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Accessible Kitchen Design

Kitchen remodeling involves a lot of thought if you are trying to design a kitchen that will function well with your particular household. Each family has particular needs and demands and uses the space in different ways. Take this into account as you begin your remodel and construct a more efficient and attractive kitchen for your home.

Kitchen Design to Fit Your Home

The kitchen is one of the most central and important rooms in a house. Most obviously, it is the place where food is prepared. Further than that, the kitchen takes on a set of responsibilities and qualities that are specific to each household and family. For example, do you eat in your kitchen? Is there a perpetual parade of kids snacking from the fridge? Do you cook feasts or just boil water? Is the kitchen where you greet your guests? Further, do your kids like to help out when you cook? Is there someone in a wheelchair that uses the kitchen?

The physical and social uses of the kitchen are both important to consider when planning a remodeling project in your kitchen. The most important factor for designing your new kitchen is functionality. You need to make a list of the people who use the space and what the space is used for and only then plan your design. Once an effective design is established it is easy to decorate it and make it aesthetically appropriate for your home and your tastes.

The easiest way to start is to evaluate your present kitchen and note its shortcomings. You are remodeling for a reason, right? Make a list of things that bother you in your present setup and a list of things that work well and keep these in mind as you plan.

Next, consider each feature of your kitchen in turn.

Floors

Common flooring in the kitchen area is ceramic tile and laminate floor. Both options are versatile, come in many designs, are easy to clean and come in a variety of price ranges to suit your budget. Many companies are also starting to put out hardwood floors and wood look-alike laminate flooring with extra hard finishes to keep up with busy kitchens. This will give the kitchen a warm look and feel. However, if you’ve got a kitchen with heavy traffic and messy cooking it may be smarter to stick with tile, ever durable and resistant to practically everything.

The Layout

In a kitchen, the layout is one of the hardest and most important factors to get right when planning. But once you do, it pays off. The traditional approach to a kitchen set up values the triangle – the sink, refrigerator and stove set up in a triangle with no more than 7 meters between any of the features. This establishes an efficient work area with the most important aspects of a kitchen all within easy reach from each other. Within this framework you can insert the other appliances – dishwasher, microwave, blender, etc. – in a way that makes sense with the frequency with which you use them and who uses them. For example, if the kids use the microwave every day when they get home from school, place it where they can reach it without obstacles.

Cabinets, countertop areas, walking areas, and the inclusion or exclusion of a kitchen island also make up the layout of a kitchen. Consider how many cooks there are in the house and how much work surface they need. A kitchen island can provide more working area but unless your kitchen is huge, it will lessen the space available for walking. Will this affect someone’s movement in the space, someone in a wheelchair, for example? By the same token, will a person in a wheelchair or small kids be able to reach all of the important cabinets? And will a really tall person in the house be able to sit comfortably at the kitchen island breakfast area you may be considering? A kitchen island tends to make the kitchen more social so take that into account as well, whether you want your kitchen to be a hubbub of activity or if you prefer to cook alone and socialize elsewhere in the house. How much storage do you need – do you cook a lot or do you store a lot of pre-prepared food?

Lighting

Most people like the kitchen to be a well lit, bright area in the house. Do you have windows that bring in plenty of sun? Do the windows really make a difference if you spend a majority of the time in the kitchen at night? There are many lighting options to outfit the space in a manner that suits your needs and style, from track lighting to hanging lamps. Figuring out a lighting scheme is mostly based on personal preferences and budget.

Special Features and Accessories

Once you’ve got the layout, the skeleton of your kitchen figured out, you can begin to add special features and to establish the aesthetic appearance of the space. Popular accessories include appliance garages, breadboards, chopping blocks, lazy Susans, tall roll-out and swing-out pantries, etc. Built in wine racks are also becoming more popular in spacious kitchens.

Cabinet doors come in many different wood types, stains, and designs. You can match your entire kitchen or be more playful, try thermofoil doors or perhaps simpler designs if you have a tighter budget, put in glass door inserts and use lighter colored wood if you are trying to make the space appear larger and more open. Get creative but don’t forget to keep in mind the users of this kitchen. For example, when picking out door handles or knobs think if there is someone with weak motor skills that may not be able to easily open the cabinet doors.

There is a lot to keep in mind as you begin to plan and initiate a kitchen remodeling project. However, the rewards you reap from such a remodel are immense – you get a new, personalized, efficiently designed kitchen, an updated look, and a kitchen remodel tends to bring in the most return upon sale of the house.