Utilising deep drawers & tower cabinet for Kitchen organisation
146
- Coastal Living
- HDB (BTO)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Welcome back to our Kitchen! Besides our problematic Dining area, Kitchen was the next space we've spent most of our time brainstorming ideas & ways to: 1) Create the most efficient layout 2) Maximise counter top space & storage 3) Ensure all carpentry (top & bottom) will be utilised 3) Fit built-in Oven, standalone Microwave, Dishwasher, induction Hob, chimney Hood and a 70cm sink With that, we topped up a little (thankfully our ID gave some discounts :P) to change all bottom carpentry to drawers except the one underneath the sink. 
We adopted the Kitchen Work Triangle concept and ensured the 3 key areas (Cooking zone, sink and fridge) are in the form of a triangle, go lookup this concept if interested! These are our measurements in helping us maximise counter top space, essentially we have 178cm + 249cm counter top space when we're not cooking! 
To the left of our Dishwasher is where our cutleries & dinnerware go. We made sure our Dishwasher is between this set of drawers and sink as it's the most efficient layout to load and unload dinnerware! As you may have noticed, this section of drawers are especially lengthy due to the layout of our Kitchen, and it doesn't make sense to divide this area into 2 columns of drawer as there'll be more space wasted. Instead, we found this 4-way expandable cutlery organiser from Taobao to keep other loose items like strainer, excess rubber bands, measuring spoons, tongs, brushes, sink nets etc. on top of the basic cutleries. Our top cabinets are segmented such that the bottom 2 sections are comfortably within our reach (we're both 170cm and taller) and the highest section can be reached when we tip-toe to our max. Notice how the highest section is much taller than the 2 sections (also because there's a beam). This way, we're able to ensure all $$ spent on carpentry can be 90% utilised and not built for the sake of building. To the right of our Dishwasher, we kept most of the cleaning agents like Dishwashing tablets & liquid, laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaning agent etc. This area is especially deep so we got a standalone 2-tier drawer to hold looser items like sponges etc., while still being able to cater to taller bottles. Now to the other side of our Kitchen, the cooking area! Underneath our built-in oven, we went with a super DEEP drawer with adjustable panels in the middle with the aim to keep oven trays which are especially wide & huge. Not gonna lie, storing oven trays was our initial idea but we had no idea it would be this DEEP! But looking back, it was a blessing in disguise because this space allowed us to keep other tall kitchen appliances like fruit juicer, blender and other baking trays. We'd rather bend over to retrieve items from a drawer than having to squat and dig into a casement cabinet, so no regrets! hehe To the left is our spice rack from BLUM and we placed it right between our cooking zones (hob & oven). It's the perfect spot I swear! G wasn't really involved in the details behind Kitchen planning but commented the spice rack placement is PERFECT hehe :> We wanted this section of drawers underneath the Hob to be deeper than usual drawer height as we had planned to store our pots & pans, but eventually realised it could even store our hotpot & rice cooker!! :O Thankfully this turned out for the better because this made it very easy for us to access & use these appliances so it's not "out of sight out of mind" hehe To the left, we simply kept all our food containers for meal preps and other miscellaneous items like baking papers, foils and stuff. This is how deep each of our drawers are! We did contemplated to have 3 drawers instead of 2 but our ID advised us otherwise as the internal height of each drawers would be significantly reduced, resulting in more space wasted. We also built a tower cabinet for our built-in oven and standalone microwave with hidden switches, so that means more storage space! Sadly the top section is a little too high for us so we're only able to stretch to put bottles at best. We should have significantly reduced the height catered for microwave, to reduce the amount of wasted space but I guess our ID just wanted to give us more options since we've not locked in on any microwave during renovation period. That said, the wasted space can be easily utilised with a rack surrounding the microwave which we're already looking into it! :>
- 28 September
Report Post