Design a Family-Friendly Kitchen
With families spending more time at home, one home improvement project you might want to consider is to design a family-friendly kitchen.
24/12/2020
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We all know that the kitchen is the heart of any home, especially a family home or one where you love to gather with friends to enjoy cooking and eating. But while it might be considered the heart of the home, not many kitchens are designed to be family-friendly, most modern kitchen designs are anything but. With families spending much more time together at home than before, one home improvement project that will reap rewards, both for your family and the value of your home, is to design a family-friendly kitchen.
WHAT IS A FAMILY-FRIENDLY KITCHEN?
Before you can design a family-friendly kitchen, it helps to have some ideas on how you would go about it. You want a space that allows your family or friends to gather around while you are cooking, and perhaps even enough space within the kitchen, or in an open plan space alongside, for a dining room.
A family-friendly kitchen is one where the entire family can gather together for breakfast before everyone runs off to do their thing for the rest of the day, whether it's off to school or college, or off to work, or even walking a few steps to your home office. There's nothing that brings a family together more than simple meals around the table, and with everyone's time being taken up by studies or work, it is important to have at least one meal a day together, or to be able to invite friends around more often.
Every family should find the time to share at least one meal - as a family - to catch up and stay connected.
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WHAT ELEMENTS MAKE A KITCHEN FAMILY-FRIENDLY?
When you think of a family-friendly kitchen it brings to mind breakfast bars and dining banquettes in bay windows or alcoves. But today's modern family-friendly kitchen is all that and more and with a definite modern take on incorporating these elements in a far more practical approach.
In a family-friendly kitchen design you would find space for family and friends to gather together.
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A family-friendly kitchen is one that allows you to be surrounded by family and/or friends and that means an open plan design that incorporates a in-kitchen dining room or that has a dining space in the same area. The idea behind family-friendly design is one of a spacious area where everyone can sit and relax and participate in the cooking process, or be able to have conversation with the cook.
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HOW TO MAKE IT WORK IN YOUR HOME
No matter the size of your kitchen-cum-dining spaces, there's always a way to be clever and creative when designing a family-friendly kitchen. A kitchen island is one of the most commonly used ways to incorporate cooking and dining into one area and there are thousands of kitchen island designs out there to inspire you. Look at what would best fit into the space that you have available, whether it's just a kitchen, an open plan kitchen and dining area, or a separate kitchen and dining room where a wall could be removed to enlarge the space.
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Combining a separate kitchen and dining room into a single area frees up more floor space than you would think. Even only removing half the wall will provide for open communication between the two areas. Make use of walls by installing banquette-style seating that gives more room for a dining table and chairs. You can also use this type of seating for additional storage is you are clever enough to add a hinged top.
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