Do you love to cook or bake? Whether you run a busy home creating family meals every week or just love to impress your friends at the weekend with creative culinary treats, it helps to create a kitchen designed to your needs. When you are the go-to person in your family for cooking or even if the kitchen is your happy place to try out new dishes and flavor combinations, you want this space to be organized, efficient, durable, and stylish.
If your current kitchen lacks any of the key elements you need to support your cooking needs, then you know how important your kitchen design is to create an enjoyable space to cook. More than a luxury, a kitchen design with the right layout, storage, appliances, and work surfaces is a necessity if you want to be comfortable and efficient in the kitchen.
What do you really need to create a kitchen that caters to your inner chef? Let’s explore a few of the essentials!
Figure Out Your Requirements
In any kitchen design, you should work with an experienced designer to create a plan that fits your home, your family, and your personal style. When designing a kitchen for the home chef, start by considering who cooks, how many people cook at one time, what type of cooking you typically do, and how often you entertain. Are you a young family that cooks daily, preparing quick meals that please all family members and the occasional special meal? Or are you the resident gourmet chef in your friend group, who regularly hosts elaborate dinner parties? Are you the nominated baker in your home, preparing holiday treats and cakes for special occasions?
Look at your individual needs and create a kitchen designed to suit your requirements. Make sure you also look at what your household needs for the entire lifespan of the kitchen. If you have a family with young children vs. one with teens who will be heading to college in a few years, your kitchen remodeling needs may differ. Likewise, examine how long you plan to stay in your home and take this into account when deciding on the materials, appliances, and features you include in your kitchen design.
Determine Your Ideal Layout and Work Zones
For any kitchen design, the layout is the foundation of your space planning, cabinet selections, storage features, workspaces, and much more. Get your layout right and everything else will fall into place much more easily. If you are your home’s primary cook, then you know how important it is to have an efficient layout.
Start by creating a setup in your kitchen where you can easily reach your key ingredients, cooking tools, refrigerator, sink, and stove. Start with an efficient work triangle to establish the heart of your kitchen design. From there, create zones for key activities in your kitchen. This could include a specialized baking zone with a mixer lift to store and access your stand mixer, storage for ingredients, and a section of marble countertop for rolling out pastry. It could also incorporate zones for dining, entertaining, relaxing with a cup of coffee and a book, and even work or study zones.
This zoning approach is even more important in an open-plan, multi-functional kitchen design that opens up to a dining area, family room, or other living space. Including a peninsula or an island is often a good way to help delineate these zones while also creating more usable workspace.
You could add a Galley Workstation to a kitchen island, which immediately transforms it into a space that takes you from food prep to serving to clean up with ease, all in one multi-functional kitchen tool. A beverage bar is another ideal addition, especially if you entertain frequently. Position your bar where it is convenient for guests when they need to refill drinks but also away from the main cooking area.
Identify Your Storage Needs
Storage is essential throughout your home, but kitchen storage is one of the most important areas and requires careful planning and expertise. When cooking is a priority in your home, customized storage solutions strategically placed in your kitchen design are even more important.
Start by examining your needs, including the type of cooking you do and which ingredients and cooking gadgets you use most frequently. Consider the layout of your kitchen and whether you prefer to have everything at your fingertips or have some items stored away in a walk-in pantry.
Include storage in key locations with customized accessories to keep everything organized:
- Drawers with dividers or peg systems,
- Blind corner swing out shelves,
- Rollout shelves,
- Pull outs for everything from food items to trash cans,
- Spice storage to accommodate small spice jars in a drawer, pull out, or cabinet insert,
- A mixer lift cabinet,
- Pantry storage either incorporated into your main cabinet layout or in a separate pantry closet, walk-in pantry, or butler’s pantry,
- An appliance garage to stow small countertop appliances and gadgets, and much more.
Select Products to Enhance Your Cooking Experience
Once you have identified your needs, your layout, and your storage requirements, it is time to select the products to create your perfect kitchen designed for culinary creativity.
Countertops
Countertops form your key workspaces in a kitchen design, so this is where most of the activity happens when you are preparing food, plating up dishes, and serving family or guests. Choose materials that balance your style and functional needs. You could use the same countertop material throughout your kitchen or go for more than one material, for example, one material for your main food prep area and another for a tabletop end of an island where you plan to dine.
