My lockdown kitchen design thoughts...

I am writing this sat at home, with the Easter weekend upon us. I still can't quite believe what is going on around us - I look out at the garden and the glorious sunshine, at my kids building spaceships for their teddies and everything seems so normal. But it really isn't! Well done to the many people trying their hardest to make all our lives easier at the moment!

At Kitchen Culture we have had to stop work, of course, and we are grateful that we could get customers who had kitchens in progress to a point that they could use their rooms. It may not be pretty just yet - that will come.

I don't think we would have ever planned a kitchen, thinking that these circumstances would be upon us. And yet, I think back to so many conversations I have had about storage solutions, appliance choices, why paying more for certain worktops is important and some things have really hit home.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly is food waste. Modern, high quality fridges keep food for longer - often long past best before dates. Technology in fridges can also help you to keep a track of what is going out of date, give you a nudge to use them and even suggest recipes for using those items. The Samsung Home Hub Fridge Freezer is probably the ultimate for tech enthusiasts.

We don't agree with the mass stockpiling of food and panic buying. Having a good amount of what you need and use is important. In a few years time I have no doubt that people will be emptying shelves and find items out of date, unused flour etc. Sensible storage solutions, like the Blum Spacetower, allow you to see what you have clearly and provide a safe way to organise. They hold a lot and with each drawer individually supported they can take a lot of weight, which frees up more space elsewhere.

With more people at home, working and schooling the creation of additional seating areas have become more important. Available sockets and access to USB points have never been so important. Small details and well thought out solutions are definitely something I will take into future designs. Although perhaps if you had the new pop up socket from Sensio in your kitchen it might cause more arguments!!

Some homes no longer have garden waste bins being collected so food waste / compost has become a challenge. It raises further the question of how we dispose of food and whether Waste Disposal units should be more of a consideration in peoples kitchens. Purely from an environmental standpoint it is something we should be looking at anyway.

Worktop choice is the part we tend to spend the longest on with customers at the moment. There has never been more choice and while the look and feel of the product is important, the benefits of each are what people want to know more about. I wonder if people will prioritise products that offer bacterial resistance or properties such as Quartz or man made resin tops like Minerva.

And finally - how many bottles of wine can my wine fridge hold? And is that simply enough to see me through!! Now that would be my panic buy of choice!