Kitchens 101 - Part 2 by Darren Palmer

Layout The modern version of our demonstration kitchen is basically the same layout as the 50s version due to space constraints. It’s a straight line kitchen with a small L kick at the end. There are several different kitchen layouts and the trick is to pick the best layout for the space you’re working with. L shaped can be good for tight spaces as are the straight line as shown. I’ve lifted the following diagrams from a website to show you the different shaped designs. You’ll note the triangle drawn on each that indicates the working triangle, that is the relationship of the sink to the oven to the fridge, these having to be within a sensible distance from each other. I would give my earlier comment about benchspace precedence over the working triangle. In fact I’ll give a few comments on the layouts provided:

L SHAPED

Good for small spaces and open floor plans it makes a perfect working triangle though does leave the kitchen very exposed to the rest of the room which means that it’s design is even more important. I really fight against the very “kitcheny” kitchen designs that you see routinely from kitchen companies. I believe thoroughly that a kitchen that can be seen from a living space should be a beautiful piece of furniture and sculptural in nature. Here’s one of mine:

U SHAPED KITCHEN

Again gives a perfect working triangle but has 2 voids or hard to reach spots on either corner. Not so suitable for a wide kitchen as it makes it less practical to get from one side to the other. U shaped kitchens can often have a pass through wall section that allows an eat-in breakfast bar from one side and storage on the other. This is an example of a U shaped kitchen from a BEFORE photo of a project I completed;

GALLEY KITCHEN

Good for corridor spaces it’s well suited to smaller homes or apartments. Leave at least 1m between the 2 sides. Australian Standards recommend 1.2m. I turned the U shaped kitchen shown previously into a galley to great effect giving more storage and benchspace and more visual space to boot:

G SHAPED KITCHEN

This is the stock standard kitchen company design. Has plenty of benefits as you can have a breakfast bar, lots of bench space and storage. Can look very “kitcheny” but doesn’t have to. Here’s one that I prepared earlier:

Not that I have concealed the fridge and pantry into one unit that also holds all of the appliances behind a neat drawer freeing up the benchspace visually and practically.

STRAIGHT LINE KITCHEN

Good for small spaces and often seen in apartments and again, as it would often face into a room it is even more important that it’s beautifully designed. Note my rule of having at least 2 cabinets or 1.2m between sink and cooktop.

STRAIGHT LINE KITCHEN WITH ISLAND If you have the space it can be good to add in an island bench to the straight line kitchen for added storage and bench space:

The kitchen shown here has a laundry on one side, the fridge on the other, a shelf hidden behind the far right cupboard that pulls out with the toaster, kettle and blender arranged neatly on it, so you can use these everyday items and still hide them away. Also the door pockets back to the right side allowing full access to the laundry when used and keeping the door out of harms way. Another neat feature of this kitchen is the mirrored splash back:

It slides up on a track to reveal a bar making use of the space that would have been lost to make up for the depth of the fridge and laundry cabinets being 800mm deep as apposed to the 600 deep underbench cabinets. Confused? The layout of your property will really dictate most of the time what is the best layout for the space though it’s important to remember that the current layout and even the current position are not always the best ones. In the case above the entire kitchen was relocated from the end of the property to the centre of the property. This brings with it it’s own set of follies, those being mainly moving plumbing and gaslines when you don’t have the ability to cut the slab or access the apartment below. In this case it was as simple as running along the wall of the bedroom that was between the old kitchen and new and concealing the plumbing in a box that the bed was built around. Considerations here are the fall of the water being achievable with the distance you need to span to the old exit points. Check with your plumber but a guide to for 100mm pipes, the type normally used for residential drainage, minimum acceptable falls are 1:40 for Foul Water and 1:100 for Surface Water. Larger diameter pipes may have gentler gradients in certain circumstances. Light The 50s kitchen had very little natural light. This was due to a few factors but basically all of the finishes just soaked up the light like an old grey sponge. Lighting a kitchen isn’t rocket science, you just need to think about how the space is going to be used. A well lit kitchen has: 1 Task lighting – under cabinet lighting that shines down on the working surface above areas of preparation or activity like the cooktop or sink. If you don’t have overhead cabinets use directable gimble halogen lighting to spot light the usable areas. 2 Ambient lighting – lighting to light the room itself. This doesn’t mean one oyster light in the middle of the room or a flouro tube. It could be that you light one wall as I did in the AFTER example or even spray the ceiling with light from atop the cabinets as I did in the “Straight line with island bench” kitchen. As

