Home Sweet Garage: Kitchen Ideas

Okay so I'm accummulating a bunch of ideas for what I want to do with our kitchen in the garage conversion. The space we will have for our kitchen will be approximately  - so it will be a very tight fit!! Luckily we're in a great position since DH's uncle owns a kitchen and bathroom renovation company. He's offered to custom build us the perfect kitchen and all we have to pay for is the materials; labour and all the upmarking he normally adds on top he's willing to give us completely free!
So the highest priority in this kitchen is going to be storage solutions. We need to manage to cram all of our kitchen gear into a very tight space, so nothing goes into this kitchen without the storage side of it being thoroughly investigated.

 

Drawers, drawers, everywhere. I read an article recently that said that drawers utilise 30% more storage space in kitchens. And no, I don't remember where I read this. Sorry. So I want pretty much no cupboards at all, just drawers. My MIL's two most recent kitchens had drawers everywhere, it was the first time I'd seen drawers being used so extensively in a kitchen but I loved it! It was so practical and much prettier, I intend on using drawers in every kitchen I build from now on!

 

I also plan on having a kitchen island on strong castor wheels so that when we're not in the kitchen we can push the island further into the kitchen and have more space in the living area. I especially like the island above that has the fold up bar with the bar stools. Now if only I could think of somehow to store the bar stools when they're not in use. Any suggestions?

 

I love, love, love this hidden kitchen design and have an idea to implement it in our kitchen to hide all the appliances. See, I love it when kitchen benches are completely clear with nothing on them, but we have a great deal of appliances that we regularly use which end up cluttering up our benches. So after talking extensively about my idea with my FIL, DH and DH's uncle I've come up with a brilliant solution: rather than the regular kitchen counter depth of 600mm, the counter along the back wall will be 900mm deep - the depth of a kitchen island. The extra 300mm along the back will make up an appliance cupboard with sliding doors along the front. The sliding doors will be made to look like a splashback so that it looks like it's simply the back of the kitchen, until you slide the splashback across and find all the hidden appliances :D I have heaps of ideas on how to make the splashback/sliding doors but that's a post all on its own!
There'll be 300mm of dead space behind the bench, but we're thinking that from the side of the bench we'll implement a slide out bin cabinet, and DH thinks we should put two access holes with sealed lids in the cabinet to throw our scraps/recycling out. We'll see :)


Of course we have heaps of different ideas and we're still in the planning stage so things may change at any time. Some of our ideas conflict with eachother too so we still need to make decisions on those items.
I'm constantly updating the Pinterest board, Home Sweet Garage, so be sure to check it out if you're interested in our plans!

Home Sweet Garage: Playroom

One thing I think is going to be extremely important in our new home is having a dedicated play area for the kids. I don't think its fair when children are made to grow up in a home that isn't appropriate for them; when they're not allowed to play anywhere outside of their room; not allowed to have any sign of them living there with you. Afterall, it's their home too.
So many areas of a house are designed specifically with the parents in mind: the main bedroom, office, kitchen, entertaining areas such as lounge and dining area, why should the children only get their bedroom - which they're then usually forced to keep in a condition that the parents desire. I want my children to be able to play while still spending time with the other members of their family rather than shutting themselves up in their room. I want to be able to do my work on the computer or make dinner while still being able to hear my kids laughing and playing; I want to be able to look over and see what has them giggling so hysterically.
We're going to portion off a corner of the garage as a play area for the kids, it's going to be approximately 3x2.5m. In this area I want to incorporate a table, a reading nook, open area of floor for playing and of course plenty of toy storage. I've found heaps of ideas that I'd love to include, such as designs for play tables, toy storage units, reading nooks, etc. You can find most of them on my Pinterest board, Playroom Ideas.

I think this toy storage solution is a terrific idea. Since DH is so handy, we're planning on building our own one out of timber and tubs bought from Bunnings (or the dollar store lol), it will be just like this one except we'll probably make it a fair bit longer (we're thinking about 2 metres long), and we're thinking of having it sitting on top of a bench that A can park his bigger trucks under. The bench will jut out a bit to make a step he can stand on to access the top toy tubs.

 

And I love this little table! It's narrow so doesn't take up a lot of space, but is still wide enough for little kids to draw, eat and do arts and crafts at. It's also long enough to accommodate three little ones at once: A & Z and a little friend :)

This reading loft idea is brilliant! I haven't told DH yet, lol, but I'm thinking we should have a reading loft above the craft table. It'll have to be a little higher than the one pictured above though, so we'll probably add a little rail to the edge so A doesn't fall off!

We'll also put little bookshelves like the ones above in the reading loft. The ones pictured above are simply made out of plastic rain guttering, isn't that a fantastic idea?!

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board to see where the original images come from.