As an Architect, I try to use the best means of design to make a house more efficient and well utilized for square footage. In this article, I cover kitchen design and how to make it more efficient in use and storage, make it feel more open than a standard kitchen, but make it smaller in size (square footage costs money).
I’m a big believer in the “Open Floor Plan” which has fewer walls and doors, with rooms joined together as visual open space. Keeping the Great Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen “open” (meaning no walls between them) helps all rooms “feel bigger.” The elimination of the wall helps to facilitate open communications between the rooms. You don’t feel isolated in the kitchen when the wall barriers are removed and therefore people don’t have to come into the kitchen to talk to you. They can do it from outside the kitchen area.
Keep your ceilings high by putting up scissor beams. You can make your walls 8 feet tall, but by adding the scissor frame (with a 13-14 foot peak) you’ll get a lot of visual space and a less confining feel. And put a skylight in the kitchen. The opening of a skylight can be much larger than the skylight itself. Get the opening from the top of the ceiling to the edge of the wall and locate the skylight near a perpendicular wall so it disperses light throughout the kitchen. Put a few “niches” in your tall walls above the 8′ line for greenery or statues. Place “disco” lights in these alcoves to accent lighting.
Use 2′ deep tall cabinets instead of raised cabinets. Cabinets 2 feet deep and 7 feet high (or 8 feet high) are also known as pantry or utility cabinets. With fixed shelves, they hold 4 times more stuff than a top cabinet. Place a line of tall cabinets along one back wall and near the opening to the kitchen area. By having a 2′ wide, 2′ deep, and 7′ tall cabinet near the kitchen opening (usually next to the dining area), you can store all the glasses, plates, dishes, and bowls you use on a daily basis . People don’t have to go into the kitchen to get the dinnerware to set the table like they would with upper cabinets.
By using only 3 tall cabinets (2 feet deep by 7 feet high) in the back of the kitchen and the open floor plan, this allows the rest of the kitchen to have low cabinets and 36-inch-high countertops, no upper cabinets. The upper cabinets (and associated wall) give you an incredibly spacious feel. The kitchen is not so narrow. Windows and natural light come from other room windows and skylights, which means you don’t have to waste valuable kitchen wall space for windows. Position the sink and stove to face open rooms .
In kitchen corners, install cabinets at 45 degrees to adjoining cabinets instead of a “blind” or “lazy susan” cabinet. While a 45-degree cabinet does have some dead space, it uses more space than a lazy susan, mainly because cabinet shelves and drawers are square and a lazy susan is round.
Put a pantry in the corner between your tall cabinets. It doesn’t have to be very big (4′ x 4′) and being in the corner will use up all the “dead” space in the corner. The pantry would have a 2′ opening at 45 degrees to adjoining cabinets. Pantry walls can have a 2×4 frame with 3/4″ drywall or MDF, but the wall should be no taller than the height of the tall cabinets. This allows crown molding (if used ) is also used in the pantry Have the pantry open at the top, especially if there is a skylight above, to allow daylight into the pantry Have shelves from the floor to the top of the wall Provide a “cabinet door” (same as the rest of your tall cabinets) at the pantry entrance, not a frame door like you’d use in the bedroom.
In the pantry, install a counter with 4 electrical outlets. This is where the coffee maker, toaster, electric can openers, etc. will be permanently located. You keep them off your kitchen counters, but they are always available for you to use. There is no need to store them in your cabinets and there is no need for garage cabinets for appliances. This leaves the main kitchen counters “clean” (with nothing on them) and more open for the food prep you need to do.
Place an 8″ counter top above your counters (i.e. 6″ wall, 2″ thick counter top). In an “open floor plan” concept, this 8″ height conceals a kitchen counter “messy” from view of other rooms. It also gives you plenty of room for multiple outlets in the 6″ wall areas. 6″ high wall is just the right height for 6″ ceramic tile. Counter top measures 44″ (elbow height), a perfect height for propensity. This allows your guests to “lean back” at the counter (outside the kitchen) and talk to you while you prepare food (in the kitchen). It is also a good height for serving food or for high stools as a breakfast bar. Not all counter tops have to have some width. Some sections may be 9″ wide (kitchen partition top only), while other counter top sections may be 24″ wide, serving food or as a breakfast bar.
