Designing your Dream Kitchen

Designing your dream kitchen is not for the faint of heart if the work will be going on while you are living in your house, but it’s worth it in the long run to put up with the short-term inconvenience. If you’re lucky enough to design your kitchen before you move in, even better. Either way, you’ll adore these fantastic dream kitchen upgrades.

Double Drawer Dishwasher

Two drawer dishwashers are not very common, but they are especially useful to all types of households. This type of dishwasher generally has a top drawer which handles the standard plates, glasses and silverware, and a deeper bottom drawer for bigger pots and pans, but there are several configurations available depending on the brand. If you have ever run out of glasses or spoons before your dishwasher is ready to be run, then the drawer model may be perfect for you. The top drawer lets you wash smaller, more frequent loads with less water. It’s great for a busy household that uses dinnerware unevenly and for smaller households that use fewer pieces per week.

Water Softener

It makes no sense to install a top-of-the-line dishwasher if hard water is going to leave spots behind on all your stemware. A water softener not only makes dishes cleaner, but they also make food taste better and appliances last longer because they eliminate the calcium buildup that clogs pipes. Water softeners generally come in different sizes, so you can choose to soften and clean just the water that goes through your kitchen or expand the reach to the entire house which will make your soap rinse off better in the shower and your laundry detergent work better at cleaning your clothes.

Pull Out Shelving

Create additional usable space in your new kitchen by installing pull-out shelving in all your lower cupboards. This awesome kitchen feature allows you easy access to previously forgotten space. Some shelves swing open like a lazy Susan and some pull straight out. There are also soft-closing features to keep items in the back from toppling over if the drawer gets pushed in too fast. Pull-out shelving could actually save money in the long run by eliminating duplicate purchases of products that got “lost” in the back of the cupboard or expired because they were out of sight and out of mind.

Pot Rack

Once you have a pot rack installed on your wall or over your stove or island, you will wonder how you survived so long without one. You can forever banish the piles of jumbled up pots and pans that never seemed to have their coordinating lids nearby. Pot racks help you organize your cookware and give your kitchen a real master chef feel. If you don’t have a good place to mount a rack from your ceiling, it is also possible to put a smaller rack against a wall or even under a cabinet. There are many styles of pot racks, so pick one that suits your taste and needs.

Recessed Lighting

Kitchen lighting often gets short shrift because it’s easy to forget how important it is to have your workspace well lit. Replace the single bulb or standard rectangle lighting in the middle of the ceiling with some recessed lighting and beautiful pendant lamps over the island. Consider adding lighting to the underside of each top cabinet. Like a stove light, this provides focused task lighting for the counter when needed but also ambient lighting when the other lights are turned off for a softer look. Think about where in the kitchen you might be doing knife work or reading a recipe and plan for a high-quality light in that space.

Designing a dream kitchen is more than just choosing the right colors for the backsplash. To make the kitchen beautiful and functional takes thought and planning including paying attention to the details of what will make your time in the kitchen as enjoyable and effortless as possible.