Kitchen Design: What Not to Do
Everyone’s a critic
This kitchen was featured in a post about a modern home listing in Portland over on Jetson Green.
At first glance, the abundance of wood finish is great: it’s warm & provides good contrast with the stainless appliances.
Look a little closer & things stand out. Like, where can you store anything in that kitchen? 3 wall cabinets, 1 blind corner base cabinet, 1 drawer under the microwave and 1 single door base cabinet?
Granted, there may be more storage outside the edges of the shot. And sink cabinets don’t count b/c of the amount of sink guts, disposal, & it’s usually the designated garbage and detergent zone in most houses.
Lines & Clearances
What happens when you need items out of the drawer under the microwave and that corner cabinet simultaneously? Or how about getting into the dishwasher when the oven door is open? That is a busy corner with all the appliances scrunched into it.
As far as lines go, I love the horizontal orientation of the wall tile. But the variation of vertical vs. horizontal pulls on the cabinets is visually noisy.
The shelf over the window at the sink & the window itself are nice touches. I wonder why the wood banding above the tile on the sink wall does not continue over the tile at the range hood?
WWED? (what would ecomod do)
- continue the wide wood trim above the wall tile along the range side wall, interrupting it at the vent;
- either darken or lighten the wood on the cabinets or on the floor, but not both, to gain some contrast;
- add horizontally oriented wall cabs over the sink for added storage. I’d line them up with the glass doors on the corner wall cabinets to continue that visual line;
- swap the positions of the DW and the single door base cabinet to help unclutter that corner;
- find a way to incorporate more drawers (40% more storage with drawers over doors, kids!).
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Candy Silvasy, Becky Shankle. Becky Shankle said: New blog post: Kitchen Design: What Not to Do http://www.eco-modernism.com/2010/07/kitchen-design-what-not-to-do/ [...]
I love this kind of post… it’s pretty bad Feng Shui, too!
Those corner cabinets look as though they will fall off the wall at any moment; very dangerous-looking!
And since the kitchen is the room of the Fire element, all that Wood only feeds the heat. The room needs some rounded edges and random patterns to bring in the cooling Water element.
Nice post – you are so right about dishwasher, and the drawers, and the wood band above the tile. I’d nix that angled corner wall cabinet too – why introduce a random 45 degree angle?
Maybe they’ve got an entire wall of generous storage on the right hand side, that we can’t see – in which case, why didn’t they find room for the MW in it, and if you don’t need cabinets over the window, why on earth not have a taller one?
Ann Feng Shui, thanks for the feng shui perspective – interesting!
ClarityK you made me laugh out loud about the window! Good point about the corner cabinet, too. I’m not a lover of any corner cabinets if they can be avoided. I’ll back 2 wall cabinets off a corner & leave it open before putting a corner wall cabinet in there. They’re unreachable anyway!
I agree. With everything! And while attractive in a photo, it is really busy.
Corner cabinets can be such a wasteland!