What are the things you like about your current kitchen layout (if any?). Can you include those in the new kitchen?

Are you a one-cook household, or do several people cook at the same time? If there are several cooks, you may want to make sure there are several work areas, and room for people to work independently without getting in each others’ way. A big possible bottleneck area is the sink, so this is a situation where an extra prep sink can make things much easier.

How many people eat in your kitchen – and for how long will they do so? If your six hulking teenagers are likely to leave home in the next few years, spending a lot of money on an addition to create a larger eating area may not be worth it. Can you squeeze multi-purpose eating spots into your design that can be used for other purposes later?

Consider your traffic patterns. If there’s any way to keep through traffic out of the main kitchen work area, use it! Some methods to redirect traffic include strategically positioning islands, peninsulas,or tables to redirect traffic around the work core:  locating doors so that traffic flow goes where you want it: and positioning kitchen components which are regularly used by non-cooks, especially the fridge, where they can be accessed without going through or into the work area.

Do you want a pantry? If so, will it be a separate walk-in, or a pull-out cabinet style? What do you want to store there – food, equipment, small appliances? Do you actually want to be able to use appliances in there, and perhaps have a sink? At this point it’s starting to sound like a second kitchen!

Try to create at least one decent-sized, clear counter area for each regular cook. By decent-sized I mean at least 3 feet of clear run, preferably not including a corner. Cutting up your countertop space into little chunks between appliances makes it much less useful. Storing small appliances on it permanently also gets in the way.

There’s a lot of fuss made about whether kitchen countertops will stand up to knives, and being cut on. You are much better off doing your cutting on a cutting board than any type of countertop: a separate board (and you’ll need several) can be placed where you want it, sanitized, re-surfaced, replaced, cut on without damaging your knives, used as a trivet for hot pots or a board for serving bread or cheese, or taken outside to the BBQ – none of which is true of a countertop. So choose your counter material without worrying about its suitability as a cutting surface.

How’s your bendability? Physically, bending down to reach stuff in lower cabinets – especially tucked away at the back of the bottom shelf – gets harder and harder as we get older and less bendable. Do you need to design your new kitchen to have more storage at waist-to-shoulder level?

Appliances come in many more forms nowadays than the standard range, fridge-freezer and dishwasher. Everything can be broken up into separate parts and located in the very best position. This includes separate cooktop and oven(s); separate fridges and freezers of different sizes and styles (drawers, under-counter, full-size, super-insulated etc); dishwashers of different sizes or styled as drawers; and sinks that come in a million combinations of size, shape and number of bowls. Make sure you consider all the modern options, not just the old standbys.

Is your electrical wiring up to the job of powering your new kitchen? You may have to add circuits to bring existing wiring up to code or to add appliances, and the domino effect may mean you have to upsize your service and breaker box too. Better to find out at the design stage than when the electrician arrives on the doorstep.

Plumbing too: if you’re moving or adding sinks, adding an icemaker in the fridge, and especially if you plan on having plumbing in an island, get professional advice one what it wil take to do what you want. A plumbing expert may also have good suggestions on how to get what you want without doing as much work.

These are only a few of the factors which can give you great kitchen layout ideas – or save you from following through on not-so-great ones!

