Zoning: The key to achieving a practical and stylish kitchen

Want to make the most of your kitchen space? Whether you’ve decided upon getting a new kitchen or not, making efficient use of your space and ensuring the setup is as practical as possible is always worth doing. Obviously, this task is easiest when you’re planning a whole new kitchen design and have the entire space to play around with, but some simple changes can still be made to existing kitchens to enhance their use.

At Kitchen Design Centre, creating multi-zone kitchens is just one of our specialities. We think about practicalities, style and your personal needs to create a kitchen that both works and looks good too. An open plan kitchen is always a good place to start when zoning, as it makes everything relatively easy access and creates space for you to play around with designs a little bit. One major aspect of design behind zoning is the work triangle – which keeps appliances and the work areas associated with them together, resulting in the most logical use of your kitchen.

What is the work triangle?

In essence, it’s the placement of the sink, hob and refrigerator. With these crucial aspects sorted, worktops, cupboards and furniture can be placed around the kitchen to complement the layout. These three main players – sink, hob, and fridge –need to be positioned fairly close together to ensure efficiency of floor space as well as your time and energy.

The zones created by these three main players are cooking, washing and storage – so it’s important to ensure that all related appliances and furniture are placed within those zones too; for example, the dishwasher near to the sink, the food storage cupboards near to the freezer and the microwave and toaster within the same area as the hob.

For large open plan kitchens, it’s best to keep these three core areas of the kitchen separate from the socialising spaces and the dining zone – you don’t want to be walking through guests to pop dirty crockery in the dishwasher now do you?

Defining your zoned kitchen

Once you’ve mastered and understood how the work triangle will fit into your kitchen design, you can begin zoning the rest of your kitchen by following these simple steps.

1. Define the zones – Decide what you want from your kitchen, list them and discuss with your designer. Whether you want laundry space, living space or both, your designer will be able to help you zone these areas in the most logical way.
2. Use colour – Blocks of colour can highlight the separate areas of the room. For example, a chic white functional kitchen can be complemented with a soft wood breakfast bar or an island featuring a pop of colour. This will show a distinction between the practical and social areas of your space.
3. Divide space with a statement piece – At Kitchen Design Centre we’ve had colour changing LED walls, and huge iconic islands. These statement features have all served a purpose to identify different spaces within the kitchen.

To find out how we could help you achieve that practical and stylish kitchen for your home, visit us at one of our designer showrooms.

What must-have zones would you want in your kitchen? Tell us in the comments below or tweet us @ModernKitchens.