Designing Your New Kitchen: Planning Storage Units

Elevations

When you’re satisfied with your floor plan, you should look at the walls head on. To do this, draw tour elevations—one for each wall. If your plans include an island or peninsula, you may want to separate elevation sketches for these as well. On each sketch indicate the location and dimensions of all your kitchen elements, including doors, window openings, counter tops, and appliances. (Counter surfaces are usually 36” from the floor, and upper units begin 18” above that surface.) The main purpose of these first elevations is to detail your storage needs. You have probably al ready determined some of the basics on your floor plans, adjusting counter surfaces to accommodate standard cabinet widths, planning corner cabinets, and so on. Now you want to look at all these potential storage spaces in very specific detail.

Look closely at each work area, and list all the items you need to accomplish your tasks in that area. Draw circles in each area to represent a potential storage unit and list the items you’ll want there. Then think through the activities that will take place in each work area. By the range you’ll be getting out pots and pans, finding lids, reaching for spices, getting spoons and spatulas, or grabbing oven mitts or pot holders. Where do you want these items, and in what way do you want access to them? Do you want pots in a drawer, on a pull-out shell, or hanging on hooks? Would it be easier to have spices on an open shelf on the wall, in a drawer, or on a turn around shell in a cabinet? Do you reach for them with your right or left hand? If you have expansive wail space designated for food, try different ways of dividing that space. Divide it according to food categories and to the way you use these food items. You may want a separate, lower shelf for the children’s snack foods, for in stance, or one for baking ingredients.

When you’ve allotted the space according to function and efficiency, get more specific about dimensions. Establish the cabinet widths you want and whether you want one or two doors. Check the chart and your brochures for standard dimensions. As noted earlier, base and wall cabinets increase in width by 3” increments, and upper cabinets are generally placed 18” above the counter surface. They can go all the way to the ceiling or stop below it. You can leave the space above cabinets open or you can close it with a sot fit. Figure out how high you want each shelf and how deep you want drawers. Include specially items like turnaround shelves in corner cabinets, tip-out drawers in front of the sink, bins for potatoes, and so on.

Follow this procedure for each wall until you’re satisfied that your storage units will meet your needs and are of appropriate dimensions. It’s a good idea to take some time with this step. An extra few hours of finessing at this point could make the difference between storage units that are exactly what you want and those that aren’t quite right. You may need to make some final adjustments on your floor plans, and sketch in the way you want doors to open so you don’t inadvertently build in door and drawer conflicts.

Ill.45

General storage categories. Use circles to indicate what you want where. Plans for storage in this kitchen include: 1) casseroles and baking dishes; 2) cooking utensils; 3) pots and pans; 4) crackers, rice, and grains; 5) roasting pans and pot lids; 6) spices and baking ingredients; 7) knives, slicers, and graters; 8) baking equipment, placemats, and aprons: 9) cookbooks and telephone directories.

Specific storage plans. Previous ideas are altered and detailed to include: 1) teas, coffee, and mixes; 2) a swing-out spice rack; 3) cooking utensils, pots, pans, and lids; 4) cereal boxes; 5) broiler and roasting pans: 6) baking ingredients and grains; 7) baking dishes and utensils; 8) graters and small appliances; 9) knives, mats, aprons, and deep pans. Depths of shelves and drawers are carefully planned.