As long as humans have been cooking food, the central fire and soup pot have been the beating heart of the home. Today, the kitchen is where meals are prepared with love and conversations are held during the rush of everyday life, and where friends and family are brought together for a quick snack, special occasions, and leisurely dinners.
To make the most of your kitchen, consider adding some of these game-changing gadgets and essential features to your cabinetry and appliances.
Pull-Out Pantry
Housing everything from non-perishables to packaging materials and baking aids, the pantry is the workhorse of the modern kitchen. However, the pantry cupboard also suffers from clutter—AKA the enemy of an efficient kitchen!
Whether you have a single cupboard or a full closet-sized pantry, there’s probably a pull-out shelving system that can clean it up and make it work better. These clever shelves come in many widths and can fit in even the tiniest cupboards to help you organize and easily access everything from bulky ingredients to cooking oils and trays.
Smart Hub
Many new homes come equipped with smart features like automatic lighting, blinds, and locks. Now, you can control these features using a central hub or smart device. Having this central hub in your kitchen puts all your home features at your fingertips without interrupting your busy day. With a smart hub, you can easily adjust anything from your security system to your home’s temperature while you’re enjoying your morning coffee.
There are many options to choose from, including industry leaders Google Home and Alexa. Even better, many of these hubs have additional internet-enabled features. Among these is a web browser that can be used to do a variety of tasks, such as locate new recipes or find the best online sweepstakes casinos—the World Wide Web is your oyster.
Corner Drawers and Pull-Outs
Corner cabinets are among the most underutilized spaces in a kitchen. Thanks to their often awkward shape, storing things in the back becomes a literal pain in the back when you’re doing gymnastics reaching deep inside to find something.
Modern kitchen designers have several ways to combat this problem at a variety of price points. One popular solution is to design corner drawers that pull out to allow access to a corner cabinet with a small opening. There are also clever pullout systems designed for those cavernous blind corner base cabinets. These magical shelves swivel all the way out of the cabinet to allow access to whatever you need to stash—even heavier items like bags of flour and small baking appliances.
Pot Filler Faucet
Whether you’re cooking a family-sized soup or pasta or just need a dash of water in the pan, you could probably benefit from having a pot filler faucet. This faucet is installed directly above the range and commonly features an arm that extends over each burner.
This specialized faucet allows you to easily pour water directly into a pot and saves you from making trips to and from the sink lugging heavy cooking equipment. As a bonus, if something starts to get a little too crispy, you’ll have water close at hand to mitigate any damage from burning.
Kitchen Island
If you have the space for it, a kitchen island is a bona fide essential to have in your home. Aside from providing additional storage with more cabinets and drawers, they can provide extra counter space for prepping and cooking larger meals.
Islands can also feature a counter overhang perfect for tucking in some bar stools and creating a breakfast bar. Suddenly, it becomes the ideal place to invite family and friends to sit, sample your food, and engage with you as you prepare meals.
Charging Station
With all the phones and digital gadgets we own, our homes can quickly become cluttered with jumbles of wires and charging cables. Having a dedicated charging station in your kitchen can help keep your family’s many devices organized and avoid the unsightly mess! It can also be a safe space to park your phone or computer to view recipes while cooking.
Even better: a charging station can help your family disconnect by encouraging everyone to leave devices there to charge instead of using them constantly. How about replacing screen time with a family game night once a week?
Integrated Appliances
Many manufacturers offer incredibly sleek appliances that are as appealing to look at as they are to use. Integrating these into your cabinetry can reduce their footprint in the kitchen, unify the look of your cabinets, and protect the appliances from bumps and scrapes.
There’s more than one way to reap these benefits. One option is to select counter depth appliances that don’t stick out and eat up precious floor space. Integrating this type of fridge can be as simple as adding a single end panel along your cabinetry to enclose it, while still being able to see its sleekly designed face.
The next level of integration is to add a custom panel to even one appliance—the dishwasher, for example—to match the rest of the kitchen. Finally, you could go all out and choose appliances that are specifically designed to be built into your cabinetry to create a seamless modern look for your new kitchen.
Task Lighting
Lighting plays a crucial role in interior design, setting the mood and functionality of a space. In particular, task lighting can make or break your experience in the busy kitchen environment.
Task lighting can come in the form of under-cabinet strip lighting that helps you see better while slicing and dicing, or as individual fixtures hung over your sink or grouped above your kitchen island. These lights can also add a distinct design element to your home if you choose something with a little flair!
Integrated Spice Rack
There’s nothing worse than a bulky spice rack eating up counter space or a messy pile of bottles that always seem to hide the one spice you’re looking for. An integrated spice rack can fix these issues, whether it comes in the form of a drawer insert or a dedicated spice pull out.
A drawer insert can organize spices by placing them all in the same spot with their labels visible and reclined so they’ll fit into even a shallow drawer. Meanwhile, a spice pullout can be added into an existing larger cabinet or fit into its own narrow cabinet. Ideally, whatever spice organizer you use should be located as close to the stove as possible.
Deep Drawers
Old-school kitchens had lots of cabinets with doors—but these days, kitchen designers are increasingly recommending installing drawers wherever possible. Drawers are strong enough to store even heavy pots and pans and make them easily accessible without having to dig in the back of your cabinets. Having deeper drawers maximizes the storage capacity for these larger items and keeps them beautifully organized.
Conclusion
The essential upgrades listed above can truly elevate your kitchen to the next level—making it more functional, more organized, and more pleasant to be in. Whether you’re retrofitting existing cabinets or getting a new kitchen built to your specifications, it’s amazing how much these additions can improve your experience of the space. Consider adding these clever solutions to your home—and enjoy a better workflow and boosted aesthetics that will make you never want to leave!
