10 Tips For Your Kitchen

By Author: Mike Tancinco
Total Articles: 4
Comment this article

Here's how to fix 10 places where kitchen design frequently goes wrong. A tip from Los Angeles Home Remodeling.

1. Don't situate your appliances or cabinets too close to a corner.
This restricts movement. To make doors fully functional, plan for swing direction and door or drawer clearance when situating your appliances. You also should avoid doors that bang into each other, such as a garage entry and a dining room door.

2. Don't underestimate the importance of a properly positioned microwave oven.
The correct height and location for a microwave oven may vary depending on the chef or the kid-friendly character of the kitchen. For adults, 15 inches above countertop level is a good microwave height. For kids, a below-countertop setup may be safer and more suitable.
3. Don't designate dinky walkways.

Paths throughout a kitchen should be at least 36 inches wide. Paths within the cooking zone should be 42 inches wide for a one-cook kitchen and 48 inches wide for a two-cook ...
... configuration.

4. Don't route major traffic patterns through the chef's work zone.
In kid-friendly kitchens, keep the cooktop and kitchen cart out of traffic areas so children don't catch handles and cause spills when running through. Also, make the refrigerator accessible to passersby as well as convenient to the cooking and cleanup areas.

5. Don't shortchange your kitchen's aesthetics with a solid bank of cabinetry.
Break up boring, heavy blocks of doors and drawers with glass doors, display shelving, wine storage, and windows.

6. Don't forget to determine your island's function before determining its form.
If you want to cook and eat on this kitchen oasis, plan to isolate each zone so the cooktop is safely separated from the dining area.

7. Don't leave out landing space.
Allow 15 inches of countertop on each side of a cooktop or side-by-side refrigerator and 15 inches on at least the latch side of a standard refrigerator, if not both sides.

8. Don't dress a diminutive kitchen in dark hues.
Dark color schemes shrink an already small space and make it less inviting. Use soft shades and natural light to visually expand a tiny room.

9. Don't overwhelm your kitchen.
Splashy tile, fancy floors, sizable range hoods, and busy countertop patterns give the eye too much to look at. Pick one focal point and complement that area with a few other (quieter) eye-catching materials as details.

10. Don't forget to consider your cooking methods.
Chefs who prefer from-scratch cooking require more counter space—ideally between stove and sink—than those who cook infrequently or prepare simpler meals. In addition, two countertop heights help kids and make baking easier.