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Kitchen Design Mistakes · Acedra
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0:00
as you may know we moved into a new apartment recently which has caused me to have a few thoughts on the design of modern kitchens so in this video I thought I'd share with you a little bit of my architectural expertise in sharing the top 10 kitchen design mistakes and how to avoid them when it comes to maximizing space in a kitchen compared to cabinets drawers are just so much more functional as you can so easily access everything at the back of them I mean
0:31
can you just imagine how hard it would be for me to get my hand to the back of that space if that was a cupboard but unfortunately some people still don't like specifying them for a number of reasons let me explain now as you can see what we have here is a nice clean cabinet door front now if we were to instead put drawers here it would firstly be a lot more expensive because you're going to have multiple smaller draw fronts attached to essentially a bunch of boxes which
1:02
are the drawers themselves which also need to be installed on several Runners which significantly increases the cost and on top of this it's also going to look worse because you're going to have a bunch of gaps in between each of those draw fronts too which if you're going for a very clean and minimal looking kitchen isn't really something that you're going to want as it does make the space look significantly more busy personally I think drawers are absolutely worth the increased
1:29
cost cost as they just make your life so much easier and they're not just for your knives and forks but they're also great for heavier items like plates and Source Spin and even a lot of your pantry items too but what I've come to really dislike are concealed drawers like these ones now I get that it's quite cool that these are pretty much invisible the one thing that is incredibly irritating about drawers like this especially in this kitchen is that these are the only ones
1:57
at a reasonable height for us to store our knives and forks in so every time I want to get myself a knife and fork I have to first open a door only then can I get to the drawer to get what I want grab the fork put it on the counter close the drawer and then close the door again which as you can imagine considering how many times you want to get an iph and Fork during the middle of the day gets pretty annoying this may not be quite so bad with concealed drawers inside deeper actual
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drawers but when you put a concealed drawer inside a cabinet with a door you can't open the drawer unless the door is fully opened which often means that you end up bumping the door like that which isn't really the best for your drawer or your door so my groundbreaking recommendation would be to just use normal drawers in the first place instead of these silly designers always trying to
2:51
put form over function if it ain't broke don't fix it okay I'm done push close fixtures now these are essentially door opening devices which work on a spring mechanism not all that dissimilar from a ballpoint pen which essentially means you push on the door it pops out and it gives you somewhere for your hand to open the door now these can be great if you're after a nice clean minimalist look
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or if you're a bit like me and trying to hide the fact that you're a bit of a rubish minimalist to begin with anyway and they can even work out to be cheaper than buying doors with handles which have a whole host of problems attached to them anyway which we'll get into later in this video despite being all for a nice clean and contemporary kitchen there is a big reason why I think that
3:43
these kinds of fixtures are a little bit rubbish because if you really think about how you usually use a cupboard door you open it up and then you swing it closed but with this ingenious invention I can't do that which is incredibly frustrating and as you can see behind me having a nice clean minimalist handless kitchen doesn't really look all that great if all the doors are continually left a jar and this isn't really helped by the fact that they're absolute fingerprint magnets
4:11
too and it only occurred to me the other day what happens if one of these fails I think if all of the cupboards in this kitchen were to be designed with push Clos latches and paired with a glossy finish on all of the doors it might actually have been enough for me to completely write off the idea of renting out this apartment in the first place but thankfully for the most part this kitchen is actually designed relatively well with some considerably good finishes as you can
4:38
still get the same look as for top cabinets you don't actually need push close fixtures because you can just slot your fingers underneath them and even though they generally cost a little bit more than plain cabinet doors you can buy doors with a rebated fingerpull which gives you the same clean handleless look without the annoyance of a cupboard that doesn't close properly [Music]
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now in most contemporary kitchens the most common way of lighting them is using spotlights because these do a far better job of evenly Distributing the light across the kitchen when compared to a single light source and on top of this some spotlights even allow you to angle them in the direction that you want them now I can't even be mad at this one as this is a mistake that I've also made myself as when you think about it it makes the most sense to put the spotlights right
5:30
