7 Crucial Features Every Home Kitchen Needs

It is said that the kitchen is the heart of the home. Centrally located, it is an ideal place for family to gather and eat, drink, talk, and bond. In essence, it could and should be one of the most important rooms in your entire house and a priority when buying or building.

Surprisingly though, many house hunters overlook the kitchen in the search process or at least failed to put the emphasis it deserves. If you want your home to help bring your family closer together, seek out these seven special features when buying or building your new home.  

Open Floor Plan

An open floor plan is a game changer for home design and functionality. This layout employes larger, connecter rooms that combine kitchen, dining, and living room spaces into a singular living space. This expands the kitchen’s warmth and welcoming ambiance while allowing increased social interaction and child monitoring across rooms.

Adequate Lighting

Proper lighting is important everywhere in the house, but even more so in the kitchen. Natural light is best, of course, but practical use of artificial light is needed as well. Open floor plans also allow for more natural light. The benefits of natural light are plentiful, including energy cost savings, increases energy, improves moods, and helps keep your body on its natural clock.

Efficient Storage

A well-stocked kitchen means tons of food, drink, decorations, utensils, cookware, cutlery, glassware, kitchen gadgets, and much much more. You will drive yourself crazy if you do not have enough storage for all of this, and even more so if that storage is not efficient and accessible. Large deep cabinets for cookware, divided drawers, extension drawers, and designated appliance space will save you time, energy, and frustration, You also need to make sure everything is well organized, especially when it comes to utensils, specialty gadgets, and tops to the tupperware.

Ample Surface Space

When you spend significant time in the kitchen, the area needs to be a multi-purpose room. Cooking and eating are expected, but when the kitchen is the centerpiece for your office it also has to be an office, classroom, nursery, and so much more. To accomplish that, you need space and not just square footage. A kitchen island, bar counter, or even a fold-down workspace can go a long way in keeping things from piling on top of one another.

Adequate seating

With all of this interaction and activity in the kitchen, one important, yet sorely overlooked need is adequate seating. Ensure there is ample room for people to congregate and feel comfortable for lengthy periods of time without interfering with the functionality of the kitchen. Barstools, roundtables, and drop leaf tables help make tighter space seem bigger with tucked away seating.

Dedicated trash and recycling

Whether under the sink or tucked away in the corner, trash cans and recycling bins are essential in the kitchen–but no one wants to see them, trip over them, or, especially, smell them. Cabinets can be built or retrofitted with custom pull out containers for optimal hidden storage. But if you can’t make that work, then all garbage containers must as out of the way as possible and at least have lids.

Innovative appliances

In the end, the kitchen always come back to one thing–food. To keep that food stored fresh and properly cook it, you need the best appliances, which starts with ENERGY STAR® compliant appliances. Luxury items such as double ovens and built-in refrigerators not only look great in your home, but they also enable the best meals–to which your family can all gather around and spend quality time together enjoying, which is what your kitchen should all about.

At Stanley Martin Homes, we build homes with families and relationships in mind. We not only want to build you a functional, long-lasting home, but also one where you and your family can thrive. To us, a home’s kitchen is as important as your family is to you.