Christmas – it’s a time when all the family get together & enjoy each others company. Usually the loving ambiance is peppered with a few arguments, hangovers & digestive upsets!  The Christmas Kitchen – a room filled with love or fraught with frayed tempers – which do you have in your home?

It’s also a dangerous time of year for some folks – plenty of spontaneously combusting stressed-out ladies don’t make it through the season.  Are you one of them?

Have you ever said:

“Where the hell am I going to fit this in my fridge?” or “Where am I going to put all this shopping?”

“There’s no where to work in this kitchen” or “I have no space to serve up this food”

 

I’ve been there…worn the teashirt…& here’s some advice:

1) Go Big: If you’re extending or building a new home make your kitchen big as you can – sacrifice everything else – because you honestly know that you’ll spend most of your time in it!

2) Utility/Appliances: If you don’t have a utility room & your kitchen is choc-full of appliances consider your washing machine & dryer.

– Can they move elsewhere…is your garage nearby? – you could put storage presses in their places.

– Is it worth your while building a utility?

– Can you use a combined washer/dryer – this would give you the space vacated by one of the appliances.

3) Space & Storage: There are plenty of things you can do:

– do a big clean up now…throw out items that you don’t use or are gone of date. If you’ve got crockery or pots/pans you don’t use it’s now time to move them to storage or discard them forever!

– take a good look at your presses….we are creatures of habit & sometimes we don’t think to move things around. Have you one cabinet packed & another one half empty? Open your kitchen press doors and have a good look and move around!

– have you presses high above fridges/ovens that you can’t really reach? Move items there that you don’t use much or that are big – e.g baking trays/wine bottles…they fill the space & you can grab them easily from their front edges.

– do you have other options for refrigeration?? Most homes have fridge/freezers. Is it an option to put a freezer elsewhere..e.g into the space you freed up with your drier…& then invest in a full height larder fridge? Have you room for a feature freestanding fridge??

– if you’re designing from scratch in a tight space consider a smaller sink or consider a narrower 450mm dishwasher.

– if you’re designing a bank of tall hints in a new design include an extra 600 wide unit…it can be a larder or you could transform it into a fridge unit if you need more refrigeration in the future.  Below we have a Fridge Unit, Two Door Pantry Unit and another tall press that can be shelved for now and could become a fridge press if needs be.

– if you can squeeze in a full height, full depth larder/pantry into your kitchen somewhere you’ll be glad you did! That’s easy when you’re starting out from scratch designing your new kitchen. For those of us that have a kitchen without a pantry – can you fit a feature freestanding pantry in your kitchen?  Have a look at the one below – we have this for sale in our showroom for €999 ex works.

–Storage

– make better use of your corners – install storage solutions such as 3/4 carousels, Le Mans carousel, magic corners

– install drawers e.g you might have a door under your eye level oven that you find hard to access – install a drawer – it’s easier to use the space! – see the kitchen below – with drawer underneath the oven.

– get cutlery organisers & pot/plate organisers – tidying up your space is good!

– consider reconfiguring a drawer unit… If you have 4/5 drawer stacks change them to 3 drawers…giving you more functional storage

– put in an under counter oven drawer – it wont fit much – but it’s still a space for bits n bobs!

– put in plinth drawers – maximising all storage options!

– are you wasting a tall press on an ironing board? Get an ironing board base… Space saving & practical.

– How about using the space under your wall units?  What do you think of this new product on the market?

 

 

– Maximise your gables and ends of units – use hooks or extend using open shelving…

– use inside your doors – consider spice racks – to hold packets and spices.

If you do manage to get through the season but your hearts desire is a new kitchen then treat yourself – you deserve it.  

 

Call us on 059 9176873 to book your free design appointment or email us on [email protected]