in the middle of the galley and right over the top of your Island as this is the way that is most effective in evenly Distributing the light across the room or so you'd think the main problem with this which I'll now illustrate is that you actually want to be lighting the work surfaces that you're working on top of so in this case the island is lit great however when you move over to the countertop on this side my nice big fat 7 and 38 size head is casting a massive shadow which
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isn't really ideal when you're trying to Julien some carrots now us Architects love everything to be perfectly aligned and cented so really if it's more important to you that your spotlights are nice and aligned in the center of your kitchen so that they look better when they're off that's up to you and actually you can somewhat go about this and fix it by fitting some under cabinet task lighting didn't mean to do that but as I was saying this is a great way to mitigate the fact
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that my big head is casting a nice flat Shadow over this countertop as now the countertop is a lot brighter and I just wish that whoever designed this kitchen chose to put this light switch along with the others as there is no point in time that I'm ever going to want to have these lights on without these ones on so if you're designing a new kitchen or your existing kitchen doesn't have the best of lighting my advice would be to just install under cabinet lighting wherever
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you can as it also makes your kitchen look a lot nicer too by layering the lighting [Music] okay here's another one at this point I'm feeling quite bad and I'm really hoping that whoever designed this kitchen doesn't watch my videos I'm also starting to realize that I look a little bit stupid as firstly for some reason I decided to put on a jumper that matches the exact color of our cabinets and secondly a lot of these mistakes are mistakes that I made myself when
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designing a kitchen for my mom but anyway this next one is also about doors now you'd be right in assuming that buying one large door is cheaper than buying two smaller doors as whoever's making these things only needs to finish one edge here rather than finishing an extra two in the middle also if they come pre-drilled for hinges that saves them drilling another set of holes on the back too but as you can see while I'm making this demonstration it isn't really ideal that
7:52
this cabinet door is right at head height so if for instance I'm doing something where I need to put several things away at once like unloading the dishwasher moving from here to here becomes a little bit of an obstacle not to mention when there's two of you using the same kitchen at the same time you may get in trouble for accidentally pulling a door out and smacking someone's head not that I'm speaking from experience or anything now I completely get why someone would decide
8:20
to put a door matching the width of the cabinet that they're installing it onto as really this does just make sense however as we just saw this can become incredibly irritating to use over time so my genuine recommendation would be if you're using wide cabinets always pick doors which are half the width of them as this might save your marriage but unfortunately if you've already installed cabinets this wide this can be quite a costly but not impossible mistake to [Music] fix
8:54
next up let's talk appliances now in our apartment we're lucky enough to have an integ rated fridge freezer actually we're lucky enough to have now two integrated fridge freezers but my lifestyle inflation is beside the point right now when it comes to appliances you actually have two types you have integrated or Standalone appliances now these here are integrated appliances because they
9:20
are built inside of an existing tool cabinet and then they have cabinet fronts placed in front of them so they're pretty much invisible unless you know where to look for them now the benefits are quite obvious in the sense that they are a lot more pleasant to look at as they're a lot less in your face however if you were to put these in somewhere like a commercial kitchen they might not make the most sense as they're a lot more difficult to install there's multiple components
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meaning that they're probably a lot easier to break too and when it comes to replacing them this is also something that's a lot harder as you have to find the right integrated Appliance to fit inside your cupboard and what this does is really limit the amount of options that you have which isn't really the best when you're looking look for the best of the best in terms of performance as I'm not a professional cook integrated appliances for me are my preference
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as I think that they strike the balance in terms of Form and Function however Standalone appliances can also look fantastic and they are way easier to install and replace too as they simply need to be slid into place and plugged in at the wall but unfortunately with Standalone appliances unlike with integrated appliances which have these very strict constraints as to what you can fit inside
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of them with a standalone Appliance you might be tempted to go for something that has all of the specs that you want but it's just a hair too big for your setup and you think oh it's only a few inches too big it's not going to be that big of a deal and before you know it you've got the appliance of your dreams that fits every single need you could possibly want but it looks absolutely massive in your kitchen now I have to say that I am usually all about function over fall
