Kitchen Design Tips 2022

Understanding your kitchen layout and prioritizing what is essential. The kitchen layout comes in many different orientations. Be it the L-shaped, U-shaped, peninsula kitchen, single wall kitchen, gallery kitchen, or even the kitchen island orientation.

Whichever type of kitchen layout it is the flow within the kitchen is very important. A concept that we call the kitchen work triangle would allow a fluent workflow within the space itself. Taking food out from the refrigerator has sufficient preparation space to defrost or rinse the food around the basin and off to the stove for cooking. This triangular formation between the refrigerator, sink, and the cooking area would ensure a good workflow within your kitchen.

The common mistakes in the kitchen layout that you should avoid. Insufficient workspace between the walkway you need to take that into account. For both cabinet doors or drawers to be able to be accessible. A minimum of 4 feet clearance of a walkway would be advisable.

Do not place the refrigerator in the center of the triangular. This would disrupt the workflow from the kitchen. Insufficient worktop spacing beside the cooking area and the washing area. Sufficient space beside the cooking area would allow room for you to place your hot pans and at times prepare plating.

Optimizing Space

Tip number 2 optimizing space. The kitchen layout is usually dictated by the size of the kitchen. The more space you have the larger of a kitchen cabinet you could fit. However, if space is limited, space optimization is very crucial. Merging the dining table and the kitchen island allows you to have a larger centerpiece.

Joining a small dining table to the kitchen cabinet could allow you to have a dual-function workspace. A dining top and a peninsula worktop for preparation. Maximizing usage of dead L-shaped corners most of the time the L-shape and U-shaped kitchen would encounter inconvenient inaccessible corners. With today's variety of kitchen accessories solutions, this problem could be easily resolved.

If you have limited worktop space in your kitchen, consider having a customized cover that could be placed above your cooking hop or a chopping board that fits over your sink. This would allow for additional space for preparation when necessary.

Instead of having an empty splashback, utilize the space for cups and small storage capacity. Make use of cabinet doors for extra storage, but it is advisable not to place too heavy items to avoid misalignment to your kitchen doors.

Consider having a trolley or kitchen cart. You could use it to store daily sauces and oils instead of cluttering the tabletop space. The top of the trolley could be used as a chopping board for preparation top while cooking.

Choosing the Right Appliances

Choosing the right appliances and knowing the right height. If you do practice baking at home, a built-in oven would be certainly a must-have. Placing it at an eye level would make it reachable at ease without overbending your back.

However, if space is a restriction and option of placing the oven below the countertop could also be a clever space-saving option. But in this case, you would need to identify what sort of baking you normally practice at home. For heavy baking like chicken, turkeys, and so on, the eye level positioning would be highly recommended as bending down under the counter for heavy baking would easily cause injury.

The cooking hood and hop is also a common area I noticed in most of the existing homes of our clients. It is best to follow the recommended distance height between the hood and the hop to ensure the best suction capacity of the kitchen hood.

The built-in refrigerator is one highly sought-after addition to most of our clients today. If you're one that leans towards the minimalist design concept, a built-in refrigerator could indeed keep the entire kitchen modern and always in an orderly fashion.

Choosing the Right Accessories and Sanitary

Tip number four, choosing the right accessories and sanitary. Instead of stacking your kitchen wares, a plate and bowl organizer would be a smart solution or even pot and pan organizes and even cutlery organizes.

There are two types of utensil organizers that we always implemented in our designs. The dining utensils like forks and spoons are normally located on the outer side of the kitchen for easier access. As for the cooking utensils organizers, they should always be located closer to the cooking area. If you are right-handed, the utensil drivers should be on the right for easier access. If you're a lefty, it would be preferably located on the left.

The automatic bi-fold overhung cabinet feature is an ideal solution for tall overhung cabinets that stays within easy access. For heavier items stored at a high level, the pull-down basket is highly suggested. A pull-out ladder is an option for lightweight daily groceries like snack bars, cereals, and sorts. However, for heavy-weight storage for pots, pans, rice, flour, and so on, internal pull-out drawers would be more advisable.

The glass cylinder and the sliding tray is a very convenient hack for most of our households today. Comes in an aluminum finish and protects the carpentry from getting damaged and at the same time makes life easier for us.

Power track sockets keep your kitchen neat and flexible keeping your kitchen organized and at the same time modern. Pop-up sockets could also be another fancy option to consider.

The kitchen sink comes in many different options in shapes and materials. Our clients always throw us this question, should I use a large single basin sink or a double bowl basin sink? The answer to this question would solely depend on two answers.

Could your kitchen fit a large sink? If you live in an apartment and the kitchen area has fairly limited tabletop space, it is highly recommended not to triumph over the kitchen top space. It is also always more recommended to go with an undermount sink over the top mount sink. As you would reduce having stagnant water stored around the sink after washing your dishes and it also adds depth to your kitchen sink.

Lighting

Kitchen lighting design is not just for aesthetic purposes. A very crucial point for a functional kitchen would also require a good lighting design. Do not install lighting only at the center of the kitchen pathways. Lighting above the kitchen worktop should not be undermined. If you're standing in front of the worktop with an overhung cabinet above and the only lighting in the kitchen is above you, you will be casting a shadow of yourself while using the worktop. This could potentially cause injury as it could cause your vision to be unclear.

Lighting underneath the overhung cabinets would light up the kitchen top evenly making it comfortable and safe for preparations. As for the aesthetic point of lighting designs, strip lights inside the cabinet could enhance the visual impact of your entire kitchen.

Making it modern and pleasant to look at as a highlight of your home. The placement of lighting should also be considered. If the display items are highlights, the lighting position should be placed in front of the object. However, if the display items are too messy and irregular, the lighting positioning could be placed behind the object and the carcass design would be highlighted instead creating a silhouette outcome for the display of the kitchen.

Not every kitchen can fit an island, consider other options based on the tips I've today. Turn your kitchen into a functional and exciting addition to your dream home. Based on all the kitchen designs that we have shared with you today, every kitchen is not just about the aesthetic values but more importantly, it meets the owner's requirements making the usability of the space, functional, and optimized.