Kitchen storage solutions
Kitchens are, as we know, the heart of most homes and consequently there is a lot of footfall through kitchens. There is also a lot of mess created and lots of cleaning up to be done. There are gadgets galore and food stuffs and plates and cutlery and all of this needs to be stored. We can’t fill a box and throw it in the loft as we may need it somewhere down the line. There is no point putting your old frying pan in the attic if Uncle Frank uses it when he comes at Christmas or you use it occasionally when you fry eggs. Kitchens need storage, they need a lot of storage and they need clever storage. We have been helping people with kitchen storage for some years now and their storage requirements is one of the main factors we discuss when we are helping them design their kitchens. The needs and wishes of the client are obviously paramount but they do tend to focus on the look of the kitchen and they sometimes need a little help in describing the functionality of their kitchen or what is happening behind the cabinetry. This article is made to point out some of the options available to people designing their kitchen. They appear in no particular order apart from the order that they came into my head:
- Don’t have a load of standard sized drawers: Instead vary the size of your drawers and have some large pan drawers but not just that have some tall, some thin, some wide, some thin drawers so they can be used for specific items such as spice jars, trays, tinned goods, storage jars and cereal boxes.
- There are some things that you normally want to leave out on the counter top such as tea and coffee canisters; ensure these are beautiful items in their own right so you don’t need to hide them away and you can keep them right next to you kettle.
- Use the full height of the kitchen. If you use standard units you are likely to have gaps either in the middle of your wall or at the top. Bespoke kitchen units can negate this fault and offer floor to ceiling storage so you can out lesser used items at the top for when they are needed.
- Drawer dividers: every drawer you have should utilise dividers this has the dual advantage of making a defined space for everything which can be made to fit the items you want to store exactly so space is maximised. It also looks better and makes things easy to find.
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| Image courtesy of Elan Kitchens |
- Have a specified place for wine bottles. Wine racks or wine fridges can be made to fit any space so you precious wine can be kept neat and tidy but also in the perfect conditions to ensure the wine is enjoyed at its best.
- Kitchen Islands: kitchen islands are useful to utilise the wasted space in the middle of kitchen floors if your kitchen runs round the side of a room as many do. The perimeter of the island is a great place to store goods. The cupboards will be thin but are ideal for goods like tins that will fit neatly into a thin space and there won’t be any hidden behind so you always know what stocks you have in.
- Make corner spaces easy to use; As kitchen tend to run along walls and into corners cupboards often have dead space in the corners which can be fully utilised by carousel units or by mechanisms that pull out storage from the corner when you open the door.
Having your kitchen designed efficiently with garage in thoughts will no longer handiest maximise your storage but make things much less difficult to discover and help you optimise some time spent at the same time as cooking. Use a good kitchen fashion designer and you will advantage immensely from delivered capability and look.