Many essential details are crucial to achieving your ideal kitchen. What details are necessary to consider when you’re thinking about remodeling your kitchen? The first is style.
Fundamental Detail #1: What style appeals to you?
- Asian: Emphasis on natural materials, strong horizontal lines, and a mix of textures. The color scheme can be monochromatic (aka “shibui”) or high contrast.
- Beach: Crisp white or aged driftwood cabinets with sand-colored countertops. Aqua blue and turquoise accent colors.
- Contemporary: Clean and uncluttered, practical. European-style cabinets made of wood or high-gloss solid colors, or a combination. Backsplash accented with geometric shapes.
- Craftsman: Simple straight lines, quality construction, and minimal ornamentation. Emphasis on natural materials. This style originated with the Arts and Crafts movement, often confused with the Shaker style.
- Eclectic: These kitchens have a mixture of textures, time periods, trends, and colors. Keep in mind that there shouldn’t be too many focal points.
- Farmhouse: Rough-hewn beams and old-world appearance is the appeal of a farmhouse kitchen. Cabinets are a simple style, often distressed; some cabinets may look like old repurposed furniture. Wood floors are popular for this style.
- Industrial: Characterized by high ceilings, large windows, wide-open space. Exposed brick and concrete, piping, and structural supports.
- Mediterranean: There’s nothing shy about a Mediterranean kitchen; it’s full of saturated colors, strong lines, and ornate details. It often includes rough-hewn beams and dark wood cabinets.
- Modern: Features flat surfaces, geometric forms, and little or no ornamentation or adornments. Cabinets are flat panels made of wood or laminate with solid-color countertops.
- Traditional: Embellished cabinets have raised-panel doors and drawers with heavy moldings; mix cabinet finishes and counter depths for a custom, furniture-style look.
The style of your kitchen is important. However, it’s more important — especially if you have an open floor plan — for your kitchen to blend with your home’s style and color scheme. You can see examples of these kitchen styles at Houzz.com. It’s the best resource to see examples and find information. The great thing about this site is the ability to save and send pictures to others. It’s a great communication tool! You can also find professionals in your area and select products from the Houzz extensive catalogs.
How To Define And Prioritize The Necessary Details
During the design and layout phase, you’ll be making hundreds of product decisions! To help you define the essential details you want to include in your new kitchen, I’ve created the 15-page Homeowner Kitchen Survey checklist. It’s easy to download the Kitchen Survey: click the link below and fill out the simple form. The Kitchen Survey includes extensive lists about the following major topics to help you, in an easy-to-use format:
- Architectural Features (doors, windows, skylights, HVAC, exterior walls, roof)
- Appliances
- Plumbing
- Cabinets
- Countertops and backsplashes
- Flooring
The Kitchen Survey has other information to define your lifestyle, color preferences, and ergonomics that may affect the layout. Your new kitchen should meet your needs for a specific style. But it must also be functional and safe. If any of the essential details that define function and safety get overlooked, they could negatively impact your results.
Most of us use our kitchen differently from the way it was originally designed to be used. This is one of the major motivators for kitchen remodeling. Homeowners typically ask for more and better storage, more countertop area, and appliances that make kitchen chores easier. There is often a request for custom features that fit the occupants’ unique lifestyle.
Appliance Placement Is The Most Important Detail
I ask about the food that the family likes and how they prepare it. I also ask about how meal preparation and cleanup chores are shared. As we chat, I observe and ask about their dominant hand because we always move towards our dominant hand. This is important when placing appliances in relationship to countertop landing areas. Years ago, NKBA did motion studies and determined that someone with a dominant right-hand wastes more time when the dishwasher is on the right-hand side of the sink. Why? Here’s what happens:
Right-handers will pick up a glass, dish, or utensil with their right hand. Then they transfer it to their left hand and use their right hand to scrape and rinse the item. Then they put down the scraper or sponge and transfer the item to their right hand to place the item in the dishwasher. Then they repeat the same motions with the next item. That’s many transfers per load! This equates to time wasted doing the dishes! When you’re cleaning up after meals, observe how many times you have to transfer from one hand to the other. Now you have something to think about when you’re layout out your new kitchen!
When I was attending kitchen design classes, I had an “old-school” teacher who emphasized the working triangle’s importance. It’s still a reference used by the NKBA: “. . . an imaginary straight line drawn from the center of the sink to the center of the cooktop, to the center of the refrigerator and finally back to the sink. It should be no more than 26′ total. No single leg of the triangle should be less than 4′ or longer than 9′.”
The working triangle assumes that only one person will be using the kitchen, which doesn’t align with current multiple-user trends. The original triangle didn’t include a microwave. A microwave oven is used more often than a cooktop because it uses less energy and heats food faster. A microwave-convection oven is used more often than a standard oven. It cooks food faster and uses less energy because the oven cavity is smaller. Instead of using the work triangle solely, I prefer to use a customized work station layout that is defined by the activity and the family’s lifestyle:
♦ Main course preparation
♦ Salad and vegetable preparation
♦ Baking preparation
♦ Serving
♦ Cleanup
An Overlooked Essential Detail: Appliance Doors
There is an essential detail to consider when placing appliances: Do the open doors create a conflict with traffic or another appliance? Years ago, I learned a simple step to avert problems: on the floor plan, show all of the appliance doors open, using dotted lines.
Many older homes have ovens that are placed adjacent to a doorway. This is very dangerous, especially if young children live in or visit the home. It’s normal to leave an oven door open after we’ve moved the food to a countertop. When children come dashing into the kitchen full-tilt, they don’t see the open oven door. It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. This is a good reason to show all appliance doors open on the floor plan.
But appliance placement is just part of your new kitchen. The appliances you choose are affected by your lifestyle. In recent years, I’ve seen increased interest in a single oven with a separate microwave-convection oven. French-door refrigerators with a bottom freezer drawer generally provide better storage than side-by-side refrigerators. They’re a better option than refrigerators with full-sized doors because the door swing can block an aisleway.
Light Is A Key Detail For Success
Lighting is an essential detail that not only enhances your beautiful new kitchen but makes it functional and safe. To be effective, lighting must be designed to work in layers. This is achieved by using three or four dimmers. The quantity and quality of light are different for preparation, serving, eating, entertaining, and cleanup. We’re lucky to have dimmable LED fixtures to light our kitchen. Lighting falls into four categories:
1. Ambient or General: It usually refers to natural light coming through windows, etc. It can also mean artificial lights such as recessed fixtures used to light walkways.
2. Task: Increasing illuminance to accomplish a specific activity. General lighting can be reduced because task lighting provides focused light where needed.
3. Mood: This is often overlooked. But it’s easy to achieve with dimmers that provide the flexibility of use.
4. Accent: This focuses light on a particular area or object, like a painting on the wall or beautiful accents inside a display cabinet. It can also be an object of interest, like beautiful blown-glass pendant fixtures over an island or peninsula. Accent lighting creates visual interest in a room.
Recap: Essential Details For Your Kitchen
Your new kitchen requires a lot of thought about all of the essential details, starting with style to be successful. Then there are all of the products that will be included in your kitchen. The placement of your appliances determines the layout, how you’ll use your kitchen. Lighting is the final necessary detail in your kitchen. Can you achieve everything on your own? Only a certified professional kitchen designer who has the education, training, and experience can help you make all of the decisions ahead. And a professional kitchen designer will prepare detailed plans for estimates, permits, and construction. You can find certified kitchen designers in your area with a search on the NKBA site.
PODCAST: Essential Details For Your Kitchen
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