Do-it-now design tips to make your kitchen work harder – so you don't have to.
By Emerson Nagel, Content That Works
Unfettered countertops make kitchens productive.
Store unnecessary items in cabinets.
Image courtesy Jenn-Air
Do your kitchen countertops feel hopelessly cluttered?
Do you have to paw through drawers to find the whisk? Do you
have to walk to reach the ground nutmeg?
Don't despair. Your kitchen has more usefulness and practicality
in its future. Here are some tips from experts in the field on
how to make your kitchen work for you.
Barry Tuttle owns Absolute Kitchen and Bath Marketplace (www.kitchenplace.com)
in Surry , Maine. They represent cabinet companies and professional
furniture makers, and they deliver custom cabinets throughout
the United States . They also do kitchen design. Tuttle says
he doesn't follow the "work triangle" method of design
(sink, stove, refrigerator all within 21 feet). Instead, he tailors
his designs to each individual's needs. Here are some of his
work-saving adaptations:
Locate an in-home office in the kitchen. He designed one so that the office
was convenient to (but concealed from) the cooking space.
Save your countertops by installing a stove surface next to the range.
Granite, slate and some marbles work well and have another advantage: Apply ice
to the surface before rolling out dough so it won't stick.
A knife-drawer insert keeps your knives sharper, safer and better organized.
Access your cutlery more easily with a two-layered cutlery drawer, where the
top layer slides back to reveal less commonly used items below.
Create more work space between appliances and allow for better use of
cabinet storage with a corner sink .
Make your hood more attractive and less noisy. Instead of using standard
metal, install a metal liner with a custom outer shell, and mount a remote blower
to make it quieter.
Here are some more great ideas to streamline your culinary world:
Eliminate counter clutter with an innovation from Europe called a backsplash
hangrail, a bar system that goes underneath wall cabinets and around your entire
kitchen. It is designed to hang specially made shelves and hooks, such as a round
utility basket, a hanging knife block, or even a plate holder.
Stop standing on chairs to reach inaccessible top shelves. Look for a
shelf system that's built into a wall cabinet, whereby high shelves can be pulled
out and down to rest on your countertop.
Another innovation for high shelves is a mini-ladder that you store in
the toe kick space (the 4 inches below your cabinet).
Store root vegetables in sturdy-wire-basket vegetable bins that pull out
of your cabinets on roll-out trays.
Protect your back (and your mixer) from being picked up at an awkward
angle and lugged around. A specially designed mixer shelf pops up and provides
a makeshift countertop for heavy appliances like mixers.
Rather than hanging dish towels on the oven handle, put a towel rod around
your island. Towels then become easy to grab from any place in the kitchen, saving
you steps and time when your hands are dripping or someone spills a glass of
wine.
Install a tilt-down drawer at the sink for scrub brushes, sponges and
wipes.
Mount your garbage can on a roll-out drawer under the sink. Take the swinging
door and retro-fit it as a full-height drawer face.
Replace your regular microwave oven with a microwave convection oven,
so you get a double oven in the space of one.
Eliminate your dish drainer. Load dishes directly into the dishwasher
during the day. When you have guests and need to hand-wash, use a collapsible
dish drainer that stows away under the sink.
Save steps by storing spices above your stove, on a spice rack or a lazy
susan in a cabinet, or even just on the stove's back ledge. If you're using your
spices a lot, they won't be there long enough for the heat to hurt them.
Keep a rubber mat on the floor in front of the sink to catch drips. It
prevents the floor from getting slippery and dirty.
Store plates and glassware in a cabinet above the dishwasher, not across
the room.