Granite and quartz countertops and classic choices that are well-known for their durability, moisture resistance, and heat resistance. Marble is a top choice for baking because it naturally stays cool and is ideal for rolling out pastry and cookie dough. Wood brings warmth to any kitchen design and is ideal for a dining space or even in butcherblock for a food prep area.
Backsplash
Backsplashes are situated at eye level, which means they draw attention when someone enters your kitchen. They impact your room’s style by connecting cabinetry and countertops and can be found in slab materials or tile patterns. They also protect kitchen walls directly behind your cooking area from splatters, heat, and moisture. Choose a material that not only looks good but can withstand everything you throw at it while getting in touch with your inner chef. Remember you also must be able to clean this surface so choose wisely, especially if you don’t love a complicated cleaning and maintenance routine!
Tile is a top choice and can be found in an array of sizes, colors, patterns, and textures to create exactly the look you want. For a truly easy-to-clean surface that gives your kitchen design a sleek, contemporary style choose a slab backsplash. A top choice for slab is engineered quartz, usually selected to match the countertop, as it looks amazing and can be simply wiped clean.
Cabinets
Kitchen cabinets define your design’s style and functionality and form the foundation of your layout. Choose cabinets based on the door style, the combination of doors and drawers that fit your needs, material, cabinet construction techniques, as well as the color and finish. Outfit your cabinets with inserts and accessories to meet your storage requirements. When considering the door style, remember that simple styles like Shaker or slab doors are much easier to keep clean in a busy kitchen than more ornate styles.
Flooring
When you are busy cooking, it seems inevitable that something will spill or drop on the floor. This could be a sauce that gets splashed, or a heavy pot or sharp knife dropped. Choose a flooring surface that complements your design’s style but doesn’t inhibit your cooking. The last thing you want while preparing a new dish is to worry about the tiniest spill on a more delicate flooring surface.
Tile is always a top choice because it is durable and relatively low maintenance. Wood flooring looks amazing but can be sensitive to moisture and temperature fluctuations. Luxury vinyl plank is an alternative that looks like wood and even imitates the texture of wood but in a durable and incredibly low-maintenance material. It is also ideal for a home with kids and pets and comes in a wide range of styles and colors to enhance your home’s style.
Appliances
If cooking or baking is your thing, then appliances are the tools of your trade. If you are replacing appliances as part of a kitchen remodel, this is a prime opportunity to include appliances that will change the way you store, prepare, and cook food, and then clean up after meals. Here are some of the key appliances you should consider in your design.
Refrigerator: Choose a refrigerator and freezer that fits your household and cooking style, with enough space to organize fresh ingredients, drinks, and snacks. You could also opt for a separate beverage refrigerator or wine refrigerator, refrigerator or freezer drawers in key locations to easily access ingredients, a second refrigerator in a butler’s pantry, or an ice maker in a beverage bar. Smart refrigerators offer options to help you view and monitor the contents of the refrigerator without opening it and can even trigger the reordering of key ingredients when you run low.
Stove and Oven: Go for high-quality models that enhance your cooking experience. Choose features like precise temperature controls, a combination of burners and ovens that provide space for all your needs, and smart controls that let you manage your cooking from a device. Induction cooktops are another option for efficient cooking and easy cleanup.
Range Hood: A range hood that covers your cooktop and efficiently removes odors and steam is a must have. In an open plan kitchen design, it is even more essential to keep your exotic cooking smells from wafting throughout your home. Many modern range hoods also accent your kitchen’s style with their shape and material.
Create Well-Lit Spaces for Cooking and More
An effective lighting design is important throughout your home, but in a busy kitchen design, it is essential. You must include well-placed task lighting that allows you to see clearly when reading recipes and chopping vegetables. This can be a combination of recessed lights, undercabinet lighting, and other fixtures like pendants over an island. In a multi-functional kitchen design, you also want to be able to alter your lighting to set the mood for casual dinners, elegant parties, or work Zoom calls. Create a multi-layered lighting design by including multiple light sources paired with dimmer switches or smart lighting controls. Don’t forget about natural lighting when planning your kitchen design. Carefully consider the placement of windows and how this will affect your space during the day.
Finish off your kitchen design with a color scheme, textures, and decorative accessories that fit your home’s aesthetic. A design that balances style and functionality will be an enjoyable space where you can both work and relax. By including clever design choices that improve your kitchen’s workspace, layout, storage, and appliances you will be able to cook all your favorite dishes and even dream up new ones. Get started on your dream chef’s kitchen by contacting our design team!
