While
planning for a kitchen, you begin to make more detailed plans from your
preliminary sketches, you want to be sure you will be making a highly
functional kitchen, one that will be pleasant, efficient, and physically
comfortable to work in. finding good-quality and appropriate cabinets,
appliances doors, and other items is important. But putting them in just the
right configuration, with is even more crucial. Here are some useful ideas.
First of all, don’t assume the
window has to be over the sink; you may want storage there. The window can be
above the main work counter or elsewhere.
In a tight space, inches matter. A
30-in-wide mix-center counter feels much bigger than a 27-in. one, and a 33-in.
one feels positively huge. If passageways are narrow, recessing the
refrigerator 3 in. can make a big difference. Taking pains over small
dimensions will definitely pay off.
1. The “work center” concept
Perhaps the most important of these
concepts is that of the work center. The basic idea is that any work station –
whether a carpenter’s bench or a kitchen work area – should be set up to
accommodate the specific details of the work to be performed. Work surfaces
should be placed at the correct height and made of the most appropriate
materials. Tools and supplies that go with the work should be handy but not in
the way. And the best and most convenient storage locations should be allocated
to the tools and supplies used most frequently.
Basic
Work Counters: A
distinct cleanup center, mix (food prep) cleanup center, and cooking center are
the basic building blocks of a good kitchen layout.
Early kitchen researchers defined
three primary kitchen work centers reflecting three different sorts of kitchen
work: cleanup, mixing, and cooking. The cleanup center includes the sink, a
place to stack dirty dishes, probably a place for a drainboard, cleaning
supplies, and often storage for everyday dishes. Today, the cleanup center
would usually include a dishwasher. A trash can is essential, and the
countertop should be waterproof or water-resistant. A cleanup center may also
be a place for good preliminary recycling. The mix center (or food-preparation
center) should be organized around the premier work counter, with easy access
to favorite knives, utensils, bowls, and small appliances, as well as so the
most frequently used supplies, such as oil, salt, flour, and such sometimes
butcher block is used here, though many people prefer movable chopping boards.
The cooking center includes the stove, another counter, a heat proof place to
set down hot dishes, and tools and supplies used primarily at the stove, such
as pots, pans, lids, spatulas, pot holders, and perhaps spices.
Today we cook very differently than
early researchers did, but these three basic and relatively distinct work are still
helpful design building blocks. Many designers rightly add a fourth function,
the serving center, which is often near the table. It has a place to set hot
pans, and it houses serving dishes, perhaps the good tableware, and napkins.
Many cooks also define other centers for inclusion, particularly a baking
center. A message center might be as simple as a wall phone with a pad of
paper, but it could be large enough to include a desk with a computer for doing
homework and paying bills, you kitchen might be light enough to include a
recycling center, where newspaper, bottles, and other recyclables can be
organized on their way out of the house. As I survey and evaluate any kitchen
layout, locating the basic work centers on the plan.
Cleanup
center: lets start with the cleanup center. It has, of course, a sink,
usually (but not always ) 25 in. or 33 in. wide. There is at least a 2-ft-.
–wide counter on one side for dirty dishes, and a similar 20-in . or wider
counter on the other side for a drainboard. A dishwasher is 24 in. wide; in
most new kitchens, a space for it will be needed beneath one of these side
counters.
Mix
center: for some very
tidy cooks, this food-prep center can be as little as 30 in. wide but more
often is 36 in. to 60 in,. wide. It should be handy to booth sink and stove. It
might be an island, but it’s often a counter between cleanup and cooking. It
can’t be the same as the counters at the sink, which are routinely covered with
dishes, nor any other counter that’s occupied by a microwave, big mixer, or
other gear.
Cooking
center: most stoves are 30 in. wide, though some commercial models are 30
in. or more. If a hood is desired, its helpful (though not essential) to have
the stove on or near an outside wall. The cooking center should have its own
counter. This counter should be at least two feet wide, preferably more. It is
often the place where a second cook can work.