1. Store your equipment and ingredients where they are used first. This sounds obvious, but it’s a little more tricky than it might at first appear. Pots and pans, for instance – the obvious place to keep them is by the cooktop or range. But quite often, a saucepan or large pot gets used first at the sink, to add water! Frypans and woks, by contrast, usually go straight onto a burner. You may need to store some by the sink and some by the range instead of all in the same place. So think carefully about where you really do use things for the first time. Any time you find yourself repeatedly carrying something across the room before you can start using it, that’s a great clue that it’s not stored in the most efficient place.
2. If there’s something yo use repeatedly in several different places, it might make sense to store two sets, one in each location. Measuring cups and spoons are a good example of this, being cheap to buy multiples of and small and easy to store. Taken to extremes, this results in kitchens with multiple dishwashers and sinks – but for some situations, they make sense and are worth the extra money and space.
3. Store things together which you use together. Measuring cups, spoons, and jugs go with mixing bowls, cookie sheets, and the mixer, if you’re a baker: flour, sugar, and other common baking ingredients go in the same area. Before you know it, you’ve got a baking center! You can use the same principle to fit the way you use your kitchen, even if you’re not a baker.
4. Take the doors off your upper cabinets and use them as open shelves. Not everyone can tolerate the very “busy” look that this creates, but if you don’t mind it, you’ll save a lot of time not opening and shutting doors to look for stuff or to get it out or put it away. Glass cabinet doors are a halfway house towards this, making it easier to find things but you still have to open and shut the doors for access.
5. Use wall space for storing frequently-used equipment and ingredients. From a spice rack to cup hooks to utensil racks to a full-fledged pegboard wall, this is a great way to store things you just want to grab and use instantly. Rarely used items, which will just collect dust,  or things which need to be stored in the dark, obviously aren’t good candidates for this kind of storage.
6. Keep a running shopping list with a pen right by it so that you can add things as soon as you realize you’re running low. Buy the next package before you completely finish the current one!
7. Cook double quantities of any freezable dish, and freeze the extra for next time you need a quick meal right now. You might be surprised by what is freezable: not just stews and soups but pre-baked potatoes (stuffed or not), quiche, bread and cakes, sauces of many kinds, pesto, hummus and much more. If you’re not sure, try freezing a small quantity and test later to see how it worked out.
8. Do certain kinds of prep in bulk. For example,wash, cull and drain salad leaves, then store in a slightly ventilated container: don’t tear or cut them up till you need them. Generally, pre-cutting or peeling vegetables saves time but reduces their nutritional value. Pre-cutting or dividing large buys of meat into portion or meal sizes saves much time when you come to use it.
9. Make your own baking mixes for cookies, biscuits, pancakes etc. This saves money over store-bought mixes and gives you complete control over ingredients and quality, but gives you the same time-saving convenience when it comes time to use the mixes. A great reference for this is Make-A-Mix Cooking by Karine Eliason - my 1980’s edition of this book is covered in splotches and falling apart, but still doing sterling service in the kitchen.
10. Plan for leftovers. Either cook just enough for your family so there aren’t any leftovers, or plan to use the leftovers for lunch the next day, in a meal later in the week, or to freeze. Leftovers, well managed, are a wonderful thing!
11. If you’re a plan-ahead person, plan out your menus for the week or month ahead, and shop accordingly so you never have to run out to pick up just a few ingredients to make dinner.
12. Keep a full pantry – including all the basics, plus foods you use frequently, and those little extras that make it easy to quickly pull together a meal.
13. Invest in time-saving equipment that you will actually use, not just clutter up your counters and cupboards. Knives, graters, chopping boards, and plenty of containers are basic for almost everyone: some people love and use their food processor, blender, breadmaker, or stand mixer. If you use it, take a moment to pick the best place for it: if you don’t use it, get rid of it and use teh space for something else.
14. Make space to work before you start, and clean up as you go. I know, your mother always told you that, but it’s true: who wants to end up with the entire kitchen to clean up when you’ve finished cooking? There’s often a lull when you’ve finished one stage or one dish and don’t need to start the next just yet – do some cleanup in between and you’ll be happy you did later on! Having a sink full of hot soapy water all ready for dirty dishes helps too, as long as you’re not wasting loads of hot water doing multiple sinkfulls.
15. Another thing mothers (and cooking teachers) tell us is to get all the ingredients out at the beginning of the recipe. This makes sure you have everything before you start, and means you’re not stopping at some time-critical stage to run to the pantry for the next ingredient. Hey, mothers know a thing or two!
16. Does your family like boiled eggs? Especially in the summer, when you’re using them for salads, pre-cooking a pile of eggs and storing in the fridge is a good time-saver. I pencil a “B” on the shells of the boiled ones so I can tell which are cooked and which are raw. Don’t use a marker to do this – the ink can go right through the porous eggshell and stain the white inside!
17. Thaw dishes from the freezer in the fridge before you need them. This saves time when you come to cook, energy for the fridge (because the frozen foods help to keep the fridge cool) and energy to thaw things by other methods such as the microwave.
18. Use the microwave for things it does well, in quantities it does well. Depending on the power and size of your microwave, there will be a crossover point where it becomes quicker to reheat a larger quantity of food on the stovetop than in the microwave.
19. Learn how to use your tools and utensils really well. Knife skills are basic but most of us never learn them. Your small appliances may be able to do all kinds of things but if you don’t read the manual, you probably aren’t aware of all of them. Cast iron is great if you know how to take care of it, a pain if you don’t. Knowledge is power in the kitchen too!
20. Use “lazy susan” turntables in more places than corner base cabinets. Any time you have a group of items to store together where you want quick access to any one of them, a lazy susan is a great way to keep them all together while making access easy. You can use a small lazy susan on the countertop, the dining table, on a shelf, or in a wall cabinet.
21. Use the backs of cabinet doors for storage. There are many racks available which can be attached to door backs to store light objects where you can reach them super-easily.

