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Design Your Kitchen |
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Principles of Kitchen
Design There are a few factors to consider when you're planning a new kitchen, and if these are in harmony with each other, your kitchen will be a joy to work in. With a bit of planning, it's actually pretty simple to make these elements come together. Let's list them out first, and then take up each in turn. 1) Basic Layout Your basic layout is going to depend to some degree on what you already have in place. Your plumbing is probably already set, for instance, as are windows, gas and electrical. While any or all of these can be moved or added, it's an extra expense you need not necessarily incur. In almost all cases, you're going to have a window above the main sink, a two (or more) basin sink with a disposal, and a dishwasher adjacent and some type of trash receptacle. It's very common to have the dishwasher immediately to the right of the sink with a rollout trash container either to the left of the sink or just right of the dishwasher. Larger kitchens will sometimes have a second, smaller sink for food preparation, either in an island or close to the refrigerator or pantry area. Generally these do not have disposals, and it's not uncommon to have a second rollout trash container nearby. You may have heard the term "golden triangle." This refers to the triangle created between the sink, the refrigerator and the range, with a maximum total distance of 25 feet. While exceeding these distances can lead to a lot of extra steps, changes in kitchen design have added variables that have to be taken into account when planning the overall layout. The addition of an island, a second sink, a wall oven in one location and a stove in another and the introduction of the built-in microwave, pantry cabinets, multiple refrigerators and dishwashers have changed the rules, if not the principles that guide them. How easy and enjoyable it is to use your kitchen is going to depend on how it's laid out. And while there are time-tested principles about how to do that, the ideal design for your kitchen should start with the most basic of questions: How are you going to use it? Do you prepare family meals often and serve them into an adjacent dining room? Do you want an eating area in the kitchen where everyone just gathers around or where family members can eat at different times? Do you entertain often? How many people will be cooking? Is cooking an art form or a chore? Answer the first question, and you'll find that many of the questions that follow will pretty much answer themselves. Is the room long and narrow, or large and open? If the former, you will probably decide on a galley-type kitchen with cabinetry along the two longer walls and possibly at on end. If the latter, you may want to reduce the steps from one side to the other by adding an island with cabinetry around three walls. As we saw earlier, the main sink is often the starting point for the rest of the layout. The sink is the key to your kitchen. You'll use it during food preparation and again when the meal is done. Most likely you want a window, and you want to be able to get to the stove, oven, refrigerator, microwave and pantry without having to change into your running shoes. Once the sink location is set, work out what your other appliances are going to be and then lay them out in a way that works for you. You may want to make a scale of your room showing doors and windows, and then cut pieces that represent your appliances so you can move them around and see how they look. You may also want to go into the room and think through the motions and movements you go through routinely while cooking. One thing to keep in mind when laying out your kitchen is that you should have enough counter space next to your various appliances that you can set things down while you're working there. For instance, if you have to take two or three items out of your refrigerator to get to the one you want, you'll want to be able to set down those two or three items without having to walk somewhere. Once you've got the major work stations located, it's time to fill out the rest of the kitchen. Think in terms of what else you need nearby to make each work station as functional as it can be, and set up your cabinetry accordingly. Convenience and functionality overlap quite a bit. For instance, it's generally a good idea to have a stack of drawers near the sink. You want someplace handy to keep dishtowels, and it's nice to be able to put away the tableware without having to walk very far. But the concept of convenience comes into its own when you start to think about each work area separately from the others. Obviously you want your cookware near you stove and your bake ware near your oven, and convenience enters in when you look at how to get to those items. Let's take the example of a stove. The space below is available for storage, and you have options. You can simply open the doors and take what you need from the shelves within, open the doors and roll the shelf out, or just have a couple of deep drawers there. A whole segment of the cabinet industry has devoted itself to this aspect of your kitchen. Not surprisingly, all these gadgets are lumped collectively under the heading of "convenience hardware." There are literally hundreds of