Research from cabinetmaker Merillat Industries has determined that the kitchen and bathroom are most important to new-home buyers.
Nothing earthshaking there. In fact, you’d expect a cabinet company to come up with such a finding. But the quantitative study of shoppers’ movements and interactions within a model home also discovered that the typical buyer spends less than a minute and a half looking at the kitchen.
The Merillat study didn’t say how many buyers end up being dissatisfied with the kitchen in the home they eventually buy. But research a few years back by the Center for Real Life Kitchen Design at Virginia Tech found that nearly two in five owners were not particularly happy with the space most people now consider the heart of the home.
No wonder. Ninety seconds isn’t a lot of time to determine whether the layout will work, whether there’s enough cabinet and counter space, whether the appliances are in the right place and everything else that makes a kitchen hum.
Sean Degen, vice president of architectural services at Pulte Homes, one of the country’s largest home builders, believes the 90-second finding is not entirely accurate. “I’ve been in this business 18 years, the first 10 of which were in sales, and my experience is people spend a lot more time than that,” he says.
At the same time, though, Degen concedes that most buyers don’t go through a detailed analysis when studying the kitchen of their favorite model. They tend instead to go more on instinct.
“I have seen people count cabinets, but that’s a rarity. And no one actually whips out a tape measure to determine how many feet of countertop there is,” he says. “Most people evaluate the kitchen in terms of how they live generally, not specifically.”
If they entertain a lot, for instance, buyers want a kitchen that’s open to the rest of the house. If they have young children, they want a more closed-off kitchen to control the chaos. And if they are first-time buyers space is usually at a premium, so they tend to sacrifice kitchen size to get a larger family room or great room.
Beyond that, though, Degen says buyers “know in their gut” whether a kitchen will work for them. “It’s a feel,” the Pulte designer says. “They get a lot more excited about the dream than they do the reality. They take in one panoramic shot and make an evaluation.”
Maybe so, but as it turns out, creating a good kitchen encompasses far more science than art. Did you know, for example, that the classic work triangle should total no more than 26 feet, with no single leg measuring less than 4 feet and no more than 9? Do you even know what a work triangle is?
The triangle is the distance between the three primary work centers — the range, sink and refrigerator — according to kitchen-planning guidelines developed by a committee of experts for the National Kitchen & Bath Association.
The sum of the distances between all three shouldn’t be greater than 26 feet, the guidelines say. Moreover, no leg should intersect a kitchen island or peninsula by more than 12 inches, and no traffic pattern should cross through the triangle.
These are just a few of the design precepts developed by the association, a group of 11,000 companies and 30,000 individuals involved in all aspects of the residential kitchen and bath business. (Its Web site is www.nkba.org.) No one expects consumers to have these guidelines in hand for reference when they visit sample houses. Still, familiarizing yourself with the rules that make up good kitchen design will help you go a long way toward recognizing design blunders before it’s too late. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with counting cabinets and measuring countertops. If someone laughs at you, smile back: The last laugh could be on them.
The kitchen and bath association’s guidelines say a well-functioning kitchen needs 158 inches of countertop frontage, 24 inches deep with at least 15 inches of clearance to the wall cabinets above, to accommodate all uses, including “landing areas,” preparation or work areas and storage.
Beyond total countertop space, though, it’s important to know where that space is located. So much so that kitchen design trainer Jim Krengel of St. Paul, Minn., advises serious buyers to pretend they are actually preparing and serving a meal.
“Builders are not particularly good kitchen designers, so take nothing for granted,” says Krengel, a long-time design teacher who spends 240 days a year on the road training professionals and consumers.
“Ask yourself how you would work in this kitchen. People often get too caught up in how pretty the space is without figuring out whether it will work for their intended uses.”
Start with the sink. One dead giveaway of a poorly designed kitchen is a sink that faces a wall. “That’s something I see all too often,” Krengel says.
The sink should be under a window or facing out into the interior of the house. And it should be adjacent to or across from the cooking surface and refrigerator.
There should be at least 24 inches of countertop landing area on one side of the sink and 18 inches on the other. These are spaces where you can place dishes, pots and food before they are cleaned in the sink, or put things after they are washed.
There should also be at least a section of countertop at least 36 inches wide and 24 inches deep immediately next to the sink that can be used as a food preparation area. And you’ll need at least 21 inches of standing space between the edge of the dishwasher and any countertop, appliance or cabinet that is at a right angle to the dishwasher.
It’s a good idea to open adjoining drawers, cabinets and appliances to be certain one doesn’t have to be closed for the other to be open, and be sure that the refrigerator door has enough clearance to open completely. Krengel says he often sees a jumble of appliances ganged too closely together.
Unlike the sink, the cooking surface should never face a window; it is too easy for window treatments to catch fire. In addition, there should be 12 inches of countertop landing area on one side and 15 inches on the other.
If the cooktop sits above or below the countertop, the landing areas should be at the same height as the cooking surface. And if the cooking surface is on an island, the countertop should extend at least 9 inches behind it for safety purposes.
In Krengel’s eyes, islands can be either stumbling blocks or steppingstones. If you can’t move from the sink to the refrigerator without walking around it, it’s a hindrance. But if it helps with serving and cleaning up, it’s an aide, not a drawback.
Even then, though, it has to have a reason for being. It ought to have a sink or cooktop, or perhaps a seating area for informal dining.
The refrigerator needs landing areas, too, places where you drop things as you get ready to put them in or just after you take them out. There should be 15 inches on the handle side of a single-door icebox, and 15 inches on either side of a side-by-side model. As an option, the 15 inches of landing area can be across from the front of the fridge.
The association also has guidelines for the amount of shelf and drawer space. But Krengel says features here are more important than dimensions. “If they are just a bunch of boxes lined up against a wall, it won’t make life any easier,” he says. “They need to be accessible with lazy Susans and pull-out or adjustable shelves.”
Cabinets also need to be of an appropriate size for the things you intend to put in them, the kitchen designer advises. “Way too often they are too narrow, or the base [floor] cabinet is so wide the center stile makes it difficult to use.”
Pay attention to what’s above and below you, too. Krengel is a big fan of fluorescent lighting; it’s energy-efficient, provides tons of light, does not generate a lot of heat and is not nearly as expensive to run as recessed fixtures known as “cans.”
Direct lighting over the sink also is a must. So is under-cabinet lighting, no matter what your price range. And make sure it is placed as far forward as possible. Remember, you work on the front two-thirds of the counter below, not the rear one-third.
Picking flooring is as personal as choosing cabinets and countertop surfaces. But Krengel prefers wood over ceramic tile. “If you worry about little scratches, then wood won’t be a good choice,” he says. “But otherwise, it’s easy on your legs and easy to clean. Tile has no flexibility, it has no resiliency and the grout line is tough to clean.”
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You may write to Lew Sichelman c/o Chicago Tribune, Real Estate, 435 N. Michigan Ave., 4th floor, Chicago, IL 60611. Or e-mail him at realestate@tribune.com. Sorry, he cannot make personal replies.
