The Kitchen: the Most Crucial Room in the Home
joy of nesting
Self-care really begins at home, right? And much of it happens in the morning, in your kitchen with that first cup of coffee or green tea. The kitchen is the most crucial room in your home. But how does yours work in the morning? Does it support you and your special needs? Does it inspire you to begin your day in a healthy, proactive way?
The Most Crucial Room in the Home
I get that not everyone wants to fully gut their kitchen. If you’re building a home, it’s a great opportunity to design it right the first time and I have strategy sessions available for just that contingency. But for now, let’s look at things that can be done without a big, expensive set of blueprints.
Small Kitchen Appliances
Some great small appliances for making you feel pampered are a VitaMix, KitchenAid mixer, Breville juicer and proper Dualit tea kettle.
Keeping these in easy to access places will save the strain to your wrists and hands. Or think about adding an appliance garage during your next kitchen remodel.
Appliance Garages, a Great Kitchen Addition
Appliance garages are a nice addition when you have small counter appliances. They keep appliances at an easy-to-reach counter level but stored behind doors for a cleaner appearance.
Mornings in the Kitchen
How do you start your day? Is it with a cup of organic green tea with organic, raw unfiltered honey or hot water with a squeeze of lemon juice? Or is it artificially flavored coffees and a chemical laden bottled creamer? These are important choices you make each day when you prioritize your health. If you are not aware of this or if you don’t practice these things at least five or six out of seven days a week, managing your health will be an uphill struggle.
Function and Beauty Can Co-Exist in the Kitchen
Little round cabinet knobs are not convenient or comfortable to use, if you have any arthritis going on. It’s okay to opt for larger, D-shaped pulls instead. There are plenty of great looking styles that are also functional to choose from.
A single lever faucet is a great addition and a small investment. I can nudge it off and on with my elbow and it extends and retracts too. Even better is a touchless faucet.
Rocker style light switches are so much easier than traditional toggle light switches. These are standard in new homes. They often come outfitted with sliding dimmers, also easier than the old round style dimmers.
Other Additions
For the tech lover, smart refrigerators create grocery shopping lists, share calendars, inter family notes and photos, and even stream movies and music. The latest smart faucets measure the amount of water dispensed and even control the temperature.
If your counter space is limited, install an under the counter pull down or pop-up shelves for your juicer, blender, etc. If your kitchen is equipped with shallow, full height pantry style cabinets the middle, arm height shelves are perfect for heavy pots and skillets. There are quite a few price options for DIY, custom and semi-custom projects.
The Work Triangle
If your kitchen is ready for a remodel, employ one of the most important and often overlooked tenants of kitchen design, the work triangle.
Simply stated, the work triangle refers to the distance between the three main workstations: the stove, the sink and the refrigerator. It is ideally around 27 feet in diameter. Each leg of the triangle should consist of roughly 9 feet. That’s nine feet from the sink to the refrigerator, nine feet from the refrigerator to the stove, and nine feet from the stove back to the sink.
Kitchens with more than two cooks often prefer the large island and open plan concepts.
Kitchen Tools: It’s in the Details
Little things can be such a joy, can’t they? Before unpacking my kitchen, my helpers lined my cabinet and drawer shelves and installed bamboo divider trays in my drawers and every time I open them, I feel special.
It’s easy for me to keep things organized when my drawer and cabinet interiors look so pretty! I also love having fresh tea towels for drying hands, clean white flour sack towels for drying glasses and dishes (aren’t they the softest and most absorbent towel ever?) and cotton wash cloths for wiping the counter.
The little tools you keep around your kitchen sink like special dish soaps and scrub brushes are not a big expense but add a little joy to your day. With arthritis, we must really limit our exposure to toxins so choose your cleaning products with care. Remember your skin absorbs everything… but more on that another time.
Self-Care Priorities in the Kitchen
The most important tasks that take place in your kitchen “hands down” are related to taking care of your health and wellness and they are juicing and salad making. Fresh green juices and big raw salads are really part and parcel to a healthy eating plan. I’m committed to making these two essentials happen each and every day.
They help you live at a much higher level, with more energy, they manage inflammation, balance your mood, help your skin, hair and nails look their best and they slow down aging. I talk a lot about the importance of adding daily juicing and raw foods to your eating plan on the blog and in my eBooks and eCourses.
Getting off to a good start in the morning will make it easier to keep that ball rolling all day.
I love helping you weave through all the challenges building a nest can bring your way, so dig a little deeper and grab a premier copy of my download “Good, Better, Best Budgeting for Your Kitchen Design and Remodel“.
In it you’ll get …
- My good, better, best method for determining the perfectly, perfect sized remodeling project just for you.
- The classic 50/30/20 Formula to show you how to determine the size of home improvements, according to your very own household income.
- A pretty little journal to keep track of your first big decisions on your kitchen remodel.
- A checklist of home design features you might consider in your remodel, with lots of wellness goodness in mind.
- And a very special introduction, that I’m super excited to share with you, so click over and grab your download. Hurry!
That’s it for today! Bye for now, Shiree’
Need a few tips on making your weekly grocery list a health filled powerhouse? Get my best salads; tips for making healthy food taste super good; food shopping tricks; my favorite plant-based meals; and more in my post, My Excellent Weekly Grocery List!
September 8, 2022
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