My mother recently turned her kitchen into a thing of awesome: flat top range with a microwave over it and four big pull-out drawers for cookware storage. On the opposite side of the kitchen next to the fridge are two stacked ovens with more storage on top and underneath. When you make holiday dinners for fifteen people, two ovens are a godsend.
The only problem is if you’re not 5’10 like my mother, but instead 5’4 like me, you want to consider the height of your ovens very carefully. I can’t reach anything in the top one without basically draping myself across the pulled-down oven door, which is obviously a bad idea. If she’d gotten side-hinged doors instead it would’ve been fine but I think the price tag on those models is significantly higher.
A pantry: a side-room off the main kitchen where I can store the things I don’t use on a regular basis (which is probably around eighty percent of my kitchen stuff). That way I can keep the kitchen as an area for preparing food rather than a storage area.
My husband is a chef and these are his constant desires for our dream kitchen.
Double ovens. It’s nice to have the ability to have a couple things going at once at different temps.
Super capacity dishwasher. When we make a large dinner, it’ll nice to be able to get it all in. Likewise, when we use large pots and pans, it’ll be nice to get them in without taking up the whole dishwasher.
Extra large fridge (or two fridges or a full fridge and a full freezer). There’s never enough room when we cater or prep up a lot of food for a large dinner party we’re holding. Bonus for easily adjustable shelves.
Pot hooks instead of cupboards, for reasons mentioned above.
A separate pantry. We have so many special machines, devices, appliances, etc., that we end up having to keep many of them in the corner of the basement. A separate small room for food storage, with the top shelves to be used for storage for appliances, etc. (I mean, my husband loves his karahi, but I refuse to store both that, his wok and all his steamers in the very limited cupboard space we have.)
A gas range. It has better control and fine tuning of temperature.
And for me… a small, built in wine cellar (cooler). Love my wine. Love good wine. Don’t buy it much because I’m not able to keep it at perfect temps all the time.
Yeah, I’ve given this topic a lot of thought over the years.
My dream kitchen has soapstone counter tops with large capacity pull out drawer storage underneath. Instead of wall mounted cabinets I’d like rubber coated wire shelving installed to hold my cookware. I’d like a large island prep area with a small hand washing sink built in. I want an extremely deep, single tub sink with a pre-rinse faucet and a commercial grade pot and pan dishwasher. I want wall mounted double ovens and two cooktops mounted side by side. One of the cooktops would have at least two induction burners and the other with at least four gas burners. The cooktops would have a downdraft ventilation system installed behind them. The refrigerator/freezer would be a large side by side built-in with dispenser. There would be a walk in pantry adjacent to the working area of the kitchen with a chest freezer in it. Cork flooring throughout. sighs
I actually like the look of the more worn surfaces, not so much the polished and freshly oiled look. If you want your soapstone to have the same kind of polished ‘shiny’ look as granite, then yeah… it’s going to take constant upkeep. That’s not what I want.
Concrete/quartz counters. No granite and no Corian.
Two dishwashers, on either side of the large farmhouse sink. You would never store day to day dishes in cabinets; they’d go from clean dishwasher to eating off of and then into dirty and back and forth.
Huge island with seating for 5-6 and small, secondary sink with a simplehuman dish rack.
Large hood vent
18" tile flooring
Two gel mats, one under sink the other under stove
Soft touch drawers. There’s no point in installing anything else anymore.
Double ovens, convection
Massive walk-in pantry
Oak or other light colored solid wood cabinets.
Two massive simplehuman trash cans. I actually dislike under-cabinet garbage.
Medium sized wine cooler. We’re not big wine drinkers.
One of those instant hot water things, whatever they’re called, for tea or instant soup.
Smaller kitchen in basement with basic appliances and another dishwasher to cook Indian and other assorted stinky foods. Growing up I hated how the smell wafted everywhere.
I would consider a second fridge for only “prep” stuff in the kitchen (as opposed to the basement) that’s already portioned out for cooking things later in the day/week, whereas another fridge one could forage from. Not sold on the idea.
And I’d get a contractor who knew his shit - could recite codes to you in his sleep.
Brands are kind of irrelevant for appliances - I’ve heard there are lots of problems with Wolf ranges, for example. I’d get whatever Consumer Reports said was good. You get what you pay for to an extent but I’d want durability not flash brands.
My parents’ kitchen has most of that stuff except my mom doesn’t cook much so she didn’t get the “little things” right.
I would like a kitchen with plenty of storage, but not so big that people get the idea they can come in and hang around. Like fifty-six, I want a kitchen with a door. My kitchen is for cooking. The rest of the house is for my guests. I also would love a potfiller and instant hot water; a baking station with a bread kneading board, and a brick oven would be awesome. Many shelves for my cookbooks.
I’ll answer on behalf of my father, who remodeled his kitchen several years ago. He basically created his dream kitchen in the limited amount of space he had. Many of the things he added have been mentioned already. He has two stacked convection/regular ovens. A Bosch dishwasher which is utterly silent. Two sinks: one is deeper than usual, and the other is wider than usual. Hooks for hanging pots and utensils… by utensils I mean every utensil known to man, and woe betide the person who hangs a spoon on the wrong hook. One entire wall is lined with open shelves for herbs, spices, etc. A six burner stove (can’t remember the brand, but a good one) with a very powerful hood and great lights over it. An island with Thos. Moser stools. The details are nice, too (the cabinet, counter tops, flooring). In deference to my mom, he also added some shelves where she can display her holiday decorations, tea pot collection, pictures of my kids or whatever silly, non-kitchen thing she wants.
The few things I know are that huge deep pan drawers beat cupboards hands down. I use them for cookware, crockery, storage containers and electrical appliances. All things that are in and out all the time and it’s nice to be able to get to the thing at the back without moving stuff.
Any attempt at a pantry is better than no pantry at all.
A friend had his island prep bench (a butcher’s block) on wheels. It allowed him to position it anywhere he wanted it in the kitchen. He would get us around it prepping at one end of the kitchen while he worked his side and the other end of the kitchen. The he would wheel the prepped food over to where he was cooking. He had it built the same height as the kitchen benches and it was very versatile. Sometimes we would use it as a table for eating snacks and drinking.
I just skimmed this thread, but I don’t think anyone mentioned foot operated controls for the sink. There is a company that makes these, but I can’t remember the name right now and I’m not seeing it on google. However, here is an instructable for the same.
You might want to spend some time on gardenweb’s kitchen forum, those people know their stuff over there. Definitely run your intended layout by them before you finalize it, they’ll help you tweak it to perfection.
