Your kitchen is an integral part of any home, but designing one is not easy.
In order to make your kitchens fully functional and stylish, there are some basic elements you should consider in designing your kitchen. The following paragraphs point out the four important considerations for your kitchen for optimised design:
The first step in designing an efficient kitchen layout: lay down the legs of the triangle that includes your stove, your sink, and your refrigerator.
Layout
Kitchen layout is one of the most important elements for making your kitchen appealing and efficient to use. It can be an L shape, U shape, galley or a kitchen island which ever it is it all depends on the space available.
For instance, when designing your kitchen, think about how your family will function and work together in it. No one wants to bang into each other as they move around, or be forced to carry hot or heavy items a long distance; when you set up your kitchen, make sure you create a navigational pathway with at least 24 inches between seats for people seated in that space.
Your selection of kitchen fittings and fixtures is another great chance to make an impact on visual and tactile quality, with hard-wearing quality options reducing future maintenance and repair bills.
Appliances
The kitchen layout dictates which appliances can fit. The appliances you choose will influence the placement of the other elements in your kitchen. Since your main appliances need to be readily accessible at all time for a comfortable and efficient use of your kitchen, it is good practice to plan around these appliances as the start of your kitchen design.
The style and finish of appliances is important, too. At a glance these details have little influence over kitchen appearances, but the right choice — such as stainless-steel appliances and their timeless lines, which blend well with a wide variety of kitchen styles, or those with touch controls, utensil racks or lighting that increases their functionality — can really alter the mood of an overall design.
Built-in appliances provide a seamless look, and you won’t see the gaps between appliances and cabinets, but they tend to be more expensive. Talk to your designer not just about the options available, but what those options might cost before you make your decision.
Finishes
Kitchens are the beating heart of the home. Whatever style interior finishes you choose, they should have positive visual appeal and practical function. Colour is an effective way to create visual interest and individuality, with earth tones such as neutrals and warms being popular but if you choose a multitude of hues within each tone (warm, neutral and cool) the eye is delighted with a calm controlled contrast.
Another cool kitchen idea is to mix and match materials: experiment with using different wood stains with painted cabinet finishes. As a rule of thumb when designing with mix and match materials, consider bringing in all of your samples at once so you can better visualise the interactions between finishes in person.
Freestanding furniture can add texture to a kitchen design. A kitchen island or larder adds extra storage and surface area as well as a point of difference that an island is freestanding, offering the chance to introduce a different material not already in the kitchen.
Lighting
Lighting is one of the most important considerations in creating a functional yet stylish kitchen. We use ambient lighting to see our way into, out of and around rooms, while task lighting highlights areas where work will take place so that we can safely cook and prepare food in the space. Similarly, accent lighting provides visual interest to draw the eye to particular features of the space or decor pieces.
Kitchen lighting often combines so many different levels that a runner feels she is in a theme park. There are under-cabinet lights that bring out the dark corners and create bright, shadowless spaces: overhead pendant or ceiling lights that draw your attention over counter tops or the occasional island tables: the drama.
And let’s take that kitchen as an example. Kitchen lighting should be welcoming and warm. Use a combination of warm-toned fixtures that marry well with earthy colours such as earth (think of the colour of sand), and cool-toned lights to make the room modern. Don’t forget to be multifunctional by using dimmers to accommodate you as your mood (or time of day or night) changes.