Your best kitchen design tips please

[horseymum]

I know there are loads of kitchen threads but
I'm just at the initial stages and want your top tips, the things you love about your kitchen or those you wish you hadn't bothered with.
Probably thinking of IKEA as Howdens pricing frustrates me. Main thing I dislike about current kitchen is fussy beading which makes it hard to clean and frame doors which limit space.

I have a separate, very stylish bin which sits in the corner of the kitchen (well away from any heat source!), which means a) it facilitates recycling and b) it frees up space in the cupboards.

We found that our kitchen waste decreased massively when we switched from a large bin to a small one - no idea why as we didn't change recycling habits etc. Maybe smaller waste bins allow you to compact it more.

Biggest design choice we made was to not let the sales person design it. We worked with oneplan who doesn't sell anything, then shopped around . Seen others mention karen on here too . She's so knowledgeable and listens to your requirements etc. ( @OnePlanOnHouzz if she's still on Mumsnet hopefully she'll contribute to the thread too )

Yes agree with doing your own layout. With squared paper it’s fairly easy.

Draw a layout, including roughly what you would store where. Then imagine doing some everyday tasks like making a cup of tea, making breakfast or some of your usual meals, clearing the table, unloading the dishwasher. See if any of those tasks involve something really annoying (eg plates are miles from dishwasher or bin is nowhere near prep area) or unsafe (eg you’d need to carry boiling pasta water or hot oven tray a long distance). If so then think again. Keep doing it over and over until you are happy. There will always be one or two compromises so it’s a question of what you can live with.

I used the Ikea online design tool
and then printed out the sheets and took them to other suppliers
ended up with ikea though

Bin location - as a PP mentioned, it doesn't work for us near the sink / dishwasher as after dinner one person is usually washing up and the other is then trying to get round them to scrape plates etc. We found right next to the side door was best for us - out of the way enough and also easy to take the bin out without bin juice going all over the kitchen floor. Our fridge is also near so it's good if you're having a quick clear out of anything old / gone off.

@EastCoastDamsel only just seeing this now, thanks so much, that's looks fab, I'm really building a picture of what I want now .

Be aware of what cupboards you block while preparing food - I'm forever being asked to move so someone else can get out cutlery to lay table, or unload dishwasher - keep plates, glasses and cutlery etc off to another side if you can.

Not RTFT so sorry if someone has already mentioned this, but Jamie Oliver has a good tip in one of his books ( I think it’s Jamie’s Dinners). He says to imagine a meal you cook all the time, say spag bol or chicken curry or whatever. Then think about cooking it in your kitchen space, from moving between the fridge and the store cupboard for the ingredients, to the chopping board and the knives to the pan drawer to where you keep the utensils to the hob. Plot it in a piece of paper and think about how efficient
your lay out is when you’re actually cooking a meal.

Yup
I worked on my design for months (while the kitchen was being built)
and thought about

• the food preparation triangle (fridge cooker counter)
• loading and unloading the dishwasher
• laying the table while somebody is cooking
• accessing pan lids with only one free hand
• stopping people bumping the person stirring things on the hob
• no dark corners to reach into

and ten years on I am entirely happy with my layout