Creating Family-Friendly Kitchens
Somewhere in the back of your mind there’s the kitchen of your dreams. Perhaps it has swathes of solid wood and steel with clean lines and defined edges, and whilst although this may sound like a stunning kitchen, when there’s young family around all materials need some consideration.
Family-friendly solid wood kitchens also need to have the right balance of social space and usable cooking and preparation space. To get the equilibrium in your kitchen just-so, take the following tips into consideration:
Open Plan: Two Rooms in One
Not only are open plan kitchens an incredibly popular choice of layout, but they lend themselves perfectly to a family-friendly kitchen.
An open plan kitchen will become a multifunctional space that allows you to keep an eye on younger members of the family, as well as keeping them engaged.
If you’re lucky enough to have a kitchen that opens out on to a garden, it will truly become the heart of a family home.
Keep it Clutter-free with Cabinets
Keep your kitchen clutter-free with plenty of oak kitchen cabinets. Wall-mounted cupboards can help keep more dangerous items and food out of reach from mischievous fingers.
Think carefully about what you’re keeping in cabinets around the kitchen. Food should be stored away from the oven, so that children that children do not attempt to climb near hot stoves.
Also think about using wall cabinets for safely storing those more dangerous kitchen utensils that you don’t want on display.
Add a Little Colourful Creativity
To keep your entire family engaged in the kitchen, consider brightly coloured cabinets, coloured glass splashbacks or brightly painted ‘feature’ walls.
The right use of colour gives a kitchen plenty of character, and also distinguishes the beauty of solid wood worktops. Be careful not to go too overboard with colour, find one or two colours that complement each other and try to stick with the scheme across appliances and furnishings.
For more info on picking the right colours for your kitchen, read our guide on ’Why Farrow & Ball Paints are Perfect for Oak Kitchens’.
Soft Edges & Rounded Corners
Avoid sore heads and improve your kitchen’s aesthetic by replacing sharp edges on wooden kitchen worktops with rounded ‘radius’ corners and a smooth pencil-edge profile. If you’re buying a worktop from us, we can prefabricate your worktop with these elegant bespoke features. Contact us to find out more.
Also think carefully about which handles will suit your kitchen best – ornate handles for kitchen cabinets may look great but can be a hazard. Instead, try softer cup handles or wooden knobs.
Kitchen Islands: A Shared Space
A kitchen island or breakfast bar is often the key to a social kitchen. They also act as fantastic room dividers, segregating food preparation space from social dining and work space.
Kids can eat around a kitchen island rather than in front of the TV (as is so common these days), and it can even be a handy communal space to do school work.
If you need power on your kitchen island to keep laptops charged, consider including hidden power outlets in the worktop.