When you are embarking on a kitchen design layout for easy cooking there are a few important things to consider. The first being appliance placement. Most designers will tell you that you want to achieve a cooking triangle. With the stove, sink and refrigerator being placed to form a triangle in your kitchen. In fact they will go as far to say that if you achieve that you will cut down on your cooking time drastically. By placing your appliances in strategic locations it will reduce the amount of time you spend walking back and forth between major appliances and allow you to have the most important things at your finger tips at all times. Placing your appliances in a triangle pattern can be done in even small kitchen layouts.

The second thing to consider when redesigning your kitchen for the ease of cooking is who will will be in the kitchen with you. If you are one that often cooks with children, friends or family close by then you will want to ensure that you design your kitchen in a manner that allows them to be around as you cook. Kitchen island designs can be very good for this – have an island with your stove or sink built into it. If you like to entertain as you cook it may be better suited to have your stove on the island as you will be able to talk and visit as you cook. In addition to considering placing the stove and or sink on the island you will want to have an area opposite you that is suitable for friends and family sitting at bar stools. Consider a large enough island to accommodate at least three people to sit at. This would allow your children to have breakfast at the island and to visit when company is present.

Third in your kitchen design layout would be to consider your cabinet placement and size. Many homes are going toward taller cabinets with pull out shelves and even deep drawers to hold pots and pans instead of placing them in cabinets. Remember when you are designing your cabinets to consider how you will be using them and to for example take into consideration that if you use a lot of spices you will need a spice drawer or cabinet designed especially for spices.

Not only can your new kitchen be a functional kitchen, one in which that you are allowed to cook, entertain and do so with ease, it can also be a work of art. With the new finishes provided to select from there is no reason that you should not be allowed to express yourself with your selections. Today’s most popular counter top is granite, granite is a hard surface that is designed to last a lifetime. It also comes in so many different color choices and grades that you should be able to find something to suit your needs with ease.

When dealing with small kitchen designs, it is critical to remember that, although you may only have eight linear feet of counter top, it is vital to place it where it can be most useful.  An eight foot long island may look great, but if you have no counter space next to your sink or your stove, you will have to do a lot more work.  Having counter space to prep your food between your sink and stove allows for minimal mess and maximum accessibility.  Even if your stove is on one wall and your sink is on an adjacent wall, four feet of corner counter top can be just as efficient as eight.   The cornering of the counter also allows you to place items such as a bread maker or toaster out of your “everyday” space and into an area that is still easy to reach.  This still allows for additional counter space on the outsides of your stove and sink, which can be used to cover the dishwasher or additional under-counter cabinets.

Using appliances that mount under your top cabinets, such as coffee makers and toaster ovens, can free up what little counter space you have for better use.

Whether you are designing a small kitchen from scratch or simply doing a small kitchen remodel, cabinet space is the other major factor in your kitchen’s functionality.  If you can not reach a shelf in the cabinet, what good does it do?  If you have to pull out six things to get to the one thing you need at the back of a cabinet, you are wasting your time.  Cabinets that are designed for specific use are the best.  If every shelf is at the same level, but you only stack dishes on three of them, the shelf you put your canned goods on wastes the top eight to ten inches of your space.

If you do not have the money for custom designed cabinets, a simple solution is stackable pull-out wire baskets or drawers from The Container Store or even Wal-Mart.  This can be especially important when dealing with your under-counter cabinets.  Being able to pull a drawer out to access the items at the back of the cabinet saves time and effort, and these cabinets will be deeper than your top cabinets, often without any shelves in them at all.

Often, cabinets that meet each other at a corner simply have blank space between them.  Make use of that space by building a corner cabinet instead.  A corner cabinet can be fitted with a lazy susan so that you don’t have to take everything out to get to the items at the back of the cabinet.  These can also be the best cabinets in your kitchen for your “storage items,” such as the china or crystal.  If you rarely use something, but don’t want to search through a box to find it, a corner cabinet gives you extra depth and space that would otherwise be wasted.

In small kitchen design, the most important thing is function.  No matter how good it looks, if you can’t use it, it’s wasted.  If you can’t reach it, it’s pointless.  If you have to spend more time and effort getting to it or doing it, you’ve probably just let your chicken burn.