11:00
even though I do think that the way something looks is very important but when you have an appliance which is too big for your kitchen this also isn't all that functional either as it simply gets in the way and you're more likely to bump yourself on it or trip over it or just find it a little bit of a hassle to get around and in my personal opinion I think that choosing to do this can make a perfectly goodlook kitchen look absolutely terrible so considering that someone's
11:26
put in all of this time to make a kitchen look a certain way it doesn't really make sense to go and undo all of that hard work just because you want something like an ice cube machine on your fridge freezer on top of this an oversized Appliance is just going to make everything else in your kitchen look a little bit small and I don't think making your home look small is something that anyone wants so my recommendation would be just to stick to the limitations of the space
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that you have for your appliances and if there is a feature that you absolutely need to have maybe consider a partial remod model where you can steal space from other areas of your kitchen however if you're moving home and you already have an existing fridge freezer that you want to bring over to your new place and it is a little bit too big of course we are talking about a significant
12:12
amount of savings when there isn't actually a need to upgrade and really at the end of the day it's up to you whether or not your kitchen looking as good as it possibly should is of the utmost importance now in your typical kitchen you usually have two types of cabinets you have your base cabinets which your worktop sits on top of and these are usually useful for heavier items as they're lower to the ground so sauce pins small appliances and baking baking stuff I don't bake
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baking stuff like this what's this a whisk a whisk anyway and then you have your wall cabinets now these are wall hung and because they're closer to eye level they're a little bit better for smaller items so think things like mugs glasses maybe plates and bowls however these can also go in your base cabinets too but my point here is that despite the tops of Base cabinets and the bottom of wall cabinets being quite easy to access it's a lot harder to get to their extremities at the
13:19
floor and at the ceiling where if you're short it's quite difficult to access what's on top so this is something that my wife struggles with and it means that pretty much everything in this kitchen needs to be on the lower shelves and then when it comes to the base cabinets you really don't want to be getting down onto your hands and knees to reach something at the back which has made the backs of our base cabinets somewhat useless and what's worse if you have
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Corner cabinets these are even harder to get to so when it comes to base cabinets deep drawers are always the best option if you can afford them as it means that you can easily access everything at the back so because of this I honestly believe that all base cabinets are just far better off with heavy duty deep drawers as you can so easily access everything at the back of them but as we mentioned earlier with cabinet doors fitting cabinet drawers to existing base cabinets when
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you've already installed all of the hinges and doors can be quite expensive which doesn't make them something cheap to do retrospectively but with wall cabinets there is something that you can do retrospectively which is just as easy as installing them when they're brand new and that is to add in pull down shelving which essentially pulls the top shelf down to head height so that you can easily access whatever's up there as even for me it's pretty difficult to get to the back of
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that top shelf however this may be something that might be best reserved to smaller kitchens where space is at a premium as all of these fixtures do cost quite a bit of money but if you're short on Space considering how much square footage can cost in big cities it might be worth the expense another item worth talking about is switch placement now switches are incredibly important in the kitchen as chances are you have several counter toop appliances which
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are all going to need powering so think things like kettles coffee grinders blenders air fryers mixers and instant pots and in a busy kitchen it's not really all that useful if you're only limited to one space to put all of these things so when it comes to switch placement I always think that more is better despite them not being the prettiest things to look at because of this I think a lot of people fall into the Trap of not specifying enough switches in their kitchen
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which makes it quite difficult if you're cooking a meal and you needs to be working in a certain area but you can't because you've already stuck the air fryer there and there's nowhere else to put it and unfortunately because of this this can tempt people to do things with wires that they probably shouldn't like overloading single outlets and trailing wires across hot or wet surfaces so when r renovating or installing a brand new kitchen I definitely think it's
