No kitchen is perfect, but making one of the big mistakes can ruin your house. Sort of. Your kitchen is the most important room in the house. It is the heart of your home, it is where the food for the soul is made…bla-bla-bla, whatever, but it is true and you know it. If you are designing your first kitchen, take cognisance what is being said, if you are a designer or if remodelling your hundredth kitchen, dito. Take time before signing the first design and search the net for ideas. Rather spend a little more on a new kitchen than sit with a major problem. Consider this, an upmarket kitchen can cost op to R200,000, spending an extra R20,000 will only cost you R200 extra per month on the mortgage over 20 years. That is not a lot per month, but to fork out an extra R20,000 so rectify a mistake, that is a lot. Let’s have a look at my list of top mistakes;

Lighting

Chopping up carrots and not seeing your fingers between them is not my idea of cooking. Not enough light will depress you at the end. It is frustrating, dangerous and only benefits the fast food industry.

Great atmosphere, bad lighting for the kitchen. Notice the shadows below the objects, they are distracting and the same shadow will be on the food you are preparing. Scattered light created by fluorescent lighting will reduce this problem, although the atmosphere will be slightly reduced.

 Leave atmosphere in the living- and bedroom. A kitchen is a place of work. If you want atmosphere in the kitchen you are looking for trouble. The first trouble comes with the installation of downlights as sole source of lighting. It just bamboozles me, that electricians and architects can neglect this area of design. Don’t tell me there is a budget, I know there is, remove some of the outdoor lights that I never switch on since I don’t see them during the night. Anyway, it makes it more difficult for the thieves to see where they are walking if there is no light. Downlights are directional lighting, they have a narrow beam of light and are not suitable for any workplace such as a kitchen top. You need light that is reflected from many surfaces and spread through the whole kitchen. This is achieved with long tubular fluorescent lighting and can be backed up by downlights. What happens with downlights is that they cause a shadow at the point where you are working. Have a look a any laboratory, there are no downlights, only tubular lighting that spreads soft light everywhere. At the moment, there is no light that beats the effectiveness in terms of lumen output/watt than fluorescent tubular lighting.

Too few drawers

Show me a kitchen that does not have a Tupper Ware section and where all the lids are stashed at the back with mismatching bowls at the front. It is like a black hole at the back, and once a year we try and sort it out, only to see that all the pieces have moved back to their original places the next day. There are four items that should never be in cupboards

1. Tupper ware. Place them in a drawer so you can get a quick glance from the top which bowl you need.
2. Pots and pans, try a large drawer and you will never look back. They are easier to pack away in a drawer and to sort.
3. Plates. Break the mould of the past. Try something new and you will have an epiphany, it is so much easier to have plates in a drawer than high up in a cupboard. Go on, just try one plated, you’ll see, that is the only one you will be using.

4. If you don’t have a pantry storing items like sugar, flower, oil etc. in a drawer can be an advantage. I know the extra sugar pack always moves further and further back in the bottom cupboard until you completely forget about it and forget to buy sugar in time.

Plug points

Isn’t it ironic, so many appliances and so little plug points. Again, an extra plug point or two cannot break your budget. Installing plug extenders, not a pretty sight. One option is to install plug “pop-ups”. They require some space below the kitchen top and can be connected to the plug through the wall.

Too low kitchen sink mixer

One of my pet hates. Low kitchen sink mixers that are only good for filling a plate with water. Really, who designed these things. There are many other affordable kitchen sink mixers with high spouts that are very user friendly, at least you can fill your spaghetti pot with water, or rinse it for that matter. Think carefully before installing a kitchen sink mixer. Wall mixers are affordable and can be installed really high, deck mounted types come in all sorts of shapes, but be careful of the low ones, they are useless.

Island table overhang too narrow

It very nice and social to be able to cook and chat with family or friends, not so for those sitting at the island and knocking their kneecaps of against the cupboard underneath. Try and extend the granite or kitchen work top at least 400mm, anything shorter is really uncomfortable.

Cabinets that fall short of the ceiling are dust collectors

Not really a biggie, unless you are allergic to dust. You will be surprised at how much dust accumulates in a kitchen. Now mix that dust with a little oil particles and you will quickly have a Valdez oil layer. Just test this theory, check the surface of your fridge or the top of your extractor fan.

You really don’t need your microwave on top of the work surface, your oven isn’t.

This only applies to smaller kitchens. Although you lose some cabinet space, place the microwave in a cupboard. If you don’t use it that much, a good idea is to place it under the counter, similar to an oven. Remember, work space is always at a premium and you cannot have enough of it.