Farrington Cabinet Works Blog
A Healthy Kitchen
By Mike Farrington
Can a well designed kitchen help you with your diet and overall health? The short answer to this is YES, a kitchen that is designed properly can help you live and eat healthy. Having designed and built several kitchens I have found that the key to a good functioning kitchen is that all the most commonly used utensils and appliances must be easy to access. If you are like me, the easier it is to do a chore the more likely I am to actually do it. When it’s easy to clean the counter top I will tend to clean it more often.
A well designed kitchen will make cooking meals and cleaning up after much easier. This in my opinion will help anyone diet better and have a cleaner healthier kitchen.
Let’s take a look at a few examples:
Solid surface counter tops: They key to a good countertop is to have a continuous flat surface with as few seams in it as possible. Tile counter tops have grout lines that are hard to clean and are a collecting area for bacteria. Solid counter tops such as granite, cement, or quartz all have very few if any seams. Combine any of these counter tops with an under mount sink and a simple wipe down with your favorite household cleaner is all they need to be cleaned. This is much faster and more sanitary than any other counter top option.
Drawers and pull outs: make life easier to access the backs of cabinets. Accessing those pots and pans in the back of the cabinet is no longer a problem. No need to kneel down to get into the backs of your cabinets, which will help prevent back and knee injuries. I personally like to use a variety of different sized drawers to accommodate large and small items. Pull out options are also available for pantries, under cook tops, and many other places in the kitchen. A well organized pantry will allow you to keep on hand and access quickly all of the different items you need to cook and eat a more healthy diet. All of these make cooking, cleaning, and living in your kitchen easy and healthy.
A home for everything: When designing a kitchen I like to take inventory of the customers different appliances, pots, pans, knives, flatware, etc. I do this so I can build storage for each. For example if a customer has a 12” diameter dinner plate I will build a 13” or 14” upper cabinet to store them. A standard 12” upper cabinet will not hold a 12” diameter dinner plate; the cabinet door will not close fully. I also build plenty of custom storage for bowls, large serving trays, and anything else that needs a home. One common question I get is how best to store dish towels and cleaning supplies. For this I have come up with a special lower cabinet that I locate next to the sink. It has storage for cleaning supplies as well as a bar to hang your dish towels on. This allows them to dry easily preventing germs and bacteria from developing.
All of the above adds up to a kitchen that is easy to use and maintain. So have your kitchen tailored to your needs, start cooking at home, and lead a more healthy life.