First, a short series of videos discussing what the owner wants to do to the kitchen and how he goes about planning it. First the wishlist:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjkouWS6zo0

Then, how to get from the wishlist to a design, including how to find design help:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shd3jHalUIw

Now, Sarah Susanka on planning a kitchen that works for you. The first few minutes is from the real estate person who posted the video, so don’t get confused!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsHVO0VApA

How to Customize Your Island

You can use any arrangement of wall and/or base cabinets which fits your space, to form the base of your kitchen island. Then you can customize it in many ways to create many different potential kitchen island designs:

Shape

• Change levels on part of the island, up to bar height or down to table height
• Make the island an unusual shape. Who says everything has to be rectangular? Try angles and curves: mock up the shape with cardboard and tape to see how it looks and how it works.
• Use several small movable islands pushed together to make one big island, or split them up and move them to where they are needed
• Match the island counter shape with a shape in the ceiling above – a dropped or raised section, an outline, curved track lights, a pot rack or vent hood.

Base

• Don’t use cabinet doors at all – have an “all-drawers” island
• Add feet to the bottom of your base cabinets in the toe-kick area
• Add legs to the ends, or to support an eating overhang. Check antique tables for proportions and sizes: some island legs I’ve seen in magazines are way oversized and clunky-looking to my eye.
• Use small gaps between your base cabinets for cookbook shelves, bottle storage, display niches, cutting board or baking sheet storage, pull-out towel storage, narrow pullout racks for spices, etc.
• Do without a toe-kick and have legs or a pedestal instead, especially in historic houses where this would have been done in the original period. Try the pedestal idea before you do it, to make sure you can still work at the counter without banging your toes.
• If one side of your island faces the living or family room, and that side is not an eating counter, display cabinets with glass doors look wonderful lit from inside. Safety glass and a solid bottom part to the doors reduce the risk of accidents.
• Build your island in an identifiable style that contrasts with the rest of the kitchen: Craftsman, Victorian, Modern, Art Deco or Southwestern can all make an interesting change

Countertop

• Use a countertop material different from that used on your counters round the edge of the room
• Order a special edge treatment: no matter what countertop material you use, the edges can be customized
• Use a custom-shaped countertop which overhangs the cabinets
• Combine more than one countertop material: perhaps a butcher-block prep area with a marble slab for pastry
• Include flip-up or pull-out worktop sections to extend your counter space

Materials

• Change cabinet finishes on the island: dark vs light cabinets, painted vs stained, antique-look vs modern
• Use two-tone finishes on the island cabinets: light and dark wood panels, distressed or antiqued paint finishes
• Customize the non-door ends and sides of your island: panel with decorative materials like beadboard or tile, panels or doors to match your cabinets, even wallpaper or fabric (varnished for protection). You could also use a translucent material and light it from the inside.

Details

• Use different hardware on the island, different in style, material or both
• Add rails, racks, pegs, hooks, holders etc wherever they’ll be useful
• ‘Dock’ a movable island or cart in or under a larger fixed island for flexibility
• Light your island with multiple decorative pendant lights: mini-chandeliers, art glass shades, industrial lighting, whatever fits your style. Dimmable, of course!
• Use corbels or brackets to support overhangs as well as or instead of legs. These could match corbels used elsewhere in the kitchen, perhaps supporting a hood over the range.

Appliances and Fixtures

• Add appliance drawers: fridge, freezer, dishwasher, or warmer.
• Include an interesting sink which would be impractical as your main sink: an odd shape like a trough or unusual material like copper
• An unusual or specialized faucet makes a great island feature too
• Instead of a standard cooktop in the island, use separate burners arranged in a row, or a mix of different fuel types, a grill, or induction units.

Potential Island Problems to Avoid

• Squeezing an island into a space which isn’t large enough
• creating a “barrier island” which interrupts the legs of the work triangle
• expensive plumbing work to have a sink in your island
• expensive ventilation work to have a cooktop in your island
• no visual break to hide sink- or range-side mess on the island
• too-short overhangs intended for eating, resulting in bumped knees
• cramped and too-narrow aisles round the island
• appliance doors which open into people sitting at the island
• pointy corners and edges on island worktops (ouch!)
• appliance doors on the island and perimeter directly across from each other, which interfere
• Lights not centered over the island when they should be
• Safety issues with cooktop too close to diners
• Electrical outlets in island cabinets interfere with interior fittings like pullouts or drawer slides
• Island legs which interfere with diners legs
• Making the island too narrow or too small altogether

Kitchen floor plans can benefit greatly from a custom kitchen island, but only if you can avoid the potential gotchas!

One of the best locations for an island is between the kitchen area and the living or family area of a large all-purpose room. There is usually enough space in a room like this to make an island workable, and the island can mark off the boundaries of the kitchen area and provide seating space without creating tight squeezes in the process.

Things to watch out for in your kitchen island designs:

• creating a “barrier island” which interrupts the legs of the work triangle
• expensive plumbing work to have a sink in your island
• expensive ventilation work to have a cooktop in your island
• visual breaks to hide sink- or range-side mess on the island
• too-short overhangs intended for eating, resulting in bumped knees
• cramped aisles round the island
• appliance doors which open into people sitting at the island
• pointy corners and edges on island worktops (ouch!)

The tool used to solve these problems in design is the concept of work centers or zones. A work center groups everything needed to do a specific type of task into a single area.

The three major zones are:

Food Prep Center Near fridge, near sink (may have its own sink separate from the main cleanup sink), near trash and compost containers: needs counter space, knife storage, cutting boards, measuring and mixing utensils, small appliances such as food processor or blender, casseroles and baking dishes, flavorings, cookbook storage, graters.

Cooking Center Range (stove) or cooktop and ventilation: oven may be located separately if it’s not part of a range (possibly near the baking zone). If you cook using your microwave, you might include it in this zone (possibly mounted over the range), but if you mainly use it for heating up snacks it could be better located outside the main work triangle where non-cooks can access it without getting in the way. Close to the food prep center so that food can go directly from prep to cooking. If you do a lot of cooking involving large pots of water (pasta for 12, canning, etc) a faucet nearby can be very useful. Small cooking appliances like the toaster, toaster oven, convection oven, deep fryer etc might be located here or in a separate snack center. Storage for frypans, possibly saucepans, pot lids, cooking utensils, salt, pepper and spices (away from heat), oils, vinegars and other flavorings, oven mitts and gloves, fire extinguisher.

Cleanup Center Main sink, dishwasher, garbage disposal, trash and compost bins, recycling bins, waste compactor; storage for cleaning materials, dishtowels, food storage containers and materials, paper towels, garbage bags, colanders and strainers, possibly everyday dishes and flatware (near dishwasher), possibly saucepans (near water source).

Depending on your cooking and eating style, you may have other work centers too:

Baking Center Counter space (may include marble or stone slab for rolling pastry): cookie sheets and baking tins, cookie cutters, rolling pins, electric mixer, food processor, food storage for baking ingredients, cake decorating equipment, cookbook storage, measuring and mixing utensils, mixing bowls.

Snack Center Close to refrigerator, cup and dish storage: includes microwave and toaster ovens, popcorn maker, coffee and tea making equipment and materials, water cooler, microwave-safe dishes and dish covers, oven mitts, snack foods.

Eating Center Eating surface and seating (could be a table and chairs, breakfast bar and stools, or built-in nook); storage for dishes and flatware, napkins and placemats, condiments.

Clearly, there is some overlap between the equipment and materials needed in each work center. Where you choose to keep what depends on your cooking style and needs, the size of your kitchen, and placement of centers near each other. You might also choose to duplicate some items (anything from measuring cups to dishwashers) in several zones if you have the space and it makes work more convenient.

Many of the free tools for kitchen design online are available from manufacturers websites, and in that case they concentrate on products from that manufacturer, plus a range of things like appliances.

Cabinet Liquidators Online Design Tool

• Free, browser-based
• Works with Foxfire and Internet Explorer
• How it works: choose a basic kitchen shape, customize to match your kitchen, choose cabinets.
• Cabinet and appliance selection is limited
• Printed plans are basic but clear.
• Create an account and plans can be saved as a template (so you can make multiple kitchen layouts for the same space) or a plan.
• This tool worked well and quickly, and was simple to use.

Merillat 3D Kitchen Design Planner

• Free, browser-based
• Internet Explorer only (requires download of an ActiveX control)
• How it works: there are three pathways. You can use a wizard to walk you through an initial kitchen design, you can start with a template, or you can start from scratch in the advanced designer.
• Wizard is simple to use, though slow. Layout designer non-intuitive, very similar to HGTV below, with a slightly different interface.
• Create an account and plans can be saved.

IKEA Kitchen Planner

• Link goes to a multi-planner page which allows you to download the kitchen planner as well as those for bedrooms and offices
• Free, downloads to your own computer
• Slow
• Easy to use
• Allows you to enter custom sizes for appliances, you’re not limited only to IKEA’s
• If you’re considering an IKEA kitchen, check out the IKEA Kitchen Secrets ebook

If you’ve already decided on a cabinet line, check the manufacturer or retailer’s website to see if they have a kitchen planner tool featuring your chosen cabinets.

