Kitchen Improvements To Make For Hassle-Free Cooking

You don’t have to embark on massive kitchen remodelling to improve how you cook, bake and prep your food. Sometimes, it just takes a little planning, some organizing, and a bit of investing in quality products that could make your kitchen a place where you can cook hassle-free. Give the tips below a try:

Think About Your Flow

I get it. It can be exciting to fill up your kitchen with all the appliances you can afford, but before you go on a shopping spree, decide on a kitchen layout, or begin your remodelling, make sure you think about your flow and kitchen traffic.

Designers recommend creating imaginary action triangles in your kitchen. This could be a single triangle or multiple ones, depending on the size of your kitchen. But the idea is to be able to keep everything within arm’s reach.

For example, all the baking pans, baking cups, wax paper, and other tools for baking has their own action triangle near the oven. If you have a small kitchen, focus on the refrigerator, stovetop and sink as your three points of the triangle and plan your kitchen storages and racks from there.

Do you cook alone or with your entire family? Consider this too, and leave space (of at least 48 inches wide) free for the kitchen aisles.

Think Ahead Of Your Kitchen Collection While Storage-planning.

Thinking about storage before any major remodelling or construction is key to keeping your kitchen clean, efficient and organized in the future. You may not have the money to buy your dream oven yet, but if you’re decided on buying that model, include its measurements for its built-in storage.

List down all your existing kitchen appliances and tools. Once you’re done, think about all other gadgets, baking accessories and kitchen tools on your wish list, and plan your storage accordingly.

Organize Your Appliances By Function

When you focus on the kitchen traffic, you’ll understand why organizing your kitchen items by function makes more sense. Everything just becomes easier to reach while you’re baking or cooking.

If you place your stand mixer near the oven, along with your baking pans, measuring cups and other baking tools, then you don’t have to exert too much effort gathering your materials whenever you want to bake. Not only does this technique keep other areas of your kitchen clean, but it also prevents spilling, slipping, and other accidents that may come from moving too much.

Consider Your Flooring Too

A hassle-free kitchen could also mean there are fewer potential hazards with every step or move you make. When you’re remodelling, don’t forget your flooring too.

For example: if you decide on a rug, make sure that these rugs are anti-slip, so they don’t become slippery when they get wet.

For other types of flooring materials, go with light-colored ones to create the illusion of more space and allow you to see spills more easily.

Let Your Kitchen Breathe

If you’re always bothered by the heat in your kitchen, find a way to let your kitchen breathe. For those remodelling, maybe you can make a hole for a window. If this isn’t possible, your best bet is some kind of ventilation like a range hood, which ensures proper air circulation and removes the cooking smells in your kitchen.

Brighten Your Kitchen Space With Lighting

Want to make your kitchen look more friendly and inviting to your kids and other housemates? Add lighting as main lights, backsplash, under-cabinet, inside cabinets and other possible lighting options to create the perfect ambience for your kitchen.

Adding lights not only brightens the space but also allows you to prepare food safely. This doesn’t even have to be expensive since you could add pendant lights gradually whenever you get extra funds.

Add A Small Office Space In Your Kitchen

Do you work from home? If you do and you find cooking a hassle, you can continue work while watching over your meals being cooked nearby. Just leave a space for your small office, where you can place your laptop, notebook, smartphone or other work-related devices and paperwork free from liquids, spills and dirt.

There Is Always Storage Space To Be Found

For people who feel like their kitchens are too small, you’d be surprised that there is always storage space to be found or created. You can do the following:

• Delegate specific drawers just for utensils, or all baking tools. Put all food prep tools like graters, peelers, and similar devices in another drawer.
• Add racks or shelves in strategic locations. Have unused space on top of your sink? Maybe you can add a pair of shelves there for your coffee-making appliance from your stovetop espresso maker to your traditional French press.

Minimalism Can Do Wonders For Your Kitchen Organization.

Sometimes you don’t even need remodelling or to buy expensive items. For some kitchens, the overflowing of appliances and tools may be the very thing that makes cooking a hassle.

If this is the case, simplify your kitchen tools, let go of gadgets that you haven’t used in over a year and try to choose items that do double-duty (such as Mason jars that can be used both as food storage and drinking glasses).

Add An Island: Built-in vs Freestanding

If you really have nowhere to place your kitchen tools, add a center island that would be perfect for the available space at the center of your kitchen.

Built-in is ideal since this option would allow you to maximize your available space. However, if custom islands are not a possibility, find a freestanding kitchen island that you could buy and use to your advantage.

For homeowners who know carpentry, you can try to personalize the storage options below the island.

Whatever tip you decide to follow above, make sure to be realistic to your budget, preference and activities you do in the kitchen. What use is the commercial Kitchenaid stand mixer if you don’t plan to bake or grind meat? Why prepare a place for an espresso machine if you’re not really a coffee drinker?

And lastly, always choose quality, functionality and durability over quantity. The ‘as seen on TV’ kitchen gadgets almost always do not last.

For more tips like this, check out Kitchen Gearoid, your kitchen appliance resource.