If you want your kitchen to be a pleasant and comfortable place for the whole family, you need to design it to meet everyone’s needs. We’ve put together a few things that might not immediately spring to mind when you’re planning a family kitchen.

The kitchen island should serve as a dining area

Many people think that a large dining table is enough, but if it’s possible to create a kitchen island in the room, then it’s definitely worth going for it. On the one hand, it provides an extra work surface if you want to be busy in the kitchen at the same time; on the other hand, it’s best if the island also serves as a dining area. The kitchen can be a real communal space for the family; you can sit round the kitchen island to chat or have breakfast, and it can even serve as a bar counter for the adults.

Work surfaces at different heights

A major advantage of bespoke kitchen furniture is that we can decide for ourselves, for example, the height of our worktop. However, if several people use the kitchen, this choice is not quite so straightforward. This „problem” can be overcome, for example, by designing the kitchen worktop and the kitchen island to different heights, but we are also occasionally asked to include a surface designed specifically for young children, one that they can reach.

Safety measures

In a family kitchen, it’s important to keep a close eye on the little ones, and if we have a pet too, we need to take that into account as well. It’s important that children cannot reach sharp or dangerous objects, so we should position them at a height that meets this requirement. There are now some excellent child-proof locking solutions available for kitchen cupboards, but we should always bear in mind that opening them will require a bit of extra effort from us in our day-to-day lives. It’s also a good idea to consider fitting soft-close mechanisms to drawers and kitchen cupboards, so that little ones are less likely to trap their little hands.

Dog owners learn after a couple of weeks not to leave anything out in the open, because these little rascals are capable of sniffing out anything and will keep at it until they get their paws on it. We shouldn’t irritate them unnecessarily with smells they find tempting; instead, we should place any food that triggers this investigative instinct out of their reach. Another good solution is to store these items in airtight containers, as this will make them much less tempting to them.

Order is important

If several of us use the same kitchen, it’s very important that everything has its own place and that we put everything back after use, so that when someone else wants to use a particular utensil or ingredient, they don’t have to spend hours looking for it. It’s a good idea to think carefully during the planning stage about how many and what types of storage units we’ll need, and to work out where to put them in your mind; after that, it’s simply up to us to keep our surroundings tidy.

When designing a kitchen, there are countless factors to take into account, which can be difficult even if it is only going to be used by ourselves. Balancing the needs of several people requires even greater precision, so it’s a good idea to involve a professional who can provide us with useful advice that we might not even have thought of. If you’d like bespoke kitchen furniture, please feel free to get in touch with us via our contact details, With decades of experience in design and installation, we look forward to welcoming you to Mobilan Kitchen Studio!