Is it time to start getting creative with kitchens?

[Bancroft]

The 'modern' kitchen design has been around since the late 50s/early 60s when exciting things like fridges started turning up.

 

Is it time for us to re-think things?

 

Looking around our present kitchen (and thinking about our new build kitchen design) I can't help thinking it's an ergonomic and design nightmare.

 

Low cupboards 600mm deep that require you to get on hands and knees to empty stuff out so that you can reach the thing you want.

 

High cupboards that you can't reach/see into and which require you to lean over the aforementioned lower cabinets, thus shortening your natural reach.

 

Kettles/toasters/coffee makers/air fryers that have to either litter the work surface or hide in cupboards and be brought out each time you want to use them.

 

And, perhaps the ultimate design failure, never a suitable place to put all those plastic Tupperware boxes and old Chinese takeaway containers and their lids that cascade out of the cupboard like an avalanche of plastic - regardless of how carefully you stack them.

 

I don't have an immediate answer to all these issues but they annoy the hell out of me.

 

Hopefully, someone with a more creative mind than mine can offer some suggestions...

[SteamyTea]

Working as a chef, the easy way to make a kitchen much more efficient, is to make it smaller.

I work in an area not much more the 1m².

Get rid of the clutter i.e. all those containers, gadgets, spice racks etc.

 

Draws are often more useful than cupboards.

Put lightweight things higher up.

Clean up as you go along.

 

And the big one.

Learn how to cook. You really don't need much equipment, or ingredients.

There are some dishes you will not create as well as a restaurant.

Go to a restaurant for those meals, KISS at home.

[Bonner]

+1 for big drawers rather than cupboards. Separate pantry is best for all the paraphernalia.

[DownSouth]

+1.

Being 5’3’’ our new kitchen is designed to have 600-800 wide drawers everywhere, no tall units (3/4 fridge and 3/4 freezer) and no wall cupboards at all. We’re lucky to have a utility which will have tall cupboards and a ladder for all the stuff we don’t use so much. We’ve stuck a long window over where the sink will be and I honestly can’t wait to do some dishes! 🤣

[Mike]

For wall cupboards, you can get pull-down shelf units to bring everything to hand.

 

Also, it's not necessary to have 600mm deep units everywhere; it makes sense under a worktop (though you could skip that and just have a table), but elsewhere do what you want. And a pantry for food + a walk-in store for utensils & crockery is great, if you have space.

 

Or skip the worktop and use a boat instead?

https://ashgrovekitchens.co.uk/case-studies/ship-ahoy-in-exeter/

 

Edited Monday at 20:48 by Mike

[Russell griffiths]

2 hours ago, DownSouth said:

+1.

Being 5’3’’ our new kitchen is designed to have 600-800 wide drawers everywhere, no tall units (3/4 fridge and 3/4 freezer) and no wall cupboards at all. We’re lucky to have a utility which will have tall cupboards and a ladder for all the stuff we don’t use so much. We’ve stuck a long window over where the sink will be and I honestly can’t wait to do some dishes! 🤣

You should drop your worktop height down 75mm to make it easier to work on. 
I’ve just dropped ours to approximately 850 for my shorty wife. 

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Draws are often more useful than cupboards.

This. With the exception of our undercounter freezer, every base unit pulls out, either as a drawer, or pull out wire rack/larder unit, or a Le Mans unit (in the corner). 

[Bancroft]

15 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Draws are often more useful than cupboards.

This is one area I've ben considering more and more.  Just need to get the right balance regarding depth of drawer versus space available - don't want to swap horizontal access issues for vertical ones!

[Bancroft]

13 hours ago, Mike said:

Also, it's not necessary to have 600mm deep units everywhere;

In our last house we created a utility room that required access both ends.  To save space and allow easy passage I put 300mm units below a narrow worktop and 300mm units above as normal.

 

Worked well though, if I did have a little more space, I would have gone for 400 or 450mm as some pots/pans/machines were just a little too wide for the 300mm units.

