How To Use The Space Under The Kitchen Sink? Learn From Japan And Leave Empty Spaces In The Cabinet. It’s Super Practical.
When many owners are renovating their kitchens, they are always focused on competing to see who can build the most cabinets. They are thinking of sealing up every inch of space on the wall and floor to turn it into a storage area. However, after moving in, they realize that there are so many cabinets. The furniture was completely unusable, and the corners and areas blocked by water pipes had all become sanitary blind spots. The placed items could not be stabilized and could not be taken out. They were piled up, and a good piece of space was simply wasted.
The habit of many people is to add cabinets after looking at the gaps, but they forget that the key to effective storage is not the number of cabinets stacked, but to rationally adjust the layout according to the flow of daily use, especially the useless area under the sink that has been wasted for a long time. If you can learn to use it wisely, it can improve the cooking experience by several levels.
Don’t shoehorn cabinet doors under the sink with cabinet traps
In traditional decoration ideas, people usually build cabinets under the sink for two purposes. One is to cover the exposed sewer pipes so that they appear neat and tidy and will not appear obtrusive. The other is to create an extra concealed storage area for no reason, so it feels like a lot of cleaning tools can be placed.
After the actual installation, you will find that most of the sewer pipes of the sink are staggered and exposed in the middle of the cabinet space, and the remaining half of the surrounding area is either a narrow edge or a blind corner area with insufficient turns. The larger storage box cannot be stuffed in at all. If scattered cleaning balls and steel wool balls are placed, they will easily become dusty and get damp. Within two months, the back of the cabinet door will be covered with mold. When you want to clean it up, you must first take out all the debris inside. In the end, after less than half a year of use, this cabinet completely turned into a storage blind spot that no one wanted to touch. Instead, all the free space was seriously wasted.
A practical layout method to leave space directly under the sink
A common practice in Japanese kitchens is to not have any closed cabinet doors under the sink at all, leaving the entire area empty. For the water shielding pipe solution, there are only two alternative ideas.
If the wall drain is changed in advance, all pipes will have to be moved to the back wall, and the entire empty area will be clean without any bulges. If you don’t plan to change the waterway, then just layer the trash cans of appropriate size in the empty area, which can cover all the exposed sewer pipes tightly, and no bumps will have an impact on the appearance. When washing fruits, vegetables and dishes, you can throw all the leftover leaves and vegetables directly into the trash can at your feet without turning or bending your head. After washing, you don’t have to walk ten meters with wet garbage to throw it into a public trash can far away. In this way, the entire kitchen moving line will be shortened by more than half, and you will have a lot less worry when cleaning up the residue on the countertop.
Adapt to the dual needs of garbage classification and accessibility
At present, most ordinary households in cities follow the requirements for classifying kitchen waste. The outer packaging of dry garbage, the residual vegetable leaves of wet garbage, and the small paper bags containing recyclable garbage need to be set up nearby for easy operation. The space left under the sink is large and wide. It is enough to hold three to four classified trash cans, and the positions should be arranged from small to large according to the frequency of use. This is not only completely sufficient, but also prevents the trash cans from being placed in the kitchen aisle and tripping people. It also does not occupy the only door opening area and frees up walking routes.
If there are relatives or friends at home who need to rely on wheelchairs to maintain their lives, this specially reserved blank area has enough space for the armrests of the wheelchair to be extended smoothly, and the person can use the wheelchair to reach the sink smoothly and perform washing operations safely without relying on external force. Holding on to the cabinet and standing on tiptoes, I struggle to keep standing. Such a seemingly insignificant change can fully meet the various needs of barrier-free use. If you don't pay careful attention to it, you won't be able to think of such practical details.
Three other practical Japanese kitchen designs with blank spaces
In addition to the reserved space under the sink, there are three other reserved spaces, which is something that ordinary people in China can completely follow when renovating their kitchen.
The first one is to directly raise the edge of the work surface by 30 centimeters to leave an empty storage area. Commonly used sauces for cooking, disposable dishwashing pads, and hand towels are placed directly in the open area for ready access, completely freeing up the operating space on the work surface. This small extra storage area is worth the practicality of a half-square-meter cabinet; the middle one is to use the less frequently used food preparation surface on one side and then directly extend it along the outer edge. , there is no cover and no cabinet door installed at the bottom, so that the area below is transformed into a small cooking study table; the last place is to free up a row of built-in niches on the facade of the commonly used kitchen island next to the dining room. There is no need to waste space to build storage racks. Small spice jars that are often checked or fresh green plants for decoration can be placed easily, and even the storage space for the dining room to place scattered decorations is saved.
When many people install a kitchen, they always covet the amount of storage at the beginning. As a result, they install a lot of cabinet doors and cabinets that are not used at all. However, those areas that really want to be convenient and smooth to use are all blocked.
There is a way of thinking, which is not to cram things into the cabinets, but to leave them empty. This kind of thinking is very special. It can follow daily movement habits and transform every inch of the space that was originally useless into a truly useful functional area. Compared with the situation where a whole wall of cabinets is filled to the point where it cannot be moved, it can bring a comfortable and efficient cooking experience, and this experience is much better.
