Designing my Kitchen

I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of advice - just wanted to jump in and welcome you to the site! Glad to see you've jumped in and started posting a few.

I don't know of any specific kitchen plans for bugging in, but the one piece of advice I can offer would be to have a kitchen island. At least, that's on my wish list. The reason is because of all the canning and dehydrating and general food saving work. Not only is it good to spread out, but I need space to keep the relatively small, yet bulky, appliances and tools. I have a pressure canner and a water bath canner with blancher, neither of which fit in my cabinets, a dehydrator, a fryer, a food strainer, a food processor, a vacuum sealer, a bread machine, a large slow cooker - and I'm in the process of getting a grain mill. None of these items fit in cabinets well at all - it would be great to have an island where I could keep the these bulky items under the counter, and spread out with extra counter space whenever I work.

That's just my thought.
Good luck with your project!

 

I kind of wish that I had splurged and made my cabinets all the way to the ceiling, I would have used that space for rotating to my pantry.

my pantry is a deep cabinet, if I had to do over agin, I would have made a walk in closet with just shelves, no cabinet .

 

In my mind, the best kitchen is one that you can work in, have lots of easily accessable shelves, drawers and cubby-holes. Lots of counter-top space with deep cupboards under and "high" upper cupboards. I would have two "double" sinks in the kitchen, one under the window for fresh-air and one in the island in the middle of the kitchen. I would also have a full stove with oven on one side and a stove-top set into the island. One of the stoves would be gas-only and the other would be whatever you are comfortable cooking with (electric, gas, wood, etc).

I would have a giant walk-in pantry in the kitchen for day-to-day storage of food-stuffs and have one large fridge and an upright freezer in the kitchen (my basement would have another fridge and a chest freezer).

As far as counter-tops go, I personally would use 1/8" 304 grade stainless steel. Some people like stone counters, some people like tile, some like to go inexpensive with wood-base and arborite. Totally your choice.

Good luck!

 

have the stove,refrigerator and sink in a triangle about 4 steps or less from each other

 

I have 2 wall of cabinets in my kitchen and it's still not enough. We have preps under the beds, under the dressers, in the clothes closets, stacked in the corner of the spare bedroom, converted the linen closet to hold food stuffs. I think I need a large climate controlled storage building.

 

Ok, something you may want to think about, I see in my mind major bug out or in moment and everyone is in town running around...we have our food, but you'll have to go to storage ...what if someone sees you with all this stuff? In one second, gun to head and it's theirs...

I think you should try your best to keep it in the house, no matter what! :2thumb:

on you tube I saw where a woman had a dresser behind her sofa, it was made into a can FIFO ....let me see if I can find the link...

It would be cool to have something like this IN the kitchen

 

Djgang may have been hinting at this...

Hidden pantry for storage. Perhaps a normal looking relatively small pantry but a secret catch releases the back wall/shelf and it opens to a larger pantry where all your longer term stuff can be kept?

As to general cooking and layout, provide enough counter space to work, good lighting and a really good range hood for venting whatever doesn't come out right to the outside.

I do much of the cooking at home and from where I work I am right next to the stove, 1 step to the fridge and 2 steps to the sink. All commonly used pans, utensils, cutting boards, etc are all within arms reach or no more than 2 steps away. Having to run back and forth a lot gets old really quick so when I redid our kitchen I designed it with functionality as the primary goal and then wrapped everything else around it.

 

I am on my iPad, and I can not get the URL for the YouTube video about the dresser...just get on YouTube and search out food storage, the picture shows a sofa with a table behind it and flowers...HTH!

 

If you're going to remove your dishwasher, could you detach the front from the rest and put it back in place somehow? This would provide an area to hide stuff that most people would ignore. Who thinks of looking in a dishwasher for food or water?

And if anyone is over and asks why you don't use it just make some excuse about it being broken and you haven't gotten around to getting rid of it yet. Just make sure it can be "locked" so someone doesn't accidentally open it thinking to put dishes in there.

 

If you have frame interior walls there is a lot of hidden storage space there, 15"x3 1/2'' x 90'' between each set of studs, hides/holds a lot of canned goods.

 

How about putting hidden storage in the ceiling of your closets? Say you had 8ft ceilings in your house. You drop the ceiling in your closets to 6ft. Put an access to this space in the room that shares the closet wall. Cover the access hole with a picture, quilt. etc.

 

Attached is a picture of a way to get more storage just as TiredIron described - you knock-out a section of the dry-wall and put a cabinet in between the verticle studs. It can be used in the kitchen as a spice-rack, in the bathroom as a medicine cabinet, in a bedroom as a knick-knack shelf, in a living-room as a DVD / BlueRay disk sorter ... your imagination can go wild!

 

Dream kitchen that has all you need to be "prepared" for the worst. Well, first on my list is a wood cookstove. Yes you can still get these, they are not cheap, and take up some space, but if electricity is lost, grid is gone, you can still cook and bake, and even heat water.

Then, yes, a walk in pantry, basically a walk in closet with shelves (not too deep), a center island, plus enough storage for other items, floor to ceiling shelving, hooks for pots...I dream of this instead of a walk-in for clothes.

Concrete, terra cotta tile, or brick flooring, with a drain in it, a big farm sink, and lots of counterspace for working on.

 

You willl need a big sink- alot of counter space and propane or gas stove (you can use this for cooking/heating water).. whatever, even if the power is out, until you run out of propane/gas. If propane, get the largest tank available and have them top it off monthly, or weekly - if they will.
You will need lots of counterspace for canning and processing vegetables and meat, if the time comes that you must hunt. Take the above cabinetry all the way to the ceiling. Make the cabinet over the refrigerator come all the way out to the front of the refer and begin 4 inches above it to allow the heat from it to escape. Use every inch of cabinetry. If there is a 2 inch space tween cabs or appliances, install a slide out set of shelves for keeping your spices and herbs or narrow pans like baking sheets. Cabinets cabinets cabinets and dont stop with the kitchen. Enclose the areas above closets and bathtub/showers, shelves that pull out and doors on the front for access.

 

Also, You should think about a secure place for a firearm since you probably spend most of your time in that room.