[Bancroft]

15 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I work in an area not much more the 1m².

My wife could never understand how I could deploy in a ship for months on end and live, work, and sleep quite happily in an area about 2m x 2m, yet when I came home would have 'stuff' all over the house!

[Bancroft]

13 hours ago, Mike said:

Or skip the worktop and use a boat instead?

That looks stunning - and would be a great opportunity for me to get the woodworking stuff out!

[SteamyTea]

13 hours ago, Mike said:

Or skip the worktop and use a boat instead

I like that.

Shall suggest one for work to the commandant.

[Beau]

Just another vote for lots of draws.

 

I built quite a lot into our last kitchen but will be almost all draws in the next one. At the planning stages so interesting following this. 

As for 'Kettles/toasters/coffee makers/air fryers'  I'm looking at a separate work area for these away from the main prep space. No way can I be bothered getting them all in an out of cupboards all the time. We got a combined microwave/airfryer which saves a bit of space

[jack]

17 hours ago, Bonner said:

+1 for big drawers rather than cupboards. Separate pantry is best for all the paraphernalia.

 

Drawers all the way. The one issue is that they massively increase costs compared to cupboards.

[G and J]

18 hours ago, DownSouth said:

+1.

Being 5’3’’ our new kitchen is designed to have 600-800 wide drawers everywhere, no tall units (3/4 fridge and 3/4 freezer) and no wall cupboards at all. We’re lucky to have a utility which will have tall cupboards and a ladder for all the stuff we don’t use so much. We’ve stuck a long window over where the sink will be and I honestly can’t wait to do some dishes! 🤣

You could be describing the design for our new house.

 

15 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

You should drop your worktop height down 75mm to make it easier to work on. 
I’ve just dropped ours to approximately 850 for my shorty wife. 

Re reduced worktop height, be a bit careful.   Make it just a tiny bit too low and backache ensues.  So I’d advocate prototyping it before committing. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Beau said:

Just another vote for lots of draws.

 

I built quite a lot into our last kitchen but will be almost all draws in the next one. At the planning stages so interesting following this. 

As for 'Kettles/toasters/coffee makers/air fryers'  I'm looking at a separate work area for these away from the main prep space. No way can I be bothered getting them all in an out of cupboards all the time. We got a combined microwave/airfryer which saves a bit of space

Our main kitchen area is part of the big room (kitchen, lounge, dining and conservatory).

 

2.7m worktop flanked by full height cupboards (larder fridge freezer on one side, oven, microwave and coffee cavern on the other).

 

Sink in the middle of worktop, no wall units and no hob.  Neat.  Lots of storage in the utility room plus a portable induction hob for when I give in and use one (batch cooking mainly).

 

19 hours ago, Bancroft said:

Is it time for us to re-think things?

Yes.  When thoughts began re living without a hob I started experimenting with non hob cooking, mainly because I think even whizzy induction hobs are v ugly - a big dark lump in my nice light coloured worktop.   We’ve a gas hob on our range cooker now and it’s surprising how easily I have found reducing hob use.  Maybe that’s partly as I never cook meat, and I fry nothing, but it’s quite liberating trialling new ways of doing stuff.  

[SteamyTea]

13 minutes ago, G and J said:

We’ve a gas hob on our range cooker now and it’s surprising how easily I have found reducing hob use

Gas cooking is quite inefficient, masked by how hard it is to measure the gas usage.

 

I am intrigued as to why you are reducing hob usage; one pot meals are generally quick and easy, and has to be better than lighting up a 6 kW oven, or even a 2.4 kW microwave.

I have just popped my induction hob on, small 'ring' middle setting, it draws 180W.

Now I don't have a gas hob to compare it to, but my camping stove is 3 kW, so even at 'half power' it is drawing 8 times the amount of power.

I once did a time comparison between a small portable induction hob and my camping stove, but can't remember the results (they are probably buried on this site somewhere, though it may have been on eBuild), was a while back).

