I’m always looking at ways to make my kitchen more efficient and yet keep it simple at the same time.
Describe your kitchen and how you could make it more efficient. In making it more efficient, would it cost or could you do it with very limited finances, but just haven’t.
Our kitchen is blended with our dining area. I’d sure like a little island (roll around) between them to kind of “split” them up. And, for more counter room and storage room as well.
Susie in MN
Our kitchen is located between the dining room and the breakfast nook, right off the foyer. We have counters on 3 walls with cabinets above and below and ceramic tile on the floor. Our cabinets are natural wood with a poly finish. The counter is grayish and blends well.
As for the efficient part - make the rest of the family leave home for several days and let me clean it from top to bottom again. (Done this as part of Spring cleaning but you can’t tell). One thing we need to do is get some of the mess off the counters. Mel is on lots of meds and keeps them all on the counter where he can see them. Drives me crazy. Also all our snack foods are on the counters. I keep putting them in the cabinets and they keep pulling them out for easy access.
I love this thread. Had to bump it up. My kitchen is at the back of the house. It was 12x24. I wanted it bigger. We want enough room for when family or friends come, they can all sit at the table. I hate having people sit at the sofa, some people in the kitchen, some on porch, some here, some there. So, darrell knocked out part of the outside wall and made my kitchen part bigger. It’s now 12 ft. long and 20 ft. wide. I have a big island in the middle and where he knocked it out, we have a little antique table and chairs. When it’s just us, we eat there. The big dining room part is the rest of the kitchen. Darrell also built me a pantry, it’s 14 ft. long and 8 ft. wide. It holds my refrigerator, and freezer plus cupboards and a counter in between the fridge and cabinet. The guys can bring the groceries in and set them on the counter and I don’t have to move hardly at all to put stuff away. I love it. It’s very organized for me and there is lots of room for my canning to sit. Gail
I have a very small kitchen. If there are two people in it, it gets crowded! DH says that’s good reason to keep out! It opens onto the dining room though and that room opens onto our huge outside deck…so it never feels like I an shut away when I’m working there. In the next few years I’d like to replace the cupboard doors as they’re getting a bit worn. Same with the bench (you’d call it a ‘counter’ LOL). The formica is a bit worn in places so a new surface would be good. I’d like more high cupboards as all of mine are low (except for the pantry cupboard). It’s getting harder to get up & down to see what’s in the back of the low ones lately!
Your kitchen sounds like a lovely warm place for family to be together Gail.
We have a small kitchen but it was worse we used to eat in it also. We added on to the house and made a dining room… So finally last year after lots of research we gutted the kitchen and started from scratch. We leaned how to make our own cabinets… We did this to save money and for maximum storage. We now hae to learn to make the doors but I am pleased with the work so far.
We made pull out shelves, lazy susan in the corner and adjustable shelves. The adjustable shelves are fantastic… I even made a second set of small cabinets on top of the others so they go to the ceiling yes I need a step stool but I only put things up there I use maybe 1x a year.
Over the fridge we built a VERY deep cabinet with upright dividers that I store all cookie sheets, cooling racks, pizza stones… and chips yes chips dh wanted a place to store tortilla chips for when I make salsa.
because we made the cabinets the european way they have adjustable legs instead of a solid piece of wood. so it means the to kick will snap off to allow for storage if we choose or for running electrical and plumbing under the cabinents mine will have a built in step stool attached to the kick plate.
learning to do it ourselvs made all the difference… now I have a kitchen you can actually work in.
[QUOTE=itlw8;22113]We have a small kitchen but it was worse we used to eat in it also. We added on to the house and made a dining room… So finally last year after lots of research we gutted the kitchen and started from scratch. We leaned how to make our own cabinets… We did this to save money and for maximum storage. We now hae to learn to make the doors but I am pleased with the work so far.
We made pull out shelves, lazy susan in the corner and adjustable shelves. The adjustable shelves are fantastic… I even made a second set of small cabinets on top of the others so they go to the ceiling yes I need a step stool but I only put things up there I use maybe 1x a year.
Over the fridge we built a VERY deep cabinet with upright dividers that I store all cookie sheets, cooling racks, pizza stones… and chips yes chips dh wanted a place to store tortilla chips for when I make salsa.
because we made the cabinets the european way they have adjustable legs instead of a solid piece of wood. so it means the to kick will snap off to allow for storage if we choose or for running electrical and plumbing under the cabinents mine will have a built in step stool attached to the kick plate.
learning to do it ourselvs made all the difference… now I have a kitchen you can actually work in.[/QUOTE]
I’d love to see pictures of your cabinets. I just can’t wrap my mind around the adjustable legs.
Our house was built in 1946. Whoever the builder was, didn’t cook! It is so small and you only have turn around room in it. If more than one person comes in, you really an’t move! We would like to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, and expand the area to be more efficient. Still I would like to keep the layout simple. The area could be better used to entertain, too! As we have an arched doorway that goes from the living room into the dining room.
Back then I guess houses were mostly designed by men…hence scant attention was paid to the needs of the cook! I don’t mind small rooms if there is just one or two people home. It’s nice and cosy then! However once the grandkids arrive we suddenly need LOTS of space!:lol:
Well other than some obvious cosmetic changes, while we have a full formal dining room, we do not have an eat-in kitchen! It’s weird to me! It would be far more efficient if we could eat in there!