 14 feet) provides you with a great deal of visual space as well as a less confined feeling. And get a skylight with the food prep. The opening for the skylight might be much wider than the skylight itself. Get the opening from your peak in the ceiling towards the regarding the wall, and look for the skylight near a perpendicular wall so that it will disperse the lighting through the kitchen. Put some “niches” in your tall walls higher than the 8′ line for greenery, or statues. Put “puck” lights during these niches for accent lighting.
Use tall, 2′ deep cabinets rather than overhead cabinets. 2 foot deep, 7 foot tall cabinets (or 8 foot tall) are also known as pantry or utility cabinets. With fixed shelves, they hold over 4 times as much stuff being an overhead cabinet. Place a distinctive line of tall cabinets along a back wall, ghost kitchens and at the opening to the kitchen zone. A different option . 2′ wide, 2′ deep, 7′ tall cabinet nearby the Kitchen opening (usually next to the Diner) it can store every one of the glasses, dishes, platters, and bowls that you apply each day. People don’t have to type in the kitchen to have the dinnerware setting the table while you would with overhead cabinets.

By utilizing just 3 tall cabinets (2′ deep 7′ tall) driving living rooms, and also the open floor plan, this allows the rest from the kitchen to own 36″ tall base cabinets and countertops, without overhead cabinets. Eliminating overhead cabinets (and also the associated wall) just will give you an unbelievable open feeling. Living rooms seriously isn’t as cramped. The windows and daylight come from the windows from the other rooms and skylights, meaning you won’t need to waste valuable kitchen wall space for windows. Place your sink and cooktop to take care of the rooms.
In the corners in the kitchen, install cabinets at 45 degrees on the adjoining cabinets rather than “blind” cabinet or “lazy susan”. While a 45 degree cabinet has some dead space, it utilizes more room than a “lazy susan”, since a cabinet shelves and drawers are square, plus a “lazy susan” is round.
Place a pantry inside the corner between tall cabinets. It does not need to be very big (4′ x 4′) and in the corner will employ all the corner “dead” space. The pantry could have a 2′ opening at 45 degrees towards the adjoining cabinets. The pantry walls may be 2×4 framed with drywall or 3/4″ MDF, though the wall really should not be taller compared to the height in the tall cabinets. This permits for crown molding (if you use it) to also supply about the pantry. Contain the pantry open towards the top, especially if there’s a skylight above, to allow for daylight in the pantry. Have shelves from your floor to top of wall. Put a “cabinet door” (identical to the rest of your tall cabinets) for the pantry entrance, not really a frame door like you’d use within the bedroom. By having a cabinet door the pantry, and the pantry walls in the same height because the cabinets, the pantry appears like a cupboard rather than a drywall opening.
Within the pantry, install a counter with 4 electric outlets. This is where the coffee maker, toaster, electric can openers, etc can be permanently located. It keeps them off your kitchen countertops, but they are always open to use. No requirement to store them with your cabinets with no need for appliance garage cabinets. This leaves most of your kitchen countertops “clean” (nothing with them) plus more open for your food prep you have to do.
Put a maximum counter 8″ above your countertops (i.e. 6″ wall, 2″ thick upper counter). In a “open floor plan” concept, this 8″ of height hides a “messy” kitchen counter from view to another rooms. It also gives you room enough for multiple electric outlets within the in the 6″ wall areas. The 6″ tall wall may be the right height for 6″ ceramic wall tile. The top counter is 44″ (elbow height) a great height for “leaning”. This permits you and your guests to “lean” around the counter (out of your kitchen) and discuss with you while you’re preparing food (in the kitchen). Additionally it is a good height for serving food or tall stools as a breakfast bar. Not every the top of counters need to be the some width. Some sections could be 9″ wide (only a the top to the the kitchen partition, while other parts of top of the counter may be 24” wide, for serving food or as being a breakfast bar.
