Spending time with family in the kitchen can be beneficial in so many ways. It has been shown that sharing a meal with those you love in a family-friendly kitchen can have several positive effects, including:
- Better academic scores and language development for teens and children.
- Improved family relationships and strengthened by family discussions.
- The ability to make healthier, more nutritious food choices.
- Decreased risk of teenagers engaging in high-risk behaviors.
- Less emotional stress, thanks to a stronger support system.
Creating a family-friendly kitchen will encourage your family to spend more time together.
FIVE TIPS FOR CREATING A FAMILY-FRIENDLY KITCHEN DESIGN
Kitchens that are family-friendly are comfortable, functional, safe, and engaging. You can start designing your own family-friendly kitchen by following these five tips:
1.THE RIGHT SEATING IS ESSENTIAL
Family-friendly kitchens require comfortable seating. If your family gathers around a traditional dining room table or counter-height barstools around the kitchen island, make sure there is plenty of comfortable seating available. Your family will spend more time around the table if your dinner seating is comfortable.
There are some meals that are both delicious and messy – like pasta, pizza, and desserts. Make sure you choose chairs or bar stools made from easy-to-clean fabrics for your family kitchen. Washable slipcovers can also help protect delicate seating during mealtime.
2.CHOOSE EASY-TO-CLEAN BUILDING MATERIALS FOR A FAMILY-FRIENDLY KITCHEN
In family-friendly kitchens, easy-to-clean materials are a must, especially for the countertops and flooring. Family mealtime can be chaotic, but quartz, vinyl, and laminate countertops stand up well to the chaos.
You can choose from stone, tile, or laminate flooring, which are typically nonporous and easy to maintain. If you want to keep your kitchen clean and dry, avoid installing carpet. If you want to give the room more personality, choose a colorful, washable rug.
Let’s face it. Sometimes life happens. Kitchen cabinets can suffer damage over time when they are used daily. Many of the cabinet options offered at Timeless Kitchen Outlet are easily wipeable and stain resistant so that you can make a mess, wipe it clean and get on with life.
3.WHEN NECESSARY, CHILD-PROOF
You probably already know that child-proofing is important if you have a baby or toddler in your home. In a family-friendly kitchen, child-proofing involves installing high shelves and closed-door cabinets to hide away dangerous items, such as knives, gadgets, cleaning agents, etc.
Children should also be kept away from dangerous areas of the kitchen using baby gates.
4.INVOLVE THE KIDS
Get your child involved in meal preparations to extend family time and teach them valuable life skills. Your child can get involved in a variety of ways depending on his or her age.
Allowing your children to express themselves in the kitchen and teaching them how to cook can encourage them to:
- Develop healthy eating habits.
- Be more creative.
- Become more adventurous eaters.
- Learn math and basic formulas while measuring ingredients.
- Improve their reading comprehension by consulting recipes.
- Learn more about where food comes from, including different cultures.
- Get a jump-start on learning how to care for themselves.
Install furniture that is child-height in the kitchen to make it kid-friendly. You might want to consider providing your child with a step stool, if that is not possible. To teach your children how to put away their tools and dishes during cleanup, you should set aside a special drawer in your kitchen for your children’s baking and cooking supplies.
5.STORAGE, STORAGE, STORAGE
To accommodate all the dishes, pantry items, pots and pans in a family kitchen, there needs to be a lot of storage space. You can include traditional storage spaces in your kitchen design, such as walk-in pantries, drawers, cabinetry, and pot racks.
Use other space-saving tricks in your small kitchen or if you are on a limited budget, such as:
- Installing sliding, pull-out pantries.
- Investing in built-in spice racks inside your cabinets.
- Placing floating shelves on the wall.
- Choosing a built-in microwave to preserve counter space.
- Purchasing a magnetic knife-rack to hang on the wall near your stove.
Designing a family-friendly kitchen for your home can have long term benefits to the relationships in your life. Let the expert kitchen designers in our Orlando showroom help you decide on details that will fit perfectly with your family’s aesthetics and activities.