much creativity should go into the ambient lighting in a kitchen as any other room. 3 Day time light – bringing in as much natural light for the daytime as possible. Highly reflective surfaces like mirror and gloss paint or tile can work wonders in bringing in light, even in darker colours. If you have a freestanding home you can consider skylights as an option to lighten up dark rooms, or perhaps the room itself needs to be moved to a lighter place in the property. 4 Dining lighting – like in the G shaped example you can do some interesting things with an oversized pendant or other designer lighting to shed light on island benches. 5 Dimmers – you need to create mood in a kitchen as much as any other space.

Ventilation Cooktops need to vent the steam and odors that come from the cooking process. You have several options in terms of ventilation: Pull out

(ugly)

Undermount

(integrated)

T shape

(these are getting more and more beautiful to compete with the sculptural “designer” extraction units)

Sculptural

(Designed to disguise the ugliness of a rangehood though can perhaps create their own design problems by drawing attention to themselves)

Down draft

(the most integrated and discreet solution though the most expensive and requires an extraction unit to be housed somewhere taking up valuable storage space)

Each has benefits and draw backs. At this time as far as I know Undermount Rangehoods can not recirculate - ie they need to vent to the exterior of the property. The same is true for downdrafts (extraction units that pop out of the bench) though they can be custom fit with filters which allow them to filter the exhaust and vent back into the room, either above or below the cabinets.

Appliances Modern appliances are a long way from 50s electric elements and gas ovens. There’s a myriad of choice for cooktops ranging from electric, gas to induction. Apparently induction cooktops can boil water faster than a kettle. They’re the most expensive solution and if you have an issue with 3 Phase power limitations like I had in this 1950s building then you are unable to switch from gas to electric or induction due to power usage allotment per apartment unless you drop off other electrical appliances necessary for apartment living. Electric ovens are more suitable than gas in terms of even cooking. There are new developments though in terms of Steam ovens.

and LG has released the Solardom Lightwave oven that’s the size of a large microwave but integrates several appliances (convection/microwave/lightwave oven and grill) into one, especially good for small spaces and can brown a chook like a conventional oven

in microwave speed.

In a modern kitchen you may need to include wine storage as I did in the darlingpoint apartment. Other “benchtop” appliances are best designed off benches as per the pull out drawer in a cupboard solution that I mentioned earlier. Electrical One should pay close attention to the colour and finish of switches that are used in a kitchen so that they compliment the scheme and disappear into their surrounds. Consider cabling in speakers to the kitchen so that you can enjoy music or the entertainment system. Also a TV outlet may be appropriate depending on your personal requirements. Make sure you allow enough power above the bench top for any blenders or mixers etc you may need whilst cooking, as well as ample power in the appliance storage drawer. I tend to go over rather than under so I’d suggest perhaps 2 x double GPOs for the general appliances (you could safely use 3 double GPOs though if you’re gadget mad or an avid cook) in the appliance area, as well as at least one

double GPO for the bench. A neat idea can be to house you bench GPOs on the underside of the overhead cabinet in a discrete place so as not to interrupt the splashback. There are Australian standards that dictate how far away a GPO needs to be from a sink and a cooktop that your electrician will advise you.

That’s basically the process behind solving all of the obvious problems in terms of the flow, design and look of the kitchen and in my next article I’ll be talking about the process, as a whole, and how you go about redoing a kitchen from old to new.