Dishing up the kitchen cabinets

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Getting a delicious kitchen layout requires good forward planning, says Kya deLongchamps.

HIGH shine gloss or an elaborate wood figuring may matter in a kitchen, but without the right layout it will never fully satisfy. Take your time at the planning stage to serve up a really dishy kitchen.

THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE:

The three essential elements that draw you around the kitchen are the sink, the fridge and the cooker. These form the working triangle that together with the room’s shape, entryways and window positions, determine your kitchen’s layout. The soil pipe position is generally set, so presuming it’s not a ludicrous spot for the sink, you and your designer will set out the cabinetry, appliance positions, power points and lighting design, giving you runs of 80cm of counter or more.

Appropriate storage is anchored near your big three. The triangle may be an equilateral or squashed flat, but it still holds sway in kitchen design because it agrees with how most of us use a kitchen to prepare food and leaving this passageway unobstructed makes good, practical sense.

THE SHAPE OF SUCCESS:

Kitchen shapes fall into four general categories. ¦ The single galley — featuring a run of cabinets and all appliances on one wall. You’ll need at least 3m of wall for a reasonable single galley kitchen with appliances beneath and you will be forced to walk the length of the kitchen as there’s no working triangle possible. ¦ The double galley, has two facing walls of cabinets at least 120cm apart. ¦ The ‘L’-shaped kitchen, set in a corner, utilising two walls ergonomically and often partitioned from the rest of an open-plan area by an island. ¦ Fixing a return to the ‘L’ in a counter or island, the ‘U’-shaped kitchen takes advantage of three walls with at least 2m of circulation space at its centre. It’s a generous shape to play with suited to full rooms or areas of open-plan. Unless tied to an island, the sink is generally near the window as that’s where the drain goes out.

CADS AND FADS:

Professional design advice is an advantage, but your opinion is what counts the most. Don’t be persuaded into trendy risks you can’t afford to rip out when the pink grain Italian diva loses her bloom. Fashions change. Classics survive. Just about every kitchen maker from the big high street boys to the artisan craftsman now utilise computer aided design (CAD) for laying out. A CAD-trained staffer with experience in getting those prime positions right will save you nerve mincing hours dropping and dragging virtual units into unsuitable places on your PC. There are dozens of mundane safety constraints concerning, for example, the distance of the sink to a socket position (30-40cm) that you might breach with idiot enthusiasm. Bring your measurements with you to any appointment and only sign up to a fitted kitchen if the supplier/installer agrees to have their team measure your space themselves before the final order and fitting.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER:

If you’re having trouble including everything you want in a kitchen layout, perhaps you’re simply demanding too much of the space you have available. Consider decanting some of the work load and storage to another room. A dedicated utility room can take a stack of washing and drying machines, the ancillary detritus and host a freezer or second fridge in a relatively slender space or even squeak it into a lonely corridor. A larder elsewhere in the house, even fringing the kitchen area in an open plan space, can spirit away dry goods and house them in handsome furnishings or a built-in closet.

DINER DELIGHT:

If you have room include a rangy kitchen table and a few chairs to complement your other work surfaces. The family will cluster together where the action is to eat and talk. For homework, food preparation and even a place to stir through paperwork, it’s a fabulous extra. Choose a bullet proof thick veneer, glass (if you can stand the daily break-dance with a microfibre cloth) or vouch for an honest real wood table that will take the odd gouge as dainty distressing. Isolating a cook from the family or guests in a lonely, unsociable space is inexcusable.

YOUR KITCHEN ONLY BETTER:

A cabinet facelift can transform any kitchen on a budget and it’s a good time to think about re-jigging even portions of the layout. If your carcasses are standard sizes, 18mm board thickness with a back of at least 9mm thickness, are stable and in prime positions already, invest in new doors, counters and handles. Shifting the layout, the most expensive extra will be to move plumbing points and electrical outlets, but if they are not working this is worth consideration. Second hand kitchens can be trimmed to a new space with the input of a clever carpenter.

REACH HIGH FOR STORAGE:

Having worked out the storage space you need and added 15% for contingencies don’t be afraid to take your tall cupboards right to the ceiling. If you’re lucky enough to enjoy a 12’ ceiling there is masses of extra storage for little used, but valued kitchen equipment and ware you don’t use everyday. Store things according to their frequency of use and weight (being clobbered by airborne Le Crueset ware hurts — a lot). IKEA offer their Faktum ranges in lofty sizings and searing colours, that you can mix and match if you’re a brave tropical bird. Terraces of superfluous cupboards especially in a narrow galley will trap you in a depressing canyon, so discuss opening up areas of wall with your designer rather than walling yourself in. The sad truth is that culinary and other less worthy clutter will magically expand to take up all that redundant, flabby cupboard space.

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