Design Your Own Kitchen. First Steps: Defining your storage requirements
Article #1-Defining Goals-Storage Capacity.
This is the first in a series of articles about designing your own new or remodel kitchen. I will cover creating written plans and drawings, cabinet types, after-market hardware, ventilation, trim elements, plumbing, countertops, electrical / lighting systems, windows and contractor selection among other goodies. In other words, most of the topics that would be covered by a kitchen design professional during a design / remodel process.
The articles in the series proceed in logical order from basic design considerations to installation tips. You do not have to be an uber handyman to understand the concepts I’m presenting. On the contrary, a lack of initial knowledge on the part of the reader might be a good thing. Such a reader might be more inclined to actually consider some of the ideas presented without pre-conceived notions or prejudices. Some of the best kitchens are designed by artistic types who know little to nothing about construction but are clear about their needs.
I spent almost 10 years as a full-time commissioned kitchen designer. In that time I designed hundreds of kitchens and oversaw the installation of virtually all of them. I no longer work in the field so I have no financial incentive to recommend any particular products or methods. My sole intention is to show you what works and to help you through the process. Whether you design / install your own kitchen or have the work done by a studio, independent contractor or other source, I hope you find this information useful in planning a well thought out and workable kitchen design.
Once the decision is made to remodel or install a new kitchen the tendency is to jump ahead and immediately start looking at catalogs and visiting showrooms for “inspiration”. My advice: resist the temptation. Why? Because you must define the workspace functionally in a very specific way before you even start thinking about “product”. At this point, showrooms are a distraction. Function drives form, not the other way around-so let’s take things in their logical order, plan first, shop later.
First, a little requisite lingo to get you talkin’ the trade. Cabinets on walls over the countertops are referred to as “walls”, cabinets sitting under countertops are called “bases” and “talls” are cabinets that run from floor to ceiling, generally as pantries or similar. A commercial order for cabinets will list them in that order; Wall, Base, Tall. Sometimes cabinets are also called “boxes” for short, as in “How many boxes in this order?” or “These boxes are really nice…” Makes you sound like you are in the know…
Your absolute, don’t skip, must do-first step is to take inventory of your anticipated storage needs. If you fail this step, you could end up spending mucho bucks for a kitchen that does not have enough cabinets to store all your cooking equipment and food. A distinct bummer, as they say in the trade.
If you’re remodeling, you’ll measure the existing kitchen. If you are starting from scratch, go find a kitchen that looks about right and measure it. You’re going to quickly learn the difference between what a kitchen with 150 cubic feet of storage looks like and one with 300 cubic feet. Forget about door styles, island designs and fancy stoves. For now concentrate on understanding the key measure of storage capacity-cubic footage. We’ll get to the other stuff later, I promise.
In the kitchen industry, storage capacity is measured in cubic feet. Cubic footage is calculated as width x height x depth of a cabinet or cabinet run, in that order. You’re going to measure the storage capacity of your base, wall and tall cabinets in your current or someone else’s kitchen. Since almost all cabinets that you will be encountering have standard depths and heights, all you have to worry about is the total run of cabinets being measured. I’ll show you how and give a couple of examples to ensure that you’re doing this correctly.
Remember to do all calculations and descriptions of cabinet dimensions in the order wide, high, deep (WHD). To keep things simple I like to do all my capacity calculations in feet, but I’ll show both ways.
Wall cabinets are generally 12” deep and either 30”, 36” or 42” tall. Therefore an 11’ run of 30” high wall cabinets, using inch calculations, would be:
132” x 30” x 12” = 47,520 (132” is 11 feet x 12” per foot)
47,520 / 1,728 = 27 ½ cubic feet of wall cabinets (1,728 is the number of cubic inches in 1 cubic foot or 12” x 12” x 12”)
So your 11’ run of 30” high wall cabinets is 27 ½ cubic feet of storage.
Calculated in feet rather than inches, the following would be correct for the above:
11’ x 2.5’ x 1’ =27.5 cubic feet.
Base cabinets are just the same only they are 34½ ” high x 24” deep. I typically round the 34½” value to 3’ when doing calculations in feet-close enough.
Example: 16’ run of base cabinets, calculations in inches:
192” x 34½” x 24” = 158,976
158,976 / 1,728 = 92 cubic feet.
Calculated in feet:
16’ x 3’ x 2’ = 96 cubic feet.
Tall cabinets are either 12” or 24” deep depending on the design.