Don’t position the side of a stove
right up against a wall. The heat from the burners can burn the wall. Also,
avoid a location adjacent to a hallway or walking space, where kids or others
walking by might accidentally knock over a hot pan. If the stove is in an
island or a peninsula, make sure it is protected at the rear, either with a
raised back or by a counter at least 9 in. wide.
The
refrigerator: Although the refrigerator is sometimes included with one or
another work center, it makes more sense to think of it as a separate element. A
refrigerator is big and bulky, so it doesn’t work well in the middle of a run
of cabinets. lt’s usually placed at the end of a run, sometimes in combination
with a tall pantry unit of some kind.
2. The food-flow idea
When possible, it’s good to locate the
work centers in the right sequence based on the way food is processed. To
oversimplify, food comes in the back door, gets stored in a pantry or the
fridge, gets taken out again, is washed up at the sink, chopped up at the mix
center, cooked, then served. If the work centers are more or less in that
order, kitchen work will be easier, with fewer wasted steps.
3. Standard kitchen layouts
Most
of us are familiar with the standard kitchen layouts that have evolved: the U,
L, galley, one-wall, island, and peninsula. The peninsula, supposed that it is
simply any layout without a wall behind some of the cabinets, while both the
peninsula and island schemes can be thought of as variations on the U-layout.
Although there are endless variations and elaborations, most kitchen fall into
one of these models.
U-layouts
make a lot of sense. They concentrate a complete work area in a compact space,
with little through traffic. The peninsula and island versions allow for
sociability, and they often connect the workspace to the dining or family space
nearby.
The
l-layout is simple, handy, and efficient. It’s also compact in a special sense.
Where the u-layout require a distinct space of its own, an l-shaped kitchen can
be simply the edge of a larger space. For that reason a small space often calls
for an l-layout. The galley layout is quite efficient if the aisle is 3 ft. to
5 ft. wide. The disadvantage is that the aisle is usually a traffic lane, which
can disrupt the cook. The one-wall layout is not ideal; it results in a lot of
walking and would be used where a better option is impossible.
4.
The work –triangle test
The
work triangle, devised in the early 1950s as a test for kitchen layouts in
government-financed housing, specifies an optimal relationship between the
sink, stove, and refrigerator. The idea is that if these are too far apart,
there will be needless extra steps while cooking. If they are too close
together, work centers will overlap, and you’ll have to constantly walk around
the appliances to get to your work area.
A
pantry this size can be buried in the wall. I have often recessed
refrigerators, shelf unit, and microwaves into walls to save space.
5.
The power-kitchen idea
In
kitchen remodeling, it’s sometimes impossible to devise a perfect layout. This
has been true of many of the houses I’ve lived in and fixed up. But there is
another insight from kitchen research that I’ve found useful. Most of the
little journeys in cooking are from the sink to the mix center and back, from
the stove to the mix center and back, or between the sink and stove. There are
significantly fewer trips to the fridge, table, pantry, or back door. That
means that if you can establish a mix center or main work counter that is
within about teo or three steps of both sink and stove, and maybe even directly
between them, the kitchen can be efficient, even if other features of the
layout are less than ideal.
Put
another way, you can live with having the fridge, pantry, or table a short walk
away, or having the basic units out of the ideal “food-flow” order. But if the
main work counter is a hike from the sink or stove, or if those appliances are
too widely spaced, your kitchen will be inconvenient to use no matter what else
you do.
Power
kitchen
An
imperfect layout can work as long as there is a nice generous counter space
handy to both sink and cook top. Here there is no counter space at the stove,
the left sink counter is cramped, and the refrigerator is too far from the food
prep-area. But the main food prep counter
the power kitchen area is big enough, is very handy t both sink and
stove, and has supplies, tools, and a trash can near at hand. So it is still
quite an efficient kitchen to work in.