choices available, far too numerous to list here. A few of the more commonly used ones, however, might be worth a look. To see many of these convenience items, click here. Far and away the most popular convenience item is the rollout shelf. You can pull out whatever you have stored away so you can see and reach it more easily. People use rollouts for their cookware, bake ware, herbs and spices, in their pantry cabinetry and just about anywhere they want the ease and convenience of not having to get down and rummage around inside a cabinet. There are specialty items for difficult areas in corner cabinets. There are rollout trash containers, some of which can be opened with a foot pedal at the base of the cabinet, larger assemblies to fill an entire pantry, trays and dividers to fit inside drawers for house silver and cutlery, and much, much more. Many of these are available in different finishes as well. High-density plastics, usually in white, are quite common and good and are relatively inexpensive. Others can be gotten in polished chrome or an epoxy-coated wire, or they can be gotten in wood. A few items are even available in wicker. One thing to keep in mind when considering convenience hardware is that there is often a trade-off of available space for increased ease of access. A tilt-out tray in front of your sink will give you a small but convenient place for sponges and such, and it makes use of an otherwise dead space. But a rollout will take away a small bit of the storage capacity you would have had if you had opted for a simple shelf. While lighting has little to do with cabinetry, it is an important factor in the overall result, and you should factor it into your cabinetry design. We'll touch on a few different types of lighting commonly found in kitchens. Most people today seem to prefer recessed lighting in the ceilings of their kitchens. Whatever style you choose for your main room lighting, though, you need to ensure that there is enough total light and that it is properly located to put light where you need it, without shadow spots. Equally important is a good source of lighting directly above the sink, again so you're not working in a shadow. Under cabinet lighting is a popular option in many kitchens today. These are generally small, fluorescent strips mounted on the underside of the cabinets above your counters and hidden by a lip built into the cabinet. Halogen lighting is also occasionally used here as well. These lights are usually on a separate switch from the main room lights, and they can make a tremendous difference when you're working on a counter that has a wall cabinet above it. You may have items you want to display in your kitchen. One way to do this is with a wall cabinet that has glass doors and shelves with some sort of lighting. Most often such lighting will be inside, usually a halogen mounted in the top of the cabinet. Or you can have a strip of lighting running up the inside of the cabinet to minimize shadows. You can show your pieces on an open shelf or by leaving a space between the tops of your wall cabinets and the ceiling, perhaps adding a galley rail for accent. In such a case, a ceiling-mounted halogen spotlight might be a good choice. These are also typically switched separately from the main room lighting. The last type we'll look at here is accent lighting. This is most commonly achieved by leaving a space between the tops of the wall cabinets and the ceiling. Lighting is then mounted atop the wall cabinets, out of sight. This is typically very soft light and is most often a simple fluorescent strip, although neon is also sometimes use here. Occasionally, accent lighting is added in the toe kick of the base cabinets as well. When incorporated into the overall design, the effect of accent lighting can be quite dramatic. Generally when people start thinking about a new kitchen, the first thing they look at is the appearance of the room, so you might think it should be the first thing to consider in kitchen design. In the broadest terms, it is. But as we've seen, the importance of layout and functionality are going to dictate the final appearance of the room. But what makes a kitchen uniquely yours, a space you can be proud of and enjoy being in, is the design choices you make. Let's look at the factors that make up the appearance of the kitchen. First and foremost, what do you want to see when you walk into the room? A nicely painted surface? A beautiful wood with stain and lacquer finish? A sleek, modern laminate finish? An antiqued, distressed treatment? What about your countertops? Tile? Granite? A solid surface like Corian or Ceasarstone? Laminate? Wood? Even concrete? And don't forget the floor, as you have a similar number of choices there as well. All these elements work together, along with the paint on the walls and the style of the windows, to make the appearance of your kitchen exactly what you want. But since this is supposed to be an article on cabinetry, let's leave those other issues to people who are experts in those fields and stick to what we know well. Start with the general appearance, as above, and work out what you want the cabinet finish to be. If it's an opaque finish, paint or plastic or some types of distressed treatments, you won't see the actual wood the cabinets are made with. But if you want the beauty of real wood, you have to choose which