How To Design Your Home Around Your Appliances
The kitchen is the most significant space in your home. It’s the space you cook your meals and sometimes eat them there too. It is where you welcome guests, the children do homework, and the family gathers at the beginning of the day, and again at the end of it.
By any means, the kitchen is the “hub” of your home. For several reasons, designing a kitchen to be your “dream kitchen” is a rewarding procedure.
Whether you are constructing a new home and working with the architect to plan the kitchen, considering a kitchen renovation, or simply planning to replace your old fridge or oven stove with best-performing high-quality appliances, your investment can pay significant dividends later on.
Appliances are the root of the kitchen, really, if you consider it. They are the functionality. When you are considering building a new or remodeling the old one, you must make your kitchen around your appliances–colors, sizes, and practical design.
Design a Kitchen that Fits Your Preferences and Requirements
Here are some tips to help you with design your dream kitchen:
Set Budget
Kitchen customization can take multiple forms and fits a variety of budgets. If you’re constructing from scratch, you have the advantage of managing your kitchen like a clean canvas. You can find the countertops, fixtures, floors, and appliances you enjoy –and you can put it out so that your kitchen works perfectly, for your purposes.
If you’re working with an existing kitchen, you’ve got a few more limitations concerning space, but it is also possible to do a lot, mainly based on what your budget is. Remember: you do not need to do a full remodeling to customize your kitchen.
Gutting the room and renovation from the ground up can be exciting, but it’s also expensive. The kitchen is the most precious room in the home; a total gut and remodel may not be essential.
You could choose to replace the appliances, or perhaps you’ll keep the cabinets but substitute the countertops with something more innovative. Regardless, with a budget in mind will make it a lot easier to:
1) decide on a viable vision for your kitchen, and
2) figure out what you can spend on each component of your kitchen to-do list.
Consider How You Use Your Kitchen
What makes the “perfect kitchen” will be slightly different for every person or family. Thinking about how you use your kitchen or how you want, you can use your kitchen is, thus, the most important thing you can do in the lead-up to a kitchen customization project.
Here are a few essential factors that will help you orient your kitchen layout:
The Appliances Needed
Some kitchen appliances are common in any kitchen. You require an oven, a refrigerator, and a stove. Also, you have need of a dishwasher and a microwave. Beyond these essentials, however, there are lots of appliances that can make your life easier. Maybe you would like a warming drawer so you can make sure each part of a meal is hot if it is time to serve. Perhaps you desire a compact refrigerator meant specifically for wine or other drinks. Maybe you’ve always wanted a trash compactor in your kitchen. Create a list of the appliances you want and need, since these purchases will be among the most significant parts of your kitchen project.
Variations In Appliances
There is quite a bit of change in appliances, even in a particular category. The perfect example is that the stove or range: some homeowners prefer electric stoves, while some want cooking with gas. There’s variation elsewhere, also. With a refrigerator, you will want to decide if you like a side-by-side fridge-freezer setting or one where the freezer is on the top or the bottom. With ovens, you will need to be sure whether you need a double wall oven. With ranges, you will have several options about the number of burners. Think about what you enjoy and what you require, given the size of your family and other factors.
Color and Appearance
How your appliances look will broadly define the aesthetic and feel of your kitchen. As an example, fitting stainless steel appliances help create an extremely modern/contemporary feel. A white fridge, meanwhile, has a more traditional or classic aesthetic. You need to make these decisions on a significant level, alongside choices about cabinet colors, flooring styles, countertops, and much more. You need to be sure everything looks excellent collectively, as well as individually.
Design and Flow
Beyond just picking the right appliances for your kitchen, you may wish to be sure they’re all in the perfect spots. The design and flow of your kitchen are essential factors for a job that involves a broader redesign of the kitchen area.
If you’re replacing appliances, it stands to reason that the new stove will go right where the old one was. If you’re remodeling the space completely, you may prefer to tweak the design of the kitchen. Your top goal here is to minimize the number of steps necessary to go around the kitchen when you’re in complete food-prep mode.
Sizes Of Appliances
Most appliances come in standard sizes. Generally, your standard dishwasher will be about 24″ wide, stove 30″ wide, and microwave 30″ wide take or give 1/8″-1/4″ or so.
But refrigerators vary in size. You can get them countertop thickness or more in-depth, and in widths typically up to about 36″. So when it is time to design your kitchen cabinets, you need to make sure the appliances you choose would fit.
But, if you have current cabinets and are only substituting your appliances, these spaces are already set for you. It is an excellent guideline to depart about 1/4″-1/2″ extra on your appliance distances than your actual appliance will be. If your new cooker is 30″ wide, the opening for it to fit into ought to be approximately 30 1/4″ to 30 1/2″ ish.
The same applies to your microwave and dishwasher also. Make sure when shopping for appliances to go with your existing cabinets which you selected options that will fit the space you have.
With the fridge, you must leave a little extra on the sides allowing us having room to scoot it back into place–not mandatory, just makes things a bit easier.
One other point to notice on appliance size is the height. When building cabinets, you must make them about an inch higher than standard. Regular countertop height is about 36,” and you can make about 37″. You would not believe it would be a big deal, but when it comes to installing the dishwasher and cooker, it makes a difference.
Even if you are not building it from scratch, it’s still something to think about, particularly in an older home where floors may be somewhat uneven. If that is an issue you expect facing as well, do not worry. The feet are flexible up to approximately 1 1/4″. That may be life-saving!
Function
You already know what every appliance does in your kitchen. But, have you ever thought about the efficacy of the layout of these appliances in your kitchen?
If you’re simply replacing your current appliances, this may not be something that you can change. But if you’re building a new kitchen or renovating your existing kitchen, you might wish to consider organizing your appliances at a more practical layout.
Usually, you want to organize your sink, stove, and fridge in a triangle if possible. But not every space allows for this option.
For example, your kitchen is a one-wall room. You have centered the kitchen nearby the sink, leaving the refrigerator and the stove on opposite sides of the wall. This might not be the most effective, but it works well with the wall area keeping the microwave and stove on one side of the window and the refrigerator on the other.
Otherwise, you would need to scrunch the stove and fridge adjacent to each other on one side of this window. So it isn’t only a matter for function, but also one for design. You need to balance practicality with what is also pleasing to the eye.
When replacing appliances or renovating a kitchen area, it is always great to assess how space will be utilized and design it to meet your requirements.
As you already know, appliances play a significant role in your kitchen layout. Ultimately, you need to choose appliances which are the ideal color, and size and set up them in the arrangement that will best fit your day to day usage. But even more significant is buying appliances which are the most reliable, hardworking, and best quality.
We expect that these tips were helpful and till next time, meanwhile happy appliance shopping & renovating!
Category: Home Design
thanks for sharing this valuable information. all above mention facts are great but I like to add another one factor that’s user safety of appliances. I feel that is also very important.