The Kitchen

Every homeowner wants a gourmet kitchen- even those who consider cooking the art of reheating food purchased at a take-out counter.

But designing a perfect kitchen can be an overwhelming task. There are hundreds of options and opinions.  Hopefully with some time spent researching products and contractors you’ll find your match.

It’s About Functionality

Not all kitchen projects end up well laid out. Many contractors, architects and kitchen designers concede inexperienced homeowners tend to put too much emphasis on appearance and too little on practical matters.

“All too often, our kitchens make us bend, stoop, retrace our steps and work in poor light at counters that are too high or too low,” said Jane K. Langmuir, a designer and former adjunct associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI.

In 1998, Langmuir concluded a five-year study on kitchen design. She found, not surprisingly, that the best way to conserve time and motion in the kitchen is to have everything you need for food preparation and cleanup within easy reach.

Lots of Time, Money

Kitchen remodeling takes both time and money. A major remodeling with top-of-the-line appliances and cabinets can easily run as much as $100,000.  While not every project runs this much the average project is in the range of $20,000 - $30,000.

As for time, allow at least 2 months for a remodeling job.  It takes about one month alone for cabinet orders, more time for planning, order processing, shipping, demolition, installation, moving back into your kitchen and re-organization.

The bottom line: You don’t have the time or money to make mistakes. While it’s tempting to get started as quickly as possible once you decide to remodel, it’s better to catch your breath, do your homework and think through all your plans.

Remember the most important thing in the end is to have the kitchen you’ve been dreaming about.

If you plan to undertake kitchen remodeling, start with the basics.  Once you know what you want, what you want to spend and what you’d like the finished project to provide, you can shop for professionals’ best suited to your needs.

Identify goals and objectives. List the features you like most in your present kitchen, ones you want to change and any other you’d like to have.  Consider the floor, the cabinets, the style of the kitchen and the number of cabinets and amount of counter space.

The National Kitchen and Bath Association suggest a minimum of 13 linear feet of wall cabinets and a minimum of 11 linear feet of open countertop space.

Decide what you’d like to accomplish in the kitchen.  While some homeowners see the kitchen simply as a place for cooking, others may want to set up space for homework, a computer, entertainment or a television.

Keep a portfolio. Collect pictures of kitchens and products you like so you can refer to them during the design process.

Set a budget. What you want and what you can afford may be different things. If your dream plan is too expensive, you can eliminate some of the less important features you consider or investigate less expensive materials or appliances.

Be realistic about your family. If more than one person routinely does the cooking, adding a second sink can be essential.  If someone is unusually tall, unusually short or has any other special need, take that into consideration while you plan the project.

Don’t forget the importance of the work triangle- the lines which invisibly link the sink, refrigerator and cook top. Efficiency increases if the most used centers of activity are close together. Use the three centers of activities as the corners of a triangle. Now measure the distance on the three triangle legs.  The sum should be equal to or less than 26 feet, no matter how large the kitchen.

Make sure none of the legs of the triangle cross other pathways, for example, the connecting route between the back door and the family room.  Otherwise, you invite collisions between someone working in the kitchen and someone passing through.

Get ideas from professionals. The range of options for kitchen remodeling jobs runs from economy to elaborate.

KITCHEN GEOGRAPHY;CHANGINGTHE TERRAIN OF THEHEART OF THE HOME

Copyright 2002 Bergen Record Corporation
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)...12/01/2002

MICHAEL WALSH

Once relegated to the back of the house, the kitchen has in recent years come out of confinement. But the challenge in creating an open-faced kitchen - one that's part of a dining area, family room or so-called great room - is downplaying its utilitarian nature.

Beyond choosing appealing materials and colors, a key factor is combating excessive uniformity and rigidity by creating a lively interior landscape and skyline using cabinets and structural elements. Thinking in geographic terms can help a kitchen relate to the spaces around it and yet set it apart from them.

If you're remodeling an old kitchen or planning a kitchen addition or a new home, here are some strategies to keep in mind.

