Kitchen planner - designing your own kitchen

Author of the publication: Ilya Vedmidsky – 15 years of experience in kitchen design.

Every kitchen renovation begins with the kitchen design project. A very common mistake is to plan the kitchen furniture when the renovation is ready. To make the kitchen comfortable and beautiful, you need to carefully plan everything and renovate it in accordance with your plan.

On this page you will be able to design the kitchen yourself. Our Formahome online kitchen design software will help you do this. I will briefly list its advantages:

• Our online kitchen planner is free.

• The possibility to create kitchen designs and interior visualizations.

• The built-in kitchen calculator will help you calculate the cost in 1 click.

• The ability to save your kitchen project online and continue working at any time.

• The possibility to send a link to the kitchen project in 3D to your friends and relatives.

To draw a kitchen in accordance with a customers requirements, it takes me an average of 3 hours working together with them. Moreover, it takes me about 15 minutes to design a kitchen in the Formahome kitchen planner. The rest of the time is spent communicating with the customer and creating a list of all requirements for the project.

Questions like: "What is more important for you, a table or a sofa?" – and so on for three hours.

The services of a professional designer can cost an average of €200 per working day. A good kitchen design is really expensive but you can save money if you use our online kitchen planner and design your kitchen by yourself. 90% of the issues that a kitchen designer solves, you can easily solve on your own. It will take you about 20 minutes to create your own kitchen project in the Formahome kitchen planner program. A five-minute training video will show you all the features of the program. This article will show you how to design a kitchen on a computer perfectly.

You could get the whole family together on a Saturday evening at home and create your new kitchen in the Formahome kitchen planner. You do not need to download a program for designing a kitchen, just follow my recommendations.

1. Measurement of the room.

Measuring a room is easy, the main thing is to follow my recommendations and be extremely careful. Measurements should be carried out only with tools specially designed for this purpose. This is a measuring tape or a laser device. I recommend double-checking each size carefully, as the slightest mistake can cost you dearly, but don't worry, if you order a Formahome kitchen then we can provide a measuring service to take precise measurements of your space using a specific laser device that scans the entire room.

Worldly wisdom of a designer: "There are no straight walls." Therefore, if the kitchen is designed from wall to wall, then I recommend measuring the length between each wall at three levels in height – just above the ground, in the middle of the wall and under the ceiling.
If the kitchen furniture is planned to the ceiling, also take three height measurements. If the angle where the walls meet is not a right angle, then be sure to measure the diagonal from corner to corner.

Then we measure all the protruding elements: sockets, pipes, windows, doors, window sills. Below I will show you my draft measurement.

Now transfer the dimensions of your kitchen space to the kitchen planner. Input doors, windows and other interior elements in their places. Paint the floor, wall, and ceiling to match your design idea. Now you can proceed to the actual planning of kitchen furniture.

2. Working triangle and types of kitchen layouts.

The kitchen work triangle is the space that forms between the refrigerator, sink and stove. It is also important to follow the logical sequence of food preparation. First, we take out the food from the refrigerator, then wash it in the sink and then fry it on the stove. Between the refrigerator and the sink, and between the sink and the stove, it is necessary to plan a working surface of the recommended dimensions: from 60 cm to 120 cm.

The following corresponding zones form around each appliance:

• Cabinets around the refrigerator form a consumable zone for grocery storage.

• Cabinets around the sink form a cleaning zone for supply storage. 
• Cabinets around the stove and oven form a cooking zone for storing all kinds of pots, pans and serving utensils.
• The area between the cleaning zone and the cooking zone is used for food preparation.

The configuration, I'm sure everyone can choose on their own, however, I'll tell you about some of the features:

• The line configuration works well for small or narrow kitchen spaces. In general, if you have a room width of up to 2 meters, then most likely a single-row kitchen will suit you perfectly. Cooking in a line kitchen for two people at the same time is not very convenient.

• Angular or L-shaped configuration. Cooking in such a kitchen is very convenient.

• Galley configuration – kitchen furniture is installed along parallel walls. The width of the room must be at least 240 centimeters.

• U-shaped configuration. The furniture here is located along three walls. In this case, the length of the middle wall must be at least 2.4 meters

• A floor island kitchen is a configuration where part of the kitchen protrudes into the middle of the room. The peninsula is often designed as a bar or dining table. Beyond the peninsula, you can cook with friends and chat face to face. Often the peninsula divides the kitchen into a working part of the room and a dining area or living room. Remember that the distance between parallel kitchen tables is recommended to be at least 120 centimeters.

• Be sure to make an island configuration if the size of the room allows it. Every hostess dreams of an island.

