Kitchen Secret #7: Kitchen Planning | Why should you prioritize your needs?

Kitchen Planning | Why should you prioritize your needs?

Even though a customer knows what equipment is required for a kitchen, there still can be many design outcomes.

In the examples here, Kitchen Secrets have designed three individual possibilities for the same room - considering that the customer had pre-determined specifications and required the following appliances:

An integrated dishwasher, a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a fridge, a freezer, a cooker, a five-ring hob, and a feature steel canopy.

Figure One above shows all the appliances at a lower level. The fridge and the freezer can be found underneath the worktop on the top right-hand side of the drawing, as soon as you walk through the door. The under-oven can be found further along the same side of the room after a set of drawers. The obvious advantage of this layout would be a large amount of worktop space as well as more visual space via the lack of taller units.

Figure Two above shows the same room yet with a tall oven housing and a tall fridge freezer. These are located at the bottom of the drawing. However, in this instance, a decision was made that it wouldn’t look very good having a tall fridge freezer as you enter the room. This, therefore, meant that it had to be located at the bottom left-hand side. It is of course generally good efficient practice to keep all the plumbing required together. Because of this, the re-positioning of the fridge-freezer and the location of the stop tap, it’s only possible to fit two additional appliances here. Therefore, on this occasion, the customer would have to choose between the benefits of having a tall oven housing and the introduction of a washer-dryer replacing the two separate appliances.

Figure Three shows that it's possible to fit all the appliances that the customer would like whilst also offering enough seating via a breakfast bar for four people. This kitchen would be the easiest one to ‘sell’ to a customer. Especially if the designer concentrates on all the ‘features’. However, this is where you should beware – not enough cupboard space is available. That’s why you must prioritize your needs beforehand.

You need to end up with a kitchen that’s right for you.