The calculation of the storage capacity does not have to be exact, within 5% is good enough. Here are some things to keep in mind when running your measurements:
- Do not include the cabinet door in the depth measurements, you’re only measuring the “carcase” or actual box dimensions. Keep it simple!
- When measuring an “L” shaped run, do not measure the inside of the “L” twice, measure the entire length of one side, measure the total length of the other side and deduct either 24” for bases or 12” for walls.
- Do not include the width of appliances in the measurement in a run, i.e. deduct 30” for a stove and 24” for a dishwasher in a run.
- Include the width of all sink cabinets in a run.
- Don’t forget the cabinet over the refrigerator.
- Bottom line, if it’s a cabinet, include it in the run. If it’s empty space like a refrigerator, stove or dishwasher bay, leave it out of your storage measurements.
Let’s assume you’ve just finished measuring your existing layout that you plan on remodeling and it came in at 225 cubic feet. This is your benchmark number.
Here’s what you do next. Round up all the loose items presently stored oustide the kitchen that you want to include in the new design; extra canned food in the garage, brooms or perhaps a vacuum in the hall closet, cooking tools you’re lusting after, roaster pan presently stored in the tool shed, you name it. Now go get yourself some cardboard boxes, store all that stuff and measure the cubic footage of the boxes. Be sure to load the boxes in a similar manner as you would load a kitchen cabinet-no cramming allowed. Add your extra cubic footage requirement to the existing kitchen and you now have the real number. Congrats! You’ve completed step one. Now it’s time to think about possible solutions.
So, how much capacity are you adding to the existing layout? 10-25-50%, more?
The question becomes; “Where will the extra capacity come from?” To meet your goals you either optimize the existing space or configure a new floor plan.
Some possible answers to consider, organized from lowest to highest cost:
- The over-fridge cabinet should be 24” deep, bet yours is 12” deep. There’s 3 additional cubic feet.
- Many kitchens with 8’ ceilings have 30” high upper cabinets. These can be expanded to 36” or even 42” high cabinets. A 42” high cabinet has 1 extra cubic foot of storage per lineal foot compared to a 30” high cab, this adds up if you have a lot of wall space available.
- Hang double-sided cabinets over an existing peninsula.
- Base cabinets with half-depth shelves waste tons of space. Retrofit with ball-bearing rollout trays everywhere.
- Countertop cabinets called hutches can be used to fill odd counter spaces, they are 12-15” deep and in a kitchen with 8’ ceilings could be 48” to 54” high. That’s 4 cubic feet per linear feet of run.
- Many kitchens have “blind” interior corners in the base and wall runs. A base Lazy Susan reclaims 12 cubic feet. A “pie cut” wall cabinet gets you 3 additional cubes.
- Consider replacing part of a wall / base run with an 8 foot tall, 24” deep pantry unit with rollouts in the bottom and tray dividers up top. You can even get these configured to hold a broom or vacuum.
- If the kitchen abuts a garage wall, build a bay into the garage space and stuff it full of pantry storage.
- Reorganize the kitchen into a Double L or L with Island configuration. Done correctly, these are very efficient uses of space.
- Annex part of an adjoining room as new kitchen space.
- Move walls, doors, windows and partitions to claim more real estate for a modified floor plan.
- Expand the floor plan into new territory by building a bay, a new room or similar. Involves a new foundation, walls and roof line.
- Sell the house, buy a bigger one. Really.
Congratulations, you’re well on the way to mastering the process.
About the Author
Jeremy Myers is a wedding officiant and owner of Lyssabeth's Wedding Officiants. Visit his websites at Lyssabeth's Oregon Wedding Officiants , Lyssabeth's Monterey Wedding Officiants and Lyssabeth's Colorado Wedding Officiants.
Cooking with a Roasting Pan on stove top?
I have a great recipe I'm trying today for a roast. The recipe says to sear the roast first and then set aside adding all of the veggies and liquid to the pot, gathering up all of the remnants and flavor from the seared meat. The video/recipe thing that I saw showed the chef using a roasting pan on the stove top. He cooked everything in this roaster and then just put the lid on and popped it into the oven to actually "cook." I have a lidded roasting pan but it's one of those "granite-ware" ones. (The kind that has the black and white flecks.) Can I use this on the stove top to sear the meat? Or should I do all of this in a Stock Pot and transfer it all to the roasting pan for the oven cooking?
I don't want to ruin it and I've never used this kind of a roaster on the stove top before for searing. Any suggestions?
I would sear it in a large skillet. Then use a little beef stock or water to get all the goodies off, use a spatula to really scrape the flavor bit off the pan.
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