wood you want. Light? Dark? Natural finish or stain? Distressed? What about the grain pattern? Many woods show their grain differently depending on how they're cut from the tree. Click here to see the many species of woods available, or click here to see the many choices of laminate colors and patterns. Having settled on a "look", the next factor to consider, the one that will have the next greatest impact on overall appearance, is the door style. There are literally hundreds of choices and variations to consider. Click here to visit a site where you can see them all. Hand in hand with the look and the door style is the visible hardware, knobs and handles. There are many choices available and they are easily found, so we have not listed any links for this. Let's touch on one of the elements of the appearance of your kitchen, that of "traditional" versus "European." What we term traditional cabinetry has a wood frame over the face of the cabinets, onto which the doors are mounted (this is termed a "face frame"). Typically, you will see this wood between each door and drawer front. Sometimes the doors are set flush into this face frame, termed "inset." Click here to see an example of face frame cabinetry. "European" style cabinetry has no face frame and is often termed "frameless." The edges of the cabinet boxes are finished to match the exterior, and the doors are laid directly onto this. There is a minimal gap between doors in this style. Click here to see an example of frameless cabinetry. There can be variations on these two styles as well. Click here for an example. Let's turn to the appearance of the inside of your cabinet. There are a few choices for the material inside. One obvious choice is to match it to the exterior. This is generally only done if the cabinet has glass doors or no door and is finished to match the exterior treatment. Melamine is a very popular choice for cabinet interiors. It is available in a multitude of colors, with white being the most commonly used, and it has the advantages of being relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain coupled with high durability. Generally speaking, we recommend using a light color inside your cabinets simply because that makes it easier to see into them. Another good choice for cabinet interiors is a wood veneer. Maple is commonly used for this and is sealed with a clear finish. The appearance of the drawer box is another factor to be considered. Drawers can be made from materials that match the interior or the exterior of the cabinet or from other materials you select. Melamine is a durable option, as is veneer plywood. Drawers can also be made from solid wood. Click here to visit a website where you can see the various drawer materials and styles. Earlier we looked at convenience hardware, but there is also functional hardware to consider for the inside of the cabinet, specifically hinges and drawer slides. Most custom cabinets use a concealed hinge, visible only when the door is open. Functionally, these are the hinge of choice. They are very durable and offer multi-directional adjustability should the door ever go out of alignment. There are also more traditional hinges, either fully or partially visible when the door is closed, and these are generally used for appearance reasons. Lastly, there are a few different choices for drawer slides. You have likely seen white slides with a little nylon wheel that allow the drawer to open to about 3/4 of it's length. These are common in prefabricated cabinetry and serve their purpose. They are not used much in higher-end cabinetry. The more commonly seen drawer slide in custom cabinetry is a full-extension slide with ball-bearing guides. These are very high quality and are typically found in a nickel finish, although some are available in white to match a white cabinet interior. Like the ones above, they are mounted on the sides of the drawer box. There are also self-closing versions available. The last type we'll look at here is the under mounted slide. When the drawer is opened, the slide is hidden beneath. We especially recommend these for use with solid wood drawers with dovetailed corner joints, as they allow full view of the box and joinery. They are available in 3/4 and full extension, are self-closing, and allow for an optional "soft-close" attachment, where the drawer is gently pulled shut when within a few inches of its closed position. Conclusion It's not possible to cover all the details of designing a custom kitchen in an article like this. Probably hundreds of books have been written on the subject, and there are many people around who have studied long and hard to become experts in the field. In the final analysis, though, it's going to be your kitchen, and all the decisions about it should be yours to make. A good kitchen designer can best help you by making you aware of what your choices are and by guiding you toward the ones that will achieve your unique vision of what your kitchen should be. If anything you've found here has been of help to you then this article has done its job. If it's raised questions and issues you hadn't thought of, that's good. Better now than later. And if there's anything I can do to help you or any question you'd like to ask, feel free to email or call me. I'll be happy to talk with you.
Tom Sherman
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