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Kitchens
Everyone dreams of the perfect kitchen. If you are buying a new kitchen, this guide to kitchen designs can help your dreams to come true.
Kitchen design has come a long way from the open courtyard cooking often seen in Ancient Greece and the use of a central fire venting through a hole in the ceiling in early European medieval long houses.
A stylish and welcoming kitchen is an important element of modern family life. For many families the kitchen is used for a variety of functions, cooking and eating being perhaps the most obvious but washing clothes, ironing, socialising and watching TV being other common uses.
Current kitchen styles range from the ultra-modern and contemporary look through to very traditional designs. Free-standing or semi-fitted rather than fully fitted units are becoming increasingly popular. Suppliers of kitchens can provide a full range of kitchen designs from which to choose with some suppliers specialising in a particular type of design.
Before you head off to the kitchen showroom to buy your new kitchen, the key issue to consider is the way in which you want to use the kitchen. Will you be eating in the kitchen? Will there only be one person cooking at any one time or do you enjoy preparing food alongside someone else? Will you be watching TV in your kitchen? How many people are you likely to be cooking for?
Based on these factors, big decisions such as whether to extend the kitchen or knock through into the living or dining area can be made. Open plan kitchens are becoming increasingly popular but they do not meet the needs of all families. For some open-plan living creates a social and informal environment whilst for others it can be a practical nightmare. Kitchens can be noisy places and it may be almost impossible in a living area to hear a TV if the dishwasher, blender and fan over the hob are all in use. On the other hand, a small kitchen area may feel much more spacious if it opens onto a living or dining area.
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Once the size and shape of the kitchen has been determined, consideration needs to be given to a number of further issues. At this point it may be helpful to visit kitchen showrooms before buying a new kitchen in order to look at the display which have been created by retailers. Looking at a display can help to determine which layouts or ideas would work for you.
Issues include:
Once you have come up with some kitchen designs which you like, you are ready to go ahead with buying a new kitchen. If you need more advice click on kitchen designs or search for kitchen showrooms and designers using the search boxes to the left of this article.
BACK
Kitchen design has come a long way from the open courtyard cooking often seen in Ancient Greece and the use of a central fire venting through a hole in the ceiling in early European medieval long houses.
A stylish and welcoming kitchen is an important element of modern family life. For many families the kitchen is used for a variety of functions, cooking and eating being perhaps the most obvious but washing clothes, ironing, socialising and watching TV being other common uses.
Current kitchen styles range from the ultra-modern and contemporary look through to very traditional designs. Free-standing or semi-fitted rather than fully fitted units are becoming increasingly popular. Suppliers of kitchens can provide a full range of kitchen designs from which to choose with some suppliers specialising in a particular type of design.
Before you head off to the kitchen showroom to buy your new kitchen, the key issue to consider is the way in which you want to use the kitchen. Will you be eating in the kitchen? Will there only be one person cooking at any one time or do you enjoy preparing food alongside someone else? Will you be watching TV in your kitchen? How many people are you likely to be cooking for?
Based on these factors, big decisions such as whether to extend the kitchen or knock through into the living or dining area can be made. Open plan kitchens are becoming increasingly popular but they do not meet the needs of all families. For some open-plan living creates a social and informal environment whilst for others it can be a practical nightmare. Kitchens can be noisy places and it may be almost impossible in a living area to hear a TV if the dishwasher, blender and fan over the hob are all in use. On the other hand, a small kitchen area may feel much more spacious if it opens onto a living or dining area.
.
Once the size and shape of the kitchen has been determined, consideration needs to be given to a number of further issues. At this point it may be helpful to visit kitchen showrooms before buying a new kitchen in order to look at the display which have been created by retailers. Looking at a display can help to determine which layouts or ideas would work for you.
Issues include:
- Traffic flows – the traditional “work triangle” approach required the oven, kitchen sink and fridge to be within easy reach of each other usually in a triangle. For your kitchen, you need to consider whether you need a variation on this idea perhaps including the dishwasher, microwave or crockery cupboard in your triangle. Base your decision on the areas of the kitchen which you will visit most frequently.
- Some people love work islands in the middle of a kitchen. Other people regard them as an unnecessary obstacle and are concerned that in some kitchens they prevent the kitchen table from being extended to cater for additional guests. Certainly they tend to work best in fairly large kitchens. To test the impact of an island on traffic flows in your kitchen, it can be helpful to create a temporary structure and leave it up for a few days.
- Lighting within a kitchen can be used to accent particular features and create an appropriate atmosphere for your eating area. Task lighting can stop you from trying to work under your own shadow in food preparation areas. As with all lighting the possibility of using energy efficient light bulbs should be considered and you may want to check the cost of replacement bulbs and the number of different bulbs you will need to keep in stock.
- Cleaning kitchens is rarely a favourite task but careful design can make a difference. Will the colour or style your work surfaces show every last crumb, will the chrome fittings need constant cleaning to remove fingerprint marks and are there any hard to access gaps which will be collection points for dirt?
Once you have come up with some kitchen designs which you like, you are ready to go ahead with buying a new kitchen. If you need more advice click on kitchen designs or search for kitchen showrooms and designers using the search boxes to the left of this article.