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worthwhile having more outlets and if the way that they look is of a concern to you you can actually find some pretty decent looking ones which I think is definitely money well spent considering how often we're interacting with them and you can also install them in handy places like the sides of kitchen islands or underneath wall cabinets and you can even install popup Outlets too now of course when it comes to Kitchen one of the biggest decisions is material
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choice and when it comes to picking materials you're usually picking something that excels in one of four areas cost durability Aesthetics and sustainability and pretty much any material you pick is going to fall somewhere on one of those spectrums now for the sake of this video I'm going to focus on four common materials that we tend to pick in our kitchens that's wood metal Stone and High Press laminate now I'm going talk about Metal first because this is the
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material of choice for commercial kitchens which is the place where most of the world's best food is cooked however in a commercial kitchen the main concern is with performance and not with Aesthetics which is why you don't tend to see metal used very often in a domestic setting so really the use of metal excels in three areas cost sustainability and durability but not so much in the area of Aesthetics on the flip side wood excels in Aesthetics and sustainability however
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not so much in the Realms of durability and cost which is why we tend to see wood used more often in high-end domestic settings where it's usually paired with stone as stone is also very expensive but also highly durable and finally the king of all these materials when it comes to most domestic settings is high pressure laminate as this material simply gets you the most bang for your buck as it's incredibly affordable usually doesn't look all that bad and it's pretty
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durable and sustainable too but seeing as there are so many options in many of these material groups really Aesthetics is something that is very subjective and likewise a material that's incredibly expensive may be quite reasonable somewhere else and really in my opinion when it comes to picking the best materials for kitchens it comes down to durability and how easy it is to clean which is something that a lot of people tends to overlook for example white is
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an incredibly popular color choice for kitchens as it simply can make a space feel so much brighter but one thing that people can quickly Overlook is how quickly white can get dirty and how easily it shows even the tiniest amount of dirt and if we're really honest with ourselves we don't want to be cleaning up every tiny Speck of dirt from our kitchens 24/7 so picking materials that hide dirt better can be a more logical option but worse still when picking things like a backsplash
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if you're choosing white tiles with white grout because grout is porous it's worth considering how this is going to absorb dirt over time another thing that I previously mentioned when it comes to Cabinet fronts is that if you're going with a handleless system it's worth considering how easily your cabinet fronts are going to show fingerprints so for instance glossy cabinets show fingerprints incredibly well so I definitely avoid going for gloss if you're not using handles and
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then satin cabinets like these ones tend to hide them okay unless your hands are very oily whereas textured cabinets like these ones hide them the best and although it can be tempting to think that we are incredibly clean when we first go out to design our kitchen in reality we all have those days where we're absolutely wiped where cleaning our kitchen is the last thing we want to be doing so when picking your color scheme or material palette this is definitely something to bear in
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mind but finally I'll just end on a couple of quick notes that don't really require all that much of an explanation which is inefficient workspace and terrible handle choice where for your work surfaces you ideally want space either side of places like your sink and your stove because these areas tend to have a lot of movement around them and you don't really want to be bumping your elbows into things or Worse burning the sides of a cabinet where building
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regulations even come into play when it comes to stove and when it comes to sinks water can Splash around quite a bit where you probably want to avoid getting it on your cabinets or your walls and when it comes to handles these can actually be quite hazardous if you pick the wrong ones as they are right at head height for small children and pets and if you value your clothing too some handles can be prone to snagging however this is something that I have covered in a previous
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video so if you're interested and hearing more about that you can check it out here but just to conclude I will say that all of this is just my personal opinion and really all that matters is that a kitchen is a space that encourages you to cook more enjoy cooking more and be a place that you can be proud of anyways thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one
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