Expert Advice: Five Key Tips For Designing A Kitchen

Planning a kitchen renovation? Looking to build your kitchen from the ground up? How can you make the most out of your kitchen space? What should you take into consideration when designing a kitchen?

Planning your dream kitchen can be both an exciting and daunting task. Faced with numerous questions, and lots of thought on what to include and what not to include, it can get overwhelming pretty quickly. But the fact that the kitchen really is the heart of home, means it's only right that you want it to be perfect.

Here we will share our five expert tips on how to best design your new kitchen layout.

Make the most out of your corners

Gone are the days we feared the dreaded corner, with its awkward and hard to reach cupboards that served to only hide things from us. Now we have clever pull out systems designed to provide full accessibility to those blind corners. The most popular style we see are kidney systems but tessellating systems are a close runner up.

Utilise your cupboard space with a bespoke design

Your kitchen should work around you, not the other way around. For example, slim pull-out cabinets can be used to provide extra pantry space, or can be used to tuck away oils and spices, or to hide away a wine collection.

We can create bespoke drawer inserts in order to better organise utensils and cutlery, and drawers hidden away inside bigger drawers not only serve to make use of (what would be) dead space, but they also raise a few impressed eyebrows, too.

Open shelf designs

Not only will this create a warm, open feel to your kitchen, it also serves a practical purpose too. A space to showcase an avid collection of recipe books, a convenient spot for all the jars of pasta and rice your heart desires, a permanent home for a few beautiful plants to help eliminate those cooking aromas - whatever it is, shelves can help display a part of your personality that would otherwise be hidden behind a (albeit well-made) cabinet door.

Consider 'work zones' or the 'working triangle'

Practicality in a kitchen comes down to the placement of key areas, and if you find yourself with a lot of kitchen space, your kitchen can be broken up into 'work zones'. These include a prep zone, cook zone, wash zone and storage zone, and you could even go as far as to incorporate a serving zone, too. However, one drawback to having many working zones is they could end up being spread so far apart that they actually become inconvenient, rather than convenient. They are definitely useful if organisation is key for your kitchen, but if not, you could stick with the old faithful 'working triangle'.

The working triangle is simple: ensure your stove, sink and refrigerator are placed at least 1 metre apart but no more than 2.6, thus creating an imaginary 'triangle'. This is an old concept which still serves well today, and it originated with various rules to follow, however, these no longer need to be followed in a modern day kitchen. As long as you follow this basic structure you will allow sufficient room between each key area, providing a practical kitchen environment.

Incorporate a kitchen island into the design (and don't forget about seating!)

A kitchen island is great for creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Not only the gathering place for celebration, solace and discussion, it is also a tidy way of incorporating additional seating space. The kitchen island has quickly become a tasteful addition to most kitchens and you no longer need to have an enormous kitchen in order to include one in your design. In fact, they have proven to be convenient space-savers particularly regarding seating. You can double up your kitchen island as a breakfast bar, or even a dining table. The island can also be used for extra built-in storage, should you need it.

Food For Thought

Think about how much space you actually need. It's easy to put in all the cupboards and cabinets your kitchen will allow, however having too much space is just as bad as not having enough, so you want to make sure you aren't overdoing it.

We hope this helps; for more advice on your kitchen design, talk to us today.