Best Kitchens for Hosting Family and Family
Your kitchen is the perfect place for hosting dinner parties, get-togethers, and casual meetups with friends and family. You don’t have to be a kitchen designer to have a well-designed kitchen dressed to impress, and a functioning space that supports your gatherings. However, if you are ready for a new look and want to design a new kitchen and plan more dinner parties, continue reading below for some tips tricks in this how-to-kitchen-design guide.
So, what is the best Kitchen Design for Hosting Friends and Family? Our experts are going to explain.
Set the Scene with Shaped Designs
No matter the size or shape of your kitchen, you can design the perfect place for hosting an event for your family and friends. Whether you have an open, island, or L Shaped kitchen, there are plenty of ways to make use of your space and prepare for a party.
Open Plan Options
An open kitchen design can be perfect for accommodating a central dining table for your guests, while still leaving space for you to move around and reach your cooking area.
L Shaped Luxuries
L Shaped kitchen designs are an excellent opportunity to create a workflow with high kitchen cabinets, with one end that flows to the lower worktops. These kitchen designs offer flexibility for multipurpose kitchen space, restricting the work zone to one area and leaving more room free for other activities.
A big benefit to L shaped kitchen designs is more freedom for an open plan layout, making smaller kitchens feel larger. In addition, on the free wall you can make space for some integrated seating for dining and hosting.
For larger kitchens, L shaped kitchen designs offer potential space for an island unit suitable for dining and hosting; Islands are also a great area for the kids while your event is active in the main kitchen. L shaped spaces offer a multipurpose kitchen design that can accommodate any home. You can build storage into spare corners and tight nooks or underneath a seating unit.
Island Inspiration
If space is not a problem, well placed islands provide gathering space in your kitchen. If you have space to add two islands to your kitchen, you can have one for your guests, fitted with a wine fridge or coffee station, and the other island can be a preparation area for you. Islands can eliminate the feeling of being secluded away from your guests, as you can cook and keep up with the party gossip at the same time.
For smaller kitchen designs, snug corners and spare worktops are the perfect places for more storage, or you can transform them into a cute bar area - the more islands, the better!
Small but Stunning Kitchen Design Ideas
Hosting can be tricky with restricted kitchen space, and you can sometimes wonder, "How can I make the most of a smaller kitchen?" Well, you are in luck! There are many ways to increase the functionality of small kitchen space, and there are great tips out there that you can use to improve your kitchen cupboard storage and make the perfect hosting space no matter what size your kitchen is! Read on for ideas on kitchen design for small kitchens.
Moveable carts and workstations
Who said that you had to have stationary worktops? With limited space, why not have a trolley cart for a moving pantry? You could even have a worktop that can move into place for preparing food, or a seated space for guests to gather that can be stored away when you need the extra room.
These solutions are a great option if you struggle to make room, as you can add more space and remove it with ease!
Make the most of storage space.
When you don't have much room, anything on your worktops can turn into clutter and make your space feel smaller. Designing a kitchen with ample storage and kitchen cabinets will help to make your kitchen look more spacious and leave room for family and friends.
If you have limited space, think vertically with your kitchen design. Make the most of your ceiling-to-floor space with kitchen cupboard storage ideas for storing small appliances, bulky pots and pans, and even larger appliances like a concealed dishwasher. Or scale down your equipment and go for a smart slimline dishwasher or fridge.
When designing a kitchen in a smaller space, make the space look larger by using a lighter colour pallet for the walls and smart lighting to brighten up the room. To add some personality, you can add fun glassware and decorations to add splashes of bright colour, or go with darker accents to add style and class.
When hosting, space to prepare, cook, and clean is essential, and with a small space it can be tricky to find the room to get everything ready. However, minimising clutter on your worktops and using some of these intelligent solutions can help make hosting events a breeze!
Floating tables
Like moving carts and counters, floating tables can be either minimal and shelf-like, or they can be a hinged table that provides much-needed dining or conversing space, but that can be stored away when not in use. A hinged table can be installed on a spare wall, lies flat when not used, and can be raised and supported. Add some bar stools or chairs, and voila! You have a dining space that is unique and impressive.
If you have empty counters or spare space after reducing clutter, you can adapt these extra counters with bar stools for another solution – a breakfast bar!
Raising the Stakes
A raised space on an island or peninsula to conceal cooking rubbish is also a terrific solution if you want to keep kitchen clutter out of sight and out of mind. But go a step further and establish a utility room with a sink and kitchen cupboard storage solutions where you can store dirty dishes, leftovers, general clutter, and anything else you'd prefer to keep hidden.
