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1365 Ottawa St.
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b r e a k i n g n e w s a t L EA D ER P O ST . C O M S ec t i o n F
S at u r day, N ov e m b er 24, 201 2
Right design can create a dream kitchen A good work triangle is imperative Anita Murray Postmedia News It’s the heart of the home, where everyone gathers and everything happens, yet all too often our kitchens don’t work the way they should. So what do we do wrong and how can we get the most out of them? Jim Deslaurier is co-owner of Deslaurier Custom Cabinets in Ottawa. He has seen a lot of mistakes in his 30-plus years in the business and says much of it starts with design. “I’ve walked into brand-new kitchens and gone, ‘Oh my God, why did they put the stove over there?’ ” “The most important thing you can do for a kitchen ... is the design,” