organize Your Own Kitchen - settle Your Needs and part the Space

Design Your Own Kitchen - Here's How

Article #1 - Defining Goals-Storage Capacity.

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This is the first in a series of articles about designing your own new or remodel kitchen. I will cover creating written plans and drawings, cabinet types, after-market hardware, ventilation, trim elements, plumbing, countertops, electrical / lighting systems, windows and undertaker of a package deal selection among other goodies. In other words, most of the topics that would be covered by a kitchen design pro while a design / remodel process.

The articles in the series toddle in logical order from basic design considerations to facility tips. You do not have to be an uber handyman to understand the concepts I'm presenting. On the contrary, a lack of preliminary knowledge on the part of the reader might be a good thing. Such a reader might be more inclined to de facto consider some of the ideas presented without pre-conceived notions or prejudices. Some of the best kitchens are designed by artistic types who know tiny to nothing about building but are clear about their needs.

I spent practically 10 years as a full-time commissioned kitchen designer. In that time I designed hundreds of kitchens and oversaw the facility of virtually all of them. I no longer work in the field so I have no financial incentive to suggest any singular products or methods. My sole intention is to show you what works and to help you straight through the process. Whether you design / install your own kitchen or have the work done by a studio, independent undertaker of a package deal or other source, I hope you find this data usefu in planning a well idea out and workable kitchen design.

Once the decision is made to remodel or install a new kitchen the tendency is to jump ahead and immediately start seeing at catalogs and visiting showrooms for "inspiration". My advice: resist the temptation. Why? Because you must define the workspace functionally in a very definite way before you even start thinking about "product". At this point, showrooms are a distraction. Function drives form, not the other way around-so let's take things in their logical order, plan first, shop later.

First, a tiny considerable lingo to get you talkin' the trade. Cabinets on walls over the countertops are referred to as "walls", cabinets sitting under countertops are called "bases" and "talls" are cabinets that run from floor to ceiling, commonly as pantries or similar. A market order for cabinets will list them in that order; Wall, Base, Tall. Sometimes cabinets are also called "boxes" for short, as in "How many boxes in this order?" or "These boxes are de facto nice..." Makes you sound like you are in the know...

Your absolute, don't skip, must do-first step is to take inventory of your anticipated warehouse needs. If you fail this step, you could end up spending mucho bucks for a kitchen that does not have sufficient cabinets to store all your cooking equipment and food. A safe bet bummer, as they say in the trade.

If you're remodeling, you'll portion the existing kitchen. If you are beginning from scratch, go find a kitchen that looks about right and portion it. You're going to swiftly learn the discrepancy between what a kitchen with 150 cubic feet of warehouse looks like and one with 300 cubic feet. Forget about door styles, island designs and fancy stoves. For now consolidate on insight the key portion of warehouse capacity-cubic footage. We'll get to the other stuff later, I promise.

In the kitchen industry, warehouse capacity is measured in cubic feet. Cubic footage is calculated as width x height x depth of a cabinet or cabinet run, in that order. You're going to portion the warehouse capacity of your base, wall and tall cabinets in your current or person else's kitchen. Since practically all cabinets that you will be encountering have thorough depths and heights, all you have to worry about is the total run of cabinets being measured. I'll show you how and give a consolidate of examples to ensure that you're doing this correctly.

Remember to do all calculations and descriptions of cabinet dimensions in the order wide, high, deep (Whd). To keep things uncomplicated I like to do all my capacity calculations in feet, but I'll show both ways.

Wall cabinets are commonly 12" deep and Whether 30", 36" or 42" tall. Therefore an 11' run of 30" high wall cabinets, using inch calculations, would be:

132" x 30" x 12" = 47,520 (132" is 11 feet x 12" per foot)

47,520 / 1,728 = 27 ½ cubic feet of wall cabinets (1,728 is the whole of cubic inches in 1 cubic foot or 12" x 12" x 12")

So your 11' run of 30" high wall cabinets is 27 ½ cubic feet of storage.

Calculated in feet rather than inches, the following would be definite for the above:

11' x 2.5' x 1' =27.5 cubic feet.

Base cabinets are just the same only they are 34½ " high x 24" deep. I typically round the 34½" value to 3' when doing calculations in feet-close enough.

Example: 16' run of base cabinets, calculations in inches:

192" x 34½" x 24" = 158,976

158,976 / 1,728 = 92 cubic feet.

Calculated in feet:

16' x 3' x 2' = 96 cubic feet.

Tall cabinets are Whether 12" or 24" deep depending on the design.

The calculation of the warehouse capacity does not have to be exact, within 5% is good enough. Here are some things to keep in mind when running your measurements:

* Do not consist of the cabinet door in the depth measurements, you're only measuring the "carcase" or actual box dimensions. Keep it simple!

* When measuring an "L" shaped run, do not portion the inside of the "L" twice, portion the whole length of one side, portion the total length of the other side and deduct Whether 24" for bases or 12" for walls.

* Do not consist of the width of appliances in the determination in a run, i.e. Deduct 30" for a stove and 24" for a dishwasher in a run.

* consist of the width of all sink cabinets in a run.

* Don't forget the cabinet over the refrigerator.

* bottom line, if it's a cabinet, consist of it in the run. If it's empty space like a refrigerator, stove or dishwasher bay, leave it out of your warehouse measurements.

Let's assume you've just terminated measuring your existing layout that you plan on remodeling and it came in at 225 cubic feet. This is your benchmark number.

Here's what you do next. Round up all the loose items presently stored oustide the kitchen that you want to consist of in the new design; extra canned food in the garage, brooms or maybe a vacuum in the hall closet, cooking tools you're lusting after, roaster pan presently stored in the tool shed, you name it. Now go get yourself some cardboard boxes, store all that stuff and portion the cubic footage of the boxes. Be sure to load the boxes in a similar manner as you would load a kitchen cabinet-no cramming allowed. Add your extra cubic footage requirement to the existing kitchen and you now have the real number. Congrats! You've completed step one. Now it's time to think about potential solutions.

So, how much capacity are you adding to the existing layout? 10-25-50%, more?

The examine becomes; "Where will the extra capacity come from?" To meet your goals you Whether optimize the existing space or configure a new floor plan.

Some potential answers to consider, organized from bottom to top cost:

* The over-fridge cabinet should be 24" deep, bet yours is 12" deep. There's 3 supplementary cubic feet.

* Many kitchens with 8' ceilings have 30" high upper cabinets. These can be expanded to 36" or even 42" high cabinets. A 42" high cabinet has 1 extra cubic foot of warehouse per lineal foot compared to a 30" high cab, this adds up if you have a lot of wall space available.

* Hang double-sided cabinets over an existing peninsula.

* Base cabinets with half-depth shelves waste tons of space. Retrofit with ball-bearing rollout trays everywhere.

* Countertop cabinets called hutches can be used to fill odd counter spaces, they are 12-15" deep and in a kitchen with 8' ceilings could be 48" to 54" high. That's 4 cubic feet per linear feet of run.

* Many kitchens have "blind" interior corners in the base and wall runs. A base lazy susan reclaims 12 cubic feet. A "pie cut" wall cabinet gets you 3 supplementary cubes.

* consider replacing part of a wall / base run with a 24" deep pantry unit with rollouts in the bottom and tray dividers up top. You can even get these configured to hold a broom or vacuum.

* If the kitchen abuts a stable wall, build a bay into the stable space and stuff it full of pantry storage.

* Reorganize the kitchen into a double L or L with Island configuration. Done correctly, these are very efficient uses of space.

* Annex part of an adjoining room as new kitchen space.

* Move walls, doors, windows and partitions to claim more real estate for a modified floor plan.

* enlarge the floor plan into new territory by building a bay, a new room or similar. Involves a new foundation, walls and roof line.

* Sell the house, buy a bigger one.

Congratulations, you're well on the way to mastering the process.

organize Your Own Kitchen - settle Your Needs and part the Space

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