Make Zones that Work for you
In a kitchen, a workflow is important and adds organisation to your space. By planning zones for preparation, cooking, and cleaning, your space will allow you to move freely between the areas with a smooth workflow, so you have everything you need in reach. A popular method is a five-zone method. You have space for consumables, like your fridge and food storage, non-consumables, which are your utensils and small appliances, cleaning areas, prepping areas and of course, areas for cooking. Keeping separate sections for each will allow everything to stay organised and stored in the correct zone.
Appliances
If you plan on hosting often, a good idea is to invest in your appliances. If possible, upgrade your appliances and choose a double oven or double dishwasher for a more efficient cooking and cleaning space. In addition, warming drawers are a great addition to hosting kitchens, and can help keep food warm while preparing meals for dinner parties or family functions.
Fancy a Drink with Friends?
A beverage station is a dream come true for people who enjoy entertaining since it allows you to establish a little place where visitors may serve themselves. It can hold wine, cocktail components, water, coffee, and tea, keeping liquids out of the way while keeping visitors' drinks topped up.
When creating this space, consider including a small refrigerator and even a microwave that can be used to reheat cold coffee or canapés.
If you are a keen cocktail partygoer as well as a budding kitchen designer, a drinks drawer would be a great asset to have for entertaining your friends and family, maybe even include a tech-savvy section for guests to charge their phones and devices. A wet bar is another great option for creating an area for drinks and a sink for cleaning glassware separately from the central kitchen.
Smart Seating and Storage
Room for a couch or sofa? Make use of the space to add smart storage under the seats! Not hosting? Store unused glassware safely and out of the way in kitchen cabinets until it's time to party! Less clutter to worry about!
Separate your guests from the cooking area with comfortable seating near the open kitchen and dining room. Banquette design can keep guests happy while you have space to work and host.
If your room is compact, then opting for more relaxed dining area, such as a breakfast bar, is a good idea. A bar can easily be added to the end of a run of units, or on a peninsula, by creating a slight overhang on the work surface so people can get their knees comfortably underneath. In bigger rooms, a large dining area may be possible, but make sure you measure the space for the table and the chairs.
Once you have your kitchen design ready to go, you’re on to accessorizing and styling!
Homely Décor and Exciting Entertainment
For kitchen accessories ideas, you don’t have to hide away your items or clutter your workspace. If you are entertaining, make sure you use your space to display and use ingredients as décor. Like to display your jars and appliances? Then custom-built storage and a glass fronted kitchen cabinet can offer a great kitchen design that shows off your mugs, glasses, jars, and more. With clever cabinets, you can also access to your dishware, ingredients, and appliances with ease without cluttering your worktop space.
As for entertaining guests while you are hosting, there are many affordable devices that you can integrate into your kitchen. Luckily, we're living in a super-connected home entertainment bubble, with smart home hubs like Amazon Echo and Google Home. There are now Wi-Fi enabled gadgets with music streaming connections, integrated multi-room speakers, smart TVs with streaming services – you name it they’ve got it. Including these in a hosting style kitchen is an excellent option to keep adults and children engaged while you prepare.
A Quick Guide to Atmospheric Kitchen Lighting
When it comes to how to light your kitchen, examine the entire space, from floor to ceiling. For example, adding profile lighting to the bottom of the kitchen cabinets or an island could be used to create an atmosphere. These sorts of kitchen lighting ideas go a long way to modify the atmosphere of a kitchen area, bringing amazing ambience to your hosting scene.
Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are widely employed in modern kitchen design since they provide a wide range of lighting options. Consider having a run of LED strip lighting along your kickboards to bring more atmosphere to your space. You can even change the colour options on many sets of LEDs, so you can have the freedom to bring any lighting colour and atmosphere to your event that you want!
Depending on the size and demands of the kitchen, using several types of lighting could be your best option. To determine the lighting each room requires, look at the different locations of your kitchen and consider the activities that will take place in each one.
Task illumination could be required in some areas, such as food preparation zones, the kitchen sink, under kitchen cabinets, and above the stove. Other areas, like the dining area, require mood and accent lighting. For example, you'll want guests to sit in a softer light if they're going to be conversing with you in the kitchen over a glass of wine while you're cooking.
Become The Host with the Most
If you enjoy entertaining, making your kitchen a friendly environment is essential, allowing you to be a part of the action with your guests and generating lasting party memories. A well-designed kitchen for entertaining will assist you in becoming an ideal host. For more design ideas, see our Dream Doors blogs.