At Shaun Davies Home Solutions, we believe that creating a practical, efficient layout for your kitchen is as important as it looking good.
Here are a few things to remember when considering a new kitchen:
1. Learn from your experience:
Write down not just all the things you want in your new kitchen, but all the things you dislike about your existing one – you’ll be surprised at how helpful this can be!
2. Personalise it:
Look at how your family lives and plan a design that works for the way you want to use the room. Always consider how your needs will change as your family grows.
3. Plan in storage:
Make space in your plan for everything you need to store away. Try to keep items close to where you will use them – putting in pan drawers near your hob for instance.
4. Put safety first:
If you have children, a safe layout will help to take traffic away from the hob and oven so children aren’t in the way when hot pots and dishes are being moved around.
Also, don’t forget about the ‘Working Triangle’.
This dictates where the key elements of hob, fridge-freezer and sink sit in your kitchen, and a well planned one will reduce the distance travelled while cooking.
When preparing meals, you move between these three features all the time, so make sure they sit within easy reach of each other but not so close that more than one person working in the room would be uncomfortable. Ideally, the sides of the triangle created by these three fixed points should be no more than 2.7m and no less than 1.2m long.
Next week, we will look at different kitchen shapes and how to make the most of them.