3. Features of the placement of household appliances.

Important! The built-in refrigerator, oven, dishwasher and washing machine leaves no spaces behind them if the depth of the countertop is 60 cm. This means that nothing will fit behind this equipment: no pipes, no sockets, no protrusions.

Here are some more tips for each type of technique:

• The refrigerator is where it all starts, so put it on the edge. They are either built-in or freestanding. Today there is a large selection of sizes.

• Washing. The main thing is not to forget to drain the water under the sink, at a height above the floor of 200mm to 600mm.  Some are of the opinion that a corner sink is the most convenient option, however, you need to have a very strong back to put the sink in a corner, as you have to constantly bend to reach further.

• Hob. Do not place it close to a curtain or refrigerator.

• Hood. Be sure to consider how to connect the hood to a ventilation duct. If you do not have a ventilation duct, then you can consider extracting air through a hole in an exterior wall or use carbon filters to eliminate odors using a recirculating hood. It is also recommended in the kitchen to organize both forced ventilation with an extractor hood and separate natural ventilation. When creating ventilation ducts, use smooth pipes of an appropriate diameter. Try to reduce the number of bends in the total length of the ventilation channel – this will increase the efficiency of the hood and reduce the noise level.

• Oven. Place it at a comfortable height.

• Provide a dishwasher and washing machine with a water supply or install them next to the sink.

• Place the microwave at a convenient height for use. In small kitchens, in order not to occupy the countertop with a microwave, it is attached to the wall under the wall cabinets.

4. Ergonomics of the kitchen.

Ergonomics is a science that studies the question: "How to make the kitchen comfortable." Our kitchen construction set is based on the most ergonomic solutions, so your Formahome kitchen project is guaranteed to be comfortable.

However, despite the generally accepted standards – everybody is different, so be conscious when choosing each part of your kitchen.

• What height of work surface is comfortable for you? In Formahome, you can choose from three standard sizes: 86 cm, 88 cm and 91 cm by changing the height of the plinth, as well as order any other size on special order. 

• In which direction will the cabinet doors open? Here is a simple rule for opening Formahome doors. Think about where you will have the middle of the working area in your kitchen – this is the place where you plan to work most of the time. Now all the doors that are to the left of this center will open to the left, and all the doors that are to the right will open to the right. The most ergonomic and comfortable way to open wall cabinets is vertically and the most convenient base cabinets are ones with drawers.

• Maneuver space around the kitchen will make your life comfortable and more convenient, the main thing is to calculate how much space is needed and draw up a plan of the kitchen.

5. Kitchen safety.

Important!

• The minimum distance between the electric stove and the hood is 60cm.

• The minimum distance between the gas stove and the hood is 75cm.

• Do not place upper cabinets above the stove without a hood.

• The width of the hood must not be less than the width of the hob.

• It is forbidden to connect the hood to the ventilation duct in the kitchen with a gas boiler. In this case, the hood can only work in recirculation mode.

• Provide access to valves and meters for gas and water pipes.

• Gas boilers and columns can be covered with a panel, but they cannot be closed from below or above. It is also necessary to provide access for servicing these devices.

• The stove must not be installed under gas appliances.

• Flexible gas hoses for connecting a gas stove can be used (up to 2 meters long according to Irish legislation).

• Install the stove at a distance of more than 10 centimeters from the curtain, kitchen cabinet or refrigerator.

6. We create a kitchen interior design with our own hands.

A very popular question: how to design a DIY kitchen? On the Internet, I found a recommendation to make a kitchen layout from cardboard. This recommendation may seem strange. For those who do not have cardboard, scissors and glue at home, simply search the internet or our catalogue for a kitchen design that you like and our kitchen planner will help you quickly draw and visualize your favorite kitchen design online.  With the Formahome kitchen planner, anyone can draw a kitchen online in 15 minutes. Enjoy the creative process.

Here are some design secrets from me that will help you in creating a kitchen interior:

• Light colors and glossy surfaces visually increase the space. Dark colors reduce the space.

• Transparent curtains on the windows and bright lighting visually increase the space.

• The absence of bright general lighting and the presence of spot light accents make the interior visually smaller, but more cozy.

• Vertical lines make the interior visually taller, while horizontal lines make it wider.

• Try not to use more than three materials or colors for your design. The more colors you use, the more difficult it will be for you to create a successful design.

Now that the design is complete, you can order the kitchen online from the comfort of your home. After all, the pricing of the kitchen will be ready immediately. We recommend you see samples of our materials in person. This can be done either in our store in Dublin, or we can send you samples of materials by mail.  I hope that modelling a kitchen in our online kitchen designer will give you a lot of creative pleasure.

My team and I are working daily to make Formahome known as the simplest kitchen design software. Tell us what else needs to be improved in the kitchen planner for your comfort.
Your opinion is very important to us and will help us better understand current issues and prioritize our work!