Ideal Kosher Kitchen

Aribenj

Tue, Jul 29 2008, 9:28 pm

We are thinking of remodeling our kitchen. It's a tiny kitchen in a big space and it could just be used so much more efficiently...

Anyways, we don't know what we're going to do, but if we're gonna do something we're gonna do it right, and I would love for it to be the perfect Kosher kitchen

What would you include?

rowo

Tue, Jul 29 2008, 9:37 pm

yup, that's my dream too. 3 sinks. my mil has a 3rd sink for pareve, with just a little counter space next to it, but it is amazing!
also, on a practical level, I think that drawers are much more efficient than cupboards for storage in the kitchen. for dishes, pots etc. you pull the whole drawer out and can see everything instead of crouching on the floor and digging in the back of a cupboard.

octopus

Tue, Jul 29 2008, 9:39 pm

[quote rowo]also, on a practical level, I think that drawers are much more efficient than cupboards for storage in the kitchen. for dishes, pots etc. you pull the whole drawer out and can see everything instead of crouching on the floor and digging in the back of a cupboard.

They make cabinets that have pull out shelves for this purpose.(specifically for pots).

RachelEve14

Tue, Jul 29 2008, 11:58 pm

We just did our kitchen. Drawers are wonderful, we got as many as we could.

As far as the counter layer, ours is a "U" shape. We started with the fridge on the right, parve space then(the size of the dishwasher) then a sink (meat sinK), all the way around the "U" to the burners in the middle (I wanted the burners to be the divider, I was sick of having to carry my dairy accross the kitchen to put it down!. Curve around the "U" until you get to the dairy sick (pretty much oppisite the meat) and there is another area you can curve around a bit for a milk area. If you want to see a picture let me know in PM with an e-mail address I can try to take one.

By the way, I just asked my Rav yesterday and he told me you can put parve dishes in a clean meat / milk sink, so I just do that. The meat dishes get done first or put in the dishwasher, then I clean the sink and put the parve in. If I h ad a lot of space a parve sink would be nice, but I prefer the counter space. I know someone with a big kitchen who had a parve island in the middle with a sink in the island.

Pizza

Wed, Jul 30 2008, 2:34 am

A pantry is also very important

I chose to have cabinets to the ceiling, b/c in my experience, cabinet tops collect tons of dust that only gets cleaned 1-2x a year. We use the extra height for storage of bulk items on sale (I.e. crackers, ketchup)

It was important to me to have pesach stuff stored in the kitchen, so one of our corner cabinets and the cabinet over the fridge hold our pesach stuff. Minimizes shlepping.

Fabulous

Thu, Jul 31 2008, 1:48 pm

To save money when my parents redid their house, they could not afford an architect, my mother designed the kitchen with great features.

1) tons of outlets. you never know when or where you need the blender, mixer, food processor etc...
2) 2 dishwashers. Although to tell the truth we didn't really use that much milchigs so it was used during the nine days and after shavuos, and that's it. But some families eat a lot of dairy.
3) large pantry
4)broom closet
5) something my mil has that mother didn't get too good was the drawer/cabinet thing. My mother has cabinets with drawers inside for pots, not so good. The drawers break and thinkgs fall behind. My mil has full drawers that look great.
6) built in microwave with vent. This was great growing up if some sort of smoky mess in the kitchen and we didn't want the smoke alarm to go off.
7) 2 ovens. This was great. Although we didn't use so much dairy as I said, we kept it self-cleaned and often used it for pareve like cakes and challah.
8) lazy susannah. Cabinet with rotating shelves inside
9) cabiinets on top of the fridge for pesach dishes
10) no island, rather u shape on one side. I personally like working on an island, especially since it can be pareve, but it totally breaks up the space unless there is a HUGE kitchen. Spaciousness is better.

GOOD LUCK!

Tech_mom

Thu, Jul 31 2008, 2:11 pm

When my sister designed her kitchen, she had the counters made higher than usual (she is somewhat tall, but not unusually so). It is much better than bending down too much - good ergonomics.

This is another great idea that I have seen - but only if you have enough space (something most people don't have!): I have also seen people put a counter and a few cabinets in a big pantry-like closet with folding doors - as a pesach kitchen. it looks really useful

anonymom

Thu, Aug 14 2008, 12:12 am

Lots of people mentioned 3 sinks as well as 2 dw's. Since they take up about the same amount of space, I would definitely go with 2 sinks and 3 dishwashers. If you use a lot of parves, like soups, baking utensils, food processor, containers, wouldn't you rather put them in a parve dw, than a parve sink and have to wash them? If you don't do a lot of parves, then save it for Pesach. (but put something inside while not in use that absorbs moisture so it wont stink when closed up for so long.)

Last edited by anonymom on Thu, Aug 14 2008, 12:36 am; edited 1 time in total

ganizzy

Thu, Aug 14 2008, 12:22 am

if u have a L or U shape, you can put a lazy susan in teh corner, it goes all teh way around so u dont lose too much space. my parents have their milchig in a "seperate" kitchen its off the main kitchen like a sideways T except the milchig is much smaller. this way ur milchigs is seperate and u also have the extra wall space to have more cabinets. drawback is it makes the rest of the kitchen more narrow.

Barbara

Thu, Aug 14 2008, 2:07 pm

Tech_mom wrote:

My dream kitchen, that I'll never have.

There are mirror image appliances and fixtures, milk and meat. Large stainless steel oven with six gas burners, gas oven, and lower electric oven, plus warming drawers. Stainless dishwashers. Extra deep double stainless sinks. Side by side refrigerator, with extra Sub Zero freezer. Microwaves, food processors, bread machine, top quality pots and pans, knives and flatware; plates of *my* choosing. Marble counters, and lots of 'em. Outlets are a given. Center island with its own sink. Tons of cabinet space, some with glass doors for display, the rest opaque. Pull out drawers in many cabinets. Pull out cabinet specifically for trash and recycling. Garbage disposal. Walk in pantry. Second smaller pantry for storage of Pesach things; this should have outlets so we can store/use a roasting oven in there. Breakfast nook (with washing sink) that opens into a great room (family room). There should be a deck off of either the nook or the great room, so that we can eat outside. On the other side, a huge dining room with its own washing sink.