Guide on How to Design Your Kitchen

The kitchen is a vibrant part of every home; it’s a vibrant hub that is always buzzing with activity that goes beyond just the preparation of food. Over the years, the kitchen has become the focal point of most homes thereby raising the need to come up with good kitchen designs. In this article, we take a look at how to design your kitchen to make it comfortable for entertaining both guests and family.

Designing your kitchen starts by identifying the room in the house to use as a kitchen. It is advised that when making this decision, you should strive to orient the kitchen to face either the southeast or east where the morning sunlight will fill the room. Once your kitchen is oriented, below are basic guidelines on how to design your kitchen.

Traffic

The kitchen should not be perceived as an island; it needs contact with the outside world that is accomplished by car. You can have the adjoining room used a garage attached to the kitchen or have the back door lead to the driveway, so you do not go through much hassle bringing in your groceries or taking out your trash.

You can also have a mud room minimize the traffic within your kitchen since it acts as a staging area for trips out of and into the house. It creates storage for coats, boots, and hats, buffer from cold air, or you can put pantry shelves to hold items that are not meant for immediate use. Once all this activity is redirected from your kitchen, you will have more space for eating and cooking.

The Work Triangle

In the past, kitchen designs were done around a work triangle; it determined the position of the sink, refrigerator, and the range. A good kitchen design should make the distance between the three appliances comfortable because most kitchen work revolves around them. If the distance is much, whoever will be cooking will become tired trotting between them, and if too close the work area will be cramped.

There are three major layouts for the work triangle; the galley, I-shaped and the u-shaped. The u-shaped layout places the three appliances on three different walls. In the I-shaped layout, one appliance is placed on one wall while the other two are placed on another. If you are working on very tight space, you can have all the appliances arranged along the same wall thus the name galley.

Lighting

If you have been wondering how to design your kitchen, lighting falls among the top considerations. Having good lighting in the kitchen helps bring out your work top, food, cabinets and lastly you. Below are some lighting designs you may adopt:

• Recessed lighting to help you get rid of shadows in the room as you work. You can do this by having different task lights on worktops, sinks, cabinets, built-in pantries and kitchen islands.

• Over-cabinet lights. Such lights are more inclined to mood than function. When mounted on top of cabinets, they create displays that illuminate your ceiling and walls.

• Under cabinet lights. These lights are used for bathing counter tops with their bright light.

Floors

When choosing a floor design for your kitchen, ease of cleaning and durability should top your list of considerations. The best choices to work with include wood, ceramic tile or linoleum. They are all easy to clean, last long and come in numerous designs.

Another factor to consider is safety especially if you have children; you should consider installing textured tiles since smooth once become slippery when wet. Wooden floors, on the other hand, are a perfect option if you have high traffic in your kitchen.

Theme

When thinking of how to design your kitchen, the theme should be your first consideration. The theme you decide to work with influences your choice of lighting, floor type, kitchen units and numerous other factors.

Tip: Kitchens have in the recent years become of the main house. For this reason as you look for ways on how to design your kitchen, you should consider designs that connect the kitchen to the adjacent rooms to make them harmonious.

There are several other factors that you may consider in your quest of how to design your kitchen. This list is not conclusive but will take you a long way in realizing your desired kitchen design.

At Moodings, we love the personal home, where practical functions, atmosphere, aesthetics and sensory impressions are combined, creating the most beautiful and best setting for people’s lives.