Now… I talk about this part last because different customers use their kitchens differently, and each person has their own tastes. I’m not talking about size (although it’s related), but about how many people you want in a kitchen. Some customers want everyone in the kitchen, including guests and family members, to help cook or process the food, which means a larger kitchen to serve people. Others don’t want anyone but a few people in the kitchen, so they don’t bump into people to finish the meal, which means a smaller, more efficient kitchen.
Most modern home designs have the kitchen open to the garage or back door and open to the living room and/or other rooms such as breakfast areas, dining rooms, or hallways. This means that the kitchen has multiple openings to handle these functions. Some kitchens also have “island” cabinets/countertops with two or more openings. All kitchen openings allow people to enter, stop, or pass through the kitchen from Point A to Point B somewhere else in the house. Also, one of the quirks of our human psychology is that everyone eventually ends up in the kitchen. This design concept uses the kitchen as a “traffic corridor”. These kitchens need a large amount of space to handle the volume of traffic. Again, some customers love the flow of people in and out of the kitchen. They just need a bigger kitchen space for all this to happen
Other customers feel that the “traffic corridor” kitchen concept “clogs” the kitchen with unnecessary and unwanted people. Count me in the “keeping unnecessary people out of the kitchen” category. I like to keep the kitchen open and inviting, I just don’t want extra bodies while the food is being prepared. By keeping extra bodies out, the kitchen can be smaller and more efficient, which means fewer steps between the fridge, stove and sink.
Keeping people out of the kitchen is very easy to do in your design, just make it harder for them to get in. Use a wraparound countertop with only one (1) countertop opening into the kitchen and locate that opening in the most difficult place to enter the kitchen. This, along with the “open floor plan”, is the most effective way to prevent unwanted traffic in the kitchen. The individual entrance to the kitchen will psychologically keep them out of the kitchen area, while the open floor plan (no walls) allows you to communicate with family and guests, while keeping them out of the kitchen.
With the little things I’ve discussed above and keeping people out of the kitchen, a 16’x10′ or 12’x12′ kitchen size is very effective, with plenty of storage space. By making the kitchen a “traffic corridor” for people to pass through, the kitchen would have to double in size, and you’re not gaining storage space with that size because all the openings in the kitchen are consuming what could have been used for cabinets
When it comes to lighting, most kitchens have one main form of lighting (or a combination of these)
A. Light on the ceiling fan
B. “Can” lights on the roof
C. Under cabinet lighting (usually puck lights or fluorescent strips)
I generally reject all these lighting concepts. With a light on the ceiling fan, you always have the light at your back, which means you’re casting shadows on everything you do on the counter. Can lights are “power hogs” because they cut large holes in the insulation and use inefficient incandescent lighting (usually 75 watts). I don’t use upper cabinets therefore I eliminate under cabinet lighting which is sometimes expensive
With high scissor-frame ceilings, I like to use MR16 adjustable fixtures, not “can” type lights. MR16’s are generally known as “strip” lighting. However, you will want to use a “plate” rather than a “strip” for the fixture connection. By using a plate, the MR16 uses a standard electrical box, so a smaller hole in your insulating blanket compared to a “can” light, and they pump out twice the light for less wattage (typically 50 watts) than a “can”. light. MR16 fixtures can be very small (so you won’t see them) and not very expensive (around $20). MR16’s are adjustable which means you can point the light where you want. A “can” of light points the light perpendicular to the ceiling. On a sloped roof, that’s not good. Position your lights above the countertop to eliminate shadows, along your main work areas (sinks, stove, cutting and prep areas) and then spread them evenly across the rest of your countertops. You don’t really need lights anywhere other than for accent lighting. The lights above the counters will be more than enough, assuming the kitchen is smaller.
If you would like to see some examples you can go to my website http://youngarchitectureservices.com/home-architect-indiana.html and click on any of the floor plans and zoom in on the kitchen area. There are also photos of the kitchen in the “Interior Design” section of the website. Larger scale images of a kitchen can be found on the “Home Page” under “See more photos of the house”
I will talk with you later,
Brian
