The Golden Triangle
The sink, refrigerator and stove in the kitchen enclose one of the highest activity areas in interior designing. It is, therefore, crucial that maneuverability within this area to be unhindered. Since the sink will be the busiest of these three spots, ease of access to and from the stove and refrigerator cannot be emphasized enough. It is also important that the sink is accessible even from countertops.
Efficiency of the kitchen is greatly inhibited not only when accessibility is compromised, but also when the area of the kitchen has been narrowed down due to the range of motion of the doors of the refrigerator. This might not seem too important when you are only in the initial stages of designing your house, but the inconvenience caused by longer routes and cutting corners in your kitchen simply due to the lack of planning might convince you otherwise.
After you have ensured that moving about in your kitchen will be easy, it is time to start taking the remaining areas of the room into consideration. Even though the area between the sink, stove and refrigerator is the busiest, other areas in the kitchen are equally important if you wish to successfully perform certain tasks.
Since garbage disposal is extremely necessary, it is crucial to keep your trash as close as possible to the exterior door. Countertops should also be close to doors for ease of access when you wish to place recently bought groceries and other items as soon as you get back home.It is also essential to keep tables or counters which will have phones or cookbooks in an area which is easily accessible from all other spots in the kitchen making your kitchen design efficient and convenient at the same time.
When you are designing your new kitchen, it is also crucial to have a clear picture of how and where food will be served and consumed. If you plan to have seating within your kitchen, it is important to have an idea about how many people you would like in the kitchen at any given time without making the room feel crammed and congested. Alternately, if you would like food to be served in another area, like on a dining table, it is important to ensure that dishes and utensils will be easily transported from the kitchen without cutting corners or choosing unnecessarily long paths.
Storage Space
Kitchen cabinets and other storage areas which are built into the kitchen are generally very expensive which is why people prefer not to let all of this valuable space be occupied by equipment like food processors. The reason for this is that people do not spend enough time planning the storage space of the kitchen.
It is not uncommon for people to opt for spending their additional dollars in things which will elevate the visual appeal of the kitchen. It is, however, more important to ensure that the tools and equipment which will be necessary in the preparation and serving of food are easily accessible from the workstation. Since the purpose of buying items like woks, fryers and waffle irons was to increase the efficiency of your kitchen-time, being forced to store them outside of your kitchen due to lack of storage space is not resourceful.
It is, therefore, important to know which kitchen appliances and equipment you have for your kitchen and how often they are used. In this way, you will not only know how much storage space is required of your new kitchen, but you will also find out which items you can easily do without.
Kitchen Island Design
A kitchen island is certainly one of the most efficient and promising ways to configure your workstations and kitchen equipment, however, one wrong move in choosing the island structure can prove to be detrimental for your kitchen. When choosing an island configuration, it is imperative for you to keep in mind that your kitchen will, essentially, be a very busy place and anything which obstructs the path of flow within your kitchen will inhibit work efficiency.
Kitchen islands are not efficient or convenient in kitchens which are too small. This is why your kitchen needs to be at least 13 feet wide for an island to be easily incorporated inside the room. Islands, too, should have dimensions which are at least 3 feet by 5 feet. However, since kitchen islands can be dangerous for the golden triangle between the sink, stove and refrigerator, it is always a safe move to make the sink or stove a part of the island itself. Alternately, you can structure the island in such a way that there are between 42 and 48 inches of free space on all sides of the island.
The structure of the kitchen itself greatly influences the layout of the island. Kitchens with a single wall and L-shaped kitchens make the best layouts for islands. A U-shaped layout, however, might not work too well with kitchen islands. It is extremely important for you to ensure that there is at least 10 feet of free space between the legs of the U-shaped room for an island to be incorporated in it.
Islands can also be used as breakfast bars; however, it is important for you to keep a space which is at least 24 inches wide designated for each person who will use the island as their breakfast table. A 12 inch depth is also important for each diner to ensure that people will not feel crammed and uncomfortable when using the kitchen island.
Garbage disposal
Since garbage disposal in the kitchen these days goes beyond tossing the trash in a bin, it is important to know which preparations you should make for the removal of trash for your kitchen. Apart from the regular trash can to throw away the unnecessary, you need to have an efficient system for the disposal and removal of scraps and your weekly or bi-weekly garbage pickups.
Recycling, too, is something which you might need to consider. Even if the practice is not mandatory where you live, it is recommended that you designate a space for recycling products and items which are necessary. Unfortunately, however, recycle bins which have separate room for glass, plastic and aluminum products are often much larger than conventional bins which is why you should properly plan your garbage disposal and recycling system when you are designing your new kitchen.
Style smartly
Following the latest trend is not always the way to go. Even if you feel like the latest kitchen design trend or style is here to stay, it is always a good idea to consider and measure the longevity of these styles. More often than not, these new designs and trends become outdated within a matter of months and are long gone. For instance, pomegranate may be one of the trendiest and most fashionable colors in the world of kitchen interior design today; however, it is very likely that no one will want a faded red kitchen in a few month time.
Another thing to consider when designing the interior of your kitchen is that you might have to relocate in the future. Since the kitchen is one of the most important parts of the house, it is important that the designs and equipment which you use in your kitchen are luxurious, yet elegant and timeless to ensure that potential buyers are not haunted and forced to cancel the deal because of your eccentric designing preferences.
Even if you wish to make your kitchen stand out and incorporate designs and equipment to keep up with modern trends, it is important to never overspend when you are designing your kitchen. Not only is wear and tear an extremely likely possibility in the kitchen, but extravagance and frivolous spending on your kitchen equipment and appliances will prove to be a useless investment when you plan to change your house.