By Cybele Masterman
Australians spend 60 per cent of their waking hours at home in the kitchen. So, there's not a moment to lose - the time has come to get smart and streamline in our kitchens!
The trick to a time-saving kitchen that minimises elbow grease is clever planning; a great layout with seamless surfaces and innovative appliances to ensure you're out enjoying dinner with your guests in no time. In a nutshell, a smart kitchen is a clutter-free space where everything from the kitchen sink to the fridge sits in the 'natural order' of cooking - everything is close at hand when it's needed.
Meanwhile, easy-to-clean surfaces save on scrubbing time, while appliances that think for themselves, whether it be a self-cleaning oven, smoke-sensing rangehood, sensor lights or ever-ready boiled and chilled filtered water, do the hard yards for you, with a view to creating time to allow you to do what you love - whipping up cuisine masterpieces or spending time with the family, out of the kitchen!
Layout solutions
The recipe for an easy breezy kitchen is to plan the design in sync with the flow of movement. Allow for comfortable distances between each of your primary kitchen tasks:
- storage,
- cooking,
- workspace,
- waste and
- cleaning up.
Three essentials -
- oven/cooktop,
- sink and
- fridge - are positioned at each corner of an invisible triangle. Preferably, each side of the triangle will be three to four metres apart; any bigger and you'll run a marathon every meal, and any smaller you'll be at risk of tripping over yourself.
- dishwasher,
- sink,
- workspace,
- cooking zone and
- fridge," says architect Renata Popovic. "For right-handed people, run the circle anti-clockwise and clockwise for the lefties."
Build storage around these essential ingredients:
- cutlery and crockery need to stay close to the dishwasher and
- sink, pots and pans should live near the cooking zone, and
- pantry items work well near the fridge.
- Meanwhile, knives should be kept in the vicinity of the workbench.
Ideally, allow for a bench space of 450 millimetres next to the fridge, and 300 millimetres on both sides of the cooktop and sink.
Smooth surfaces
Keep things moving with smooth and seamless finishes. Acrylic resins, such as Laminex's Freestyle Surfaces, or custom-fitted stainless steel have no visible joins between the bench and splashback and are quick to clean.
Integrating the sink with the benchtop allows mess to glide straight into the sink without catching on the lip. To make life even easier, grooves can be routed into the bench for drainage.
The same goes for underbench bins. In one sweep, everything disappears down the hatch (try the Franke Sorter Series 700, a segmented bin which slides out). Handle-free cupboard doors (that click in and out) will allow you to move unimpeded down the bench while you work. "You don't want to get caught on a handle when you're cooking," says architect Michael Bremner.
Cupboards that run flush with the ceiling will do away with dust-catching surfaces.
Easy access
In an ideal world, all appliances would be tucked away in handy benchtop cupboards, plugged in and ready to go, so that 'putting away' simply involved closing the door.
The next best thing is to install plenty of spare powerpoints for any stray appliances.
Recessed power track systems make it easier to move electrical points around the kitchen, as opposed to shifting appliances. The Eubiq RC Recess Compact Track is priced from $154 per metre plus installation costs.
Kind Regards
Leisha
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