The next option includes products from a wide range of manufacturers, not just one.

HGTV Kitchen Design: Online Designer

• Free, browser-based
• Works only with Internet Explorer, not Foxfire or other browsers, and requires installation of an ActiveX tool.
• How it works: you choose a basic layout (galley, L etc), then choose from a range of pre-built plans for that layout. You can then customize the products (appliances, etc) used in your plan, but not the layout. The separate layout planner tool is used to create a plan for your own kitchen: I was not able to see a link between the two modes.
• Very product-oriented
• You can save your designs and product lists by creating a free account. You are supposed to be able to do this after creating a plan, but I had problems doing it this way round and recommend you create your account first. Signup requires a valid US address and zip code.
• Slow (even on high speed cable)
• Flaky – refused to display my chosen base plan until I’d viewed the tutorial, then every time I tried to save a plan, it told me the name was in use, no matter what I typed in.
• If you have a small kitchen, you’ll need to choose a larger size to begin – minimum size in the Layout Planner is 10′ x 10′ – then adjust the size downwards later on.
• Definitely not intuitive to use.

Paid tools can be browser-based or desktop software. Most have a free trial available so you can try before you buy.

Plan 3D

3D Home Design Tool: Create custom kitchens, bathrooms, landscaping, etc. online – Free! www.Plan3D.com

• browser-based, paid tool (free trial available)
• Much more detailed and powerful than free tools
• You don’t buy this software outright, you buy a subscription to use it on the web.
• Cost depends on length of subscription, but you can subscribe for just one month

As well as kitchen design online, there are other paid tools which run on your own computer, including Chief Architect, SoftPlan and SmartDraw. A followup article will describe these tools.

The Kitchen Floor Plan

For people who care most about how their kitchen works

If you’re someone to whom function is most important, then you can start by laying out a variety of possible kitchen floor plans. To begin with, you don’t need to make this a carefully-measured scale drawing – indeed, it’s better if you don’t. A sketch plan of your room with the doors and windows and the existing positions of gas, water and power lines is a great starting point.

The first items to place are the points of the classic work triangle: the fridge, cooktop (or range or stove) and sink. These partly correspond with today’s idea of “work centers”: the food-storage center, cooking center, and cleanup center. However, nowadays kitchens can have more than one sink, more than one cooking location, and even more than one dishwasher, so play with multiples if you want to.

Try making paper cutouts of these (or use one of the many planning kits which provide them) and move them around on your floor plan to make different arrangements. Make sketches of arrangements you think might be useful, or take a quick photo with a digital camera.

Some questions to think about as you play:

• Where do we eat? Which work center should be closest? Should it be the fridge for quick snacks and drinks, the range to serve cooked meals, or the sink to gather dirty dishes?
• How much fresh food do we use? What path does it take through the kitchen?
• What else happens in the kitchen as well as cooking? Where should it happen, and who is involved?
• What’s the main traffic flow through the kitchen, and can we re-route it outside the main work triangle?
• How many people cook together? Do we need two work triangles? Two sinks?
• Does any one with special needs use the kitchen? Kids? Seniors? People with disabilities?

Kitchen Decorating

For people who care most about how the kitchen looks

Another way to begin your kitchen designs – yes, it’s better to come up with more than one at the beginning! – is to start with how it looks. What’s your favorite style?

Professional: huge stainless-steel gas range; open shelving racks; array of shining pans and utensils; super-hardwearing and cleanable surfaces …

Country: wood everywhere; open shelving, buffets and hutches; rough finishes and natural materials; round handles…

Euro: smooth cabinet-fronts, closed storage, minimalist color schemes, integrated appliances, stainless steel, tile floors …

Traditional: Dark wood paneled cabinets; patterned fabrics; wood floors; discreet appliances in plain colors …

Retro: pick your decade and go wild with laminate patterns, dinette sets, rounded appliances, and metal edgings …

Historic: Cabinets with face frames and inset doors, freestanding furniture, old-fashioned (but new featured!) appliances, porcelain sinks, bin pull handles, wooden counter tops …

Contemporary: Clean lines; stainless-steel appliances; glass tile backsplash; granite counters; undermount sinks …

Of course, all of these styles have sub-styles within them, and you can also mix together styles for your very own eclectic style.