Homemaker Monday: To Design a Kitchen - Part One

Welcome to...

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YOURS: I chose this week's "YOURS" as it is perfect for the upcoming holidays. Tara, over at "Life, as it is..." has made some scrumptous mini-pumpkin cheesecakes and shows us, step-by-step, how we can, too! To show us how it's done, she includes some awesome photos, like these...




...and if you're anything like me, your mouth will be watering by the time you are finished reading her post! Thanks, Tara, for your inspiration and for being a regular here at 11th Heaven! You always add so much with your comments and your links and we appreciate you! For Tara's entire pumpkin cheesecake post, click HERE. Thanks, again, Tara! (And feel free to grab the "I was featured" button on my left sidebar if you'd like!)

MINE: Many of you have requested that I tell you more about how I designed our kitchen...


You asked for it....you got it!

One of the great things about living here in Mexico is that one can expect projects to take two to three times as long as they would in the states. Normally, one wouldn't consider that a benefit, but it served me well in that I was able to plan out my kitchen for nearly two years. I had a lot of time to my "woman's perogative" (changed my mind a thousand times) and I feel like I was able to create exactly what I wanted.

One of the best design secrets I learned while poring over magazines and books was the "work center" concept. A well-designed kitchen has areas or centers where certain tasks are accomplished. In most kitchens, these centers can support more than one function. Here are the centers I created in my kitchen:

-The baking center
-The serving center
-The dish display center
-The cooking center
-The clean-up center
-The breakfast center
-The plating center
-The eating center
-The computer center

As the weeks go by, I will address each of these centers, but today I would like to focus on the how I initially designed my kitchen, then we'll go into the baking, serving, and dish display centers.

Step 1: The first thing I did when I began designing my kitchen was to choose a style. Since we had decided to raise our children in Mexico, I chose to embrace the Mexican culture and go with a rustic Mexican design. I bought books on Mexican decor and tons of kitchen design magazines to find ideas. I also spent a lot of time in stores such as Lowe's and Home Depot to see what felt right as far as cabinet color and style. (To this day, my children cringe just driving by.)

Step 2: Second, I had to decide what my kitchen was going to be used for. Did I want to entertain while I cooked? Did I want the kids to be able to help together? Did I want to be able to display cookware and dishes? The answer to all of these questions was yes. I wanted my kitchen to have the efficiency of a restaurant, but still feel comfortable and inviting. I also knew we would be hosting many large meals (actually, every meal is large in our family!) and I wanted to be able to seat all of the adults, at least, comfortably.

Step 3: We determined how big our kitchen was going to be, then I penciled out a design on graph paper, using each square as one foot. I started armed with the knowledge that most lower cabinets are 24" deep and most upper cabinets are 12" deep. After many trials and errors, here is what I came up with (This is the view from above)...


(Feel free to click on any of these photos to enlarge them.)

Step 4: I then designed each wall from a front-facing view. Since we are going to be focusing on the baking, serving, and dish display wall today, I will show only that plan today here...


Step 5: Honestly, this is my favorite wall of the kitchen. It is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door if you look to your right and I wanted it to be a feast for the eye...


This wall features...
1. 9 feet of counter space on which to prepare food for baking, enabling multiple bakers when necessary. We also use it during our Sunday dinners in which we invite our extended family members. The 9 feet of counter space makes a perfect place for the vast array of the amazing pot luck dishes the women in our family prepare. The family simply lines up on the left and takes a scoop of each tempting delight!...


2. Lots of large and small drawers for items such as cookie cutters...


...or sushi supplies...


3. A cabinet where my cookie sheets can be stored vertically...


4: A Mexican pot filled with mixing spoons and whisks, and stainless steel canisters containing baking ingredients...


5. An open, Mexican-style shelf displaying colorful baking dishes...


...and square jars filled with dry ingredients (shown below from left to right: dark cocoa powder, vital wheat gluten, snack mix, lentils, and regular cocoa powder)...


6. A six foot wide, raised counter area with 52" high cabinets set right on top of the granite to display colorful Mexican dishes...


...which includes decorative grain drawer inserts filled with various grains, beans and pastas. These inserts are only one inch deep, so the drawers can actually be used for items other than the grain shown...



As I said, this wall is my favorite in the whole kitchen and sometimes I find myself just standing in the entryway of our home and staring at it. Actually, not just sometimes...all the time. I know, I have a disorder and I need help, but sometimes I just can't believe that this is actually my kitchen!

So what do you think? If you are working on designing your own kitchen, what other information would you like? Next week I'll talk about how I chose the cabinet wood and the countertop material and we'll go over the clean-up and breakfast centers. Let's hope I can keep it clean until then for the photo shoot!

OURS: Okay, now it's your turn! It's been two weeks since we've been able to see what all of you awesome homemakers have been up to, so we're extra excited to see what you've got for us today! Thanks again for coming and we'll see you next Homemaker Monday!



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