Now…I’m discussing this portion last because different clients use their kitchens differently, every person has their very own taste. I am not referring to the size and style (although it’s related), but how a lot of people they desire within a kitchen. Some clients want everyone in the kitchen, including guests and relatives, to assistance with cooking or processing the meal, which means a greater kitchen to handle the people. Others wouldn’t like anyone just some folks kitchen, so they are not tripping over website visitors to obtain the meal finished, which means an inferior more efficient kitchen.
Most contemporary house designs hold the kitchen available to the garage or rear door and open to family area and/or other rooms for example breakfast areas, dining rooms, or hallways. What this means is the kitchen has multiple openings to handle strikes. Some kitchens also provide “island” cabinets/countertops with several openings. Every one of the openings on the kitchen allows people to come in, stand around, or move across your home from Point A to point out B some other place at home. Also, among the quirks of our human psychology is everyone winds up with the food prep. This design concept uses your kitchen as being a “traffic corridor”. These kitchens need a wide range of space to handle the level of traffic. Again, some clients love the flow of people in and out of the kitchen. They simply need to have a larger kitchen space for all those this happen
Other clients think the “traffic corridor” kitchen concept “clogs” up the kitchen with unnecessary and unwanted people. Count me within the “keep-the-unnecessary-people-out-of-the-kitchen” category. I enjoy maintain the kitchen open and inviting, I just do not want any additional bodies while the meal has prepared. By maintaining the additional bodies out, the kitchen might be smaller plus more efficient, meaning fewer steps between your refrigerator, cooktop and sink.
Keeping people from the kitchen is incredibly simple to do within your design, just make it difficult to enable them to be in. Work with a wrapping countertop with only one (1) countertop opening to the kitchen, and look for that opening within the most challenging location to enter in the kitchen. This, along with the “open floor plan” is among the most efficient way to prevent unwanted kitchen traffic. The only kitchen entrance will psychologically keep them out of your kitchen zone, while the open floor plan (no walls) permits you to speak with family and guests, whilst keeping them out of the kitchen.
Together with the tidbits I’ve discussed above and also by maintaining your people beyond a kitchen, a kitchen sized 16’x10′ or 12’x12′ is incredibly effective, with tons of storage. Making living rooms a “traffic corridor” for people to give, the kitchen would have to double in space, and you are clearly not gaining safe-keeping your size because every one of the openings for the kitchen are eating up what may have been used for cabinets.
In terms of lighting, most kitchens have a few main way of lighting (or mixture of these)
A. Light inside the ceiling fan
B. “Can” lights in the ceiling
C. Under-cabinet lighting (usually puck lights or fluorescent strips)
I generally reject all of these lighting concepts. Having a light within the ceiling fan, a person always has the light at your back, meaning you’re casting shadows onto all you do around the countertop. Can lights are “energy hogs” given that they cut large holes with your insulation, and rehearse inefficient incandescent lighting (usually 75 watt). I would not use overhead cabinets then eliminate under-cabinet lighting, that is sometimes expensive
Together with the tall ceilings of a scissors truss, I love to use MR16 adjustable lighting fixtures, not “can” lights. The MR16’s are generally termed as “strip” lighting. However, you will want to utilize a “plate” rather than “strip” for that fixture connection. Using a plate, the MR16 utilizes a standard electrical box, so an inferior hole inside your insulation blanket than the “can” light, plus they pump out double the amount light at a lower price wattage (usually 50 watts) when compared to a “can” light. MR16 fixtures can be extremely small (which means you do not see them) rather than too costly (around $20). MR16’s are adjustable, meaning you can point the lighting in places you want it. A “can” light points light perpendicular for the ceiling. Within a sloped ceiling, it’s not good. Locate your lights across the countertop to remove shadows, along your major work areas (sinks, cooktop, cutting and prep areas) and after that distribute evenly along the other countertops. You undoubtedly don’t need lights elsewhere aside from for accent lighting. The lights higher than the counters is often more than enough, assuming you’re maintaining your kitchen smaller.