Edited Tuesday at 12:58 by SteamyTea

[Bancroft]

30 minutes ago, G and J said:

a big dark lump in my nice light coloured worktop

I did see an advert recently for a white induction hob - answer to your prayers!

[Big Jimbo]

Miele used to do a range called White Ice. It included a white glass induction hob with no knobs. Was about £2k when I last fitted One about 15 years ago.

 

[AliG]

We had one single 600mm deep cupboard in the kitchen. I ended up fitting drawers inside it, drawers are the answer, but they do considerably add to the cost.

 

I feel like there is some kind of kitchen installer conspiracy running on Instagram and Tik Tok trying to persuade people to have ever larger more expensive kitchens full of ever more pointless gadgets. We have a very large house, but not that many kitchen cabinets and it works just fine. Throw away stuff that you don't need. I don't really buy into the pantry idea as it simply encourages people to have way more food in the house than they can use. Two tall larder cupboards would comfortably hold all the packaged food in our house. Even then I have to make sure and cycle stuff so it doesn't expire.

 

High cupboards are a pain, but you can get those pull down shelves. There is not much you can do as you want to fill the height in below the ceiling. Again though, I don't understand when people fit extra even higher up cabinets that require the use of a ladder to access. Surely a massive waste of money.

 

We have a white Siemens induction hob, they don't sell them any more.

 

21 hours ago, Bancroft said:

Kettles/toasters/coffee makers/air fryers that have to either litter the work surface or hide in cupboards and be brought out each time you want to use them.

 

This is a problem. A Quooker solves the kettle. We don't have an air fryer as it pretty much just replaces an oven with an extra device, although it is cheaper to run. We keep the toaster in a drawer. The blender and food mixer stand out on the worktop. We have to put the Instant Pot in and out of a cupboard. I have thought I might want one of those pantry cupboard where all these items can be on the shelf ready for use.

[Bancroft]

45 minutes ago, AliG said:

This is a problem. A Quooker solves the kettle. We don't have an air fryer as it pretty much just replaces an oven with an extra device, although it is cheaper to run. We keep the toaster in a drawer.

Yes, planning on a Quooker (or similar) and, like you, don't have an air fryer but would like the toaster to be at immediate notice as opposed to inside a cupboard.

 

My thoughts are to build an above countertop shallow cupboard with folding/concertina doors that can hide from view a toaster, tea/coffee, etc but still be ready/available at a moment's notice.  Might also be a way of demonstrating the value of my new CNC machine to my wife!

 

Agree with you regarding kitchen size too.  Might be appropriate for a Grand Design or a house where open plan is a design feature, but for most people probably just a waste of floor space.

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, AliG said:

Quooker solves the kettle

£1k plus to solve a £30 kettle issue. Never really understood that advance in technology. Plus you have a £50 filter to change each year. Think I will keep the kettle.

 

1 hour ago, AliG said:

air fryer as it pretty much just replaces an oven with an extra device

That is true, we used to use oven daily, that job is done better, quicker and cheaper with the air fryer.

[SteamyTea]

23 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

£30 kettle issue

Are they really that much now.

 

11 quid, boils tap water.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3362910

 

 

[FuerteStu]

I've recently finished my kitchen and did something I've had lots of comments about.. 

 

I didn't have any sockets, spurs or Isolators in the splashback. 

 

 

Instead, they are all tucked away under the cabinets in bench trunking. It allows for future adaptations without redecorating (there are conduit drops from inside to below countertop) 

 

I was planning a trim along the bottom so it wasn't even in eyeline, but it barely notices as it is. 

 

Makes cleaning so much easier

 

[BotusBuild]

I'd have to keep ducking down to use those, and I'm only 5'9"!

 

Neat idea though

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, BotusBuild said:

I'm only 5'9"

Makes you a (expletive deleted)ing giant in Cornwall.

Shall call you Bolster Build.