Build bridges, not walls. Islands and peninsulas are the kitchen's new walls. Because you can see over and around them, they connect the kitchen to an adjacent dining area, living room or family room and yet define the kitchen's borders. They also allow the cook to maintain visual and conversational contact with family members and guests in adjoining spaces.

Create a kitchen canopy. Even with an open floor plan, it's important to keep the kitchen from spilling over visually into other spaces. What islands and peninsulas do below, dropped soffits and shallow ceiling-mounted cabinets do above. They define the kitchen's borders in a subtle way without blocking views into or out of the kitchen.

A coffered or pitched ceiling can also distinguish the kitchen from neighboring rooms. Going for a high ceiling in the kitchen can boost the perception of spaciousness. Going low in a dining area imparts a sense of intimacy.
Cut back on cabinets. In a kitchen with just one or two walls, finding space for storage is problematic. But resist the impulse to cram in too many cabinets. Instead, design a storage-intensive walk-in pantry. Banish rarely used goods -- the picnicware, the punch bowl, the turkey roaster - to the basement, mudroom, or garage. Store the good china in a lighted china cabinet in the dining area.

Stagger the height, length and depth of wall cabinets. The idea here is to break up the horizontal lines at the top and bottom of a row of cabinets that can make a kitchen look rigid and static. Insert a plate rack or an open shelf unit between two long cabinets.

If you have ample work surfaces, put in a couple of extra-tall cabinets that sit on top of the counter. Using some cabinets that are deeper or shallower than the standard 12 inches can add more visual dimension to a kitchen.

Stagger the height of base cabinets and counters, too. Not all countertops have to be at the same height. Lower a cooktop by 4 to 6 inches and allow 15 to 18 inches of counter space at the same height on either side. In addition to providing some much-needed visual variety, a lowered cooktop can be more ergonomic, particularly for short cooks.

If you're a baker, consider putting in a baking center with a work surface at 30 or 32 inches rather than the standard 36. It's a more comfortable height for rolling out dough or using a hand-held mixer.

Vary cabinet door styles. There's no law that says all cabinets have to be identical. Use solid doors on some cabinets and glass doors on others. Or outfit a couple of doors with wire mesh, lattice or even shirred fabric. Use one style of door for perimeter cabinets and another for the island.

Choose more than one cabinet paint color, wood stain or decorative finish. For example, use barn-red cabinets for the island and natural maple everywhere else. Choose light wood stains for some, dark for others. For just a little rusticity, choose a "distressed" or antiqued finish for just one or two cabinets. For continuity, choose cabinet styles and finishes compatible with built-ins and furnishings in adjacent spaces.

Alternate countertop and backsplash materials. Reserve granite for an island and use a neutral solid surface material for all the other countertops. Top a baking counter with a slab of marble. Use ceramic tile or laminate in the wet areas and top a peninsula with maple butcher block. As for backsplashes, you might want to use stainless steel behind a range but ceramic tile elsewhere.

Hiding appliances is a matter of personal taste. Some people don't mind seeing the refrigerator from the family room. For those who do, cabinet-matching panels can camouflage the kitchen's largest machine. Panels for dishwashers, trash compactors, and icemakers are also available.

Add a raised ledge or breakfast bar to an island or peninsula to hide the cooktop. If you can't position tall double ovens so that they're out of view of neighboring spaces, think about installing a second under-the-counter oven in an island or peninsula.

Ranges are harder to hide, especially large, commercial-style ranges and the bulky exhaust hoods that come with them. That's one reason many consumers are choosing stainless steel models. Stainless steel is a kind of go-with-anything, neutral material that picks up the colors and tones of cabinets and flooring and seems to quietly blend into a kitchen's background.

An opposite strategy is to make a range the kitchen equivalent of a focal-point fireplace by building an alcove around it.

Crafter Corporation

8519 W. 191st Street

Mokena, IL 60448

Office: 815-806-2208

Fax: 815-806-8425