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Features Hygienic NANOSILVER Coated Foils. |
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Kitchen Designer Anna Maria Vona
The kitchen is such an integral part of the home, and is the core of everything that says and means “family.” We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, job promotions, and graduations by inviting friends and family to share in our joy by sharing a meal together. In turn, when things are somber, we take solace in the comfort of the kitchen.
It is for these reasons that anyone contemplating a new kitchen should seriously consider lifestyle and family needs, in addition to evaluating and selecting the appliances you will need and use every day. Once the decisions about the appliances are made, the design of the kitchen will naturally flow around the appliance selections. Most people immediately begin to design the kitchen by focusing initially on the cabinetry style and how many cabinets can fit into the floor plan. Then they try to shoehorn the appliances around the cabinets. However, that usually results in an inefficient kitchen where all the emphasis is on the design style instead of the ergonomics and efficiencies of the kitchen. In order to begin evaluating your appliance selections, you must begin with your own lifestyle and the needs of your family, and then gradually take your ultimate wish list into consideration. For example, are you a busy professional, newly married with no children? Then most likely, your days begin very early and end very late. Cooking is probably the last thing on your mind, and you may rely heavily on take-out or quickly prepared foods. In that case, the microwave will most likely be the focus of your kitchen. Are you so much into gourmet cooking that you invent get-togethers and parties to show off your culinary prowess? Is baking cookies and cakes your idea of family togetherness? If you are both a serious cook and a serious baker and you do both of them very well, then you certainly have many decisions to make. Some of those decisions would involve whether to have a double wall oven or a professional-style range with an oven below. Do you want a large, stainless-steel professional range like a Viking or Wolf? Or, do you want a sleek, minimalist look with attention focused away from the oven and cooktop? If the focus of your cooking involves the preparation of a large variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, then you most certainly will need two sinks. One sink should be large to accommodate anything that you can dish up, while the other sink should be a prep sink to wash and prepare all your fruits and vegetables. In order to keep a ready supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, you will probably want an undercounter refrigerator drawer nearby your prep sink. You'll also want to consider all of the latest accoutrements for your sink, such as built-in chopping blocks, built-in strainers and colanders, and a flexible hose that detaches from the main faucet with a spray setting. If you prepare a lot of stews, soups, and pasta dishes, you will most likely want to have a pot filler affixed directly to the wall in back of your cooktop. In order to keep all your ingredients fresh as well as properly storing your completed dishes, you need to look into the attributes of a food preservation refrigerator such as Sub-Zero. If you select a Sub-Zero model, you need to carefully assess your needs and choose the right model for your cooking style. Do you entertain frequently and make fresh fruit platters or cheese trays in advance that must be refrigerated before your guests arrive? If so, then steer clear of a side-by-side model, because you may be unable to fit large trays in a side-by-side model. You'll want a model with the freezer on the bottom so that you can have full access to the wider width of the refrigerator on top. Perhaps your back aches more frequently now, or your knees are wobbly? Then you may eschew a freezer on the bottom and go for the side-by-side model so that you won't have to bend down. Each refrigerator model has its pros and cons, but you must consider how you cook and how you function in the kitchen ergonomically. If you entertain frequently and are a wine connoisseur, you will most definitely want a wine cooler to both display your wines and keep them at the correct temperature and degree of humidity. Where will you display your wine cooler: in the kitchen where the wine would be handy when cooking, in the Butler's Pantry so that it's a little more out of the way with cabinets for glassware nearby? Or, how about creating your own wine cellar in a little room off the kitchen? It is for all these reasons and more that you must seriously consider the selection of your appliances before you select your kitchen cabinetry. Once all your appliances are selected and dropped into your master kitchen plan by your kitchen designer, you will see how easy it is to make the countless other small decisions that go into planning a new kitchen or renovating an older kitchen. Once you have your master plan in place and you have a good grasp on your own daily cooking and entertaining needs, the rest of your kitchen will fall into place like the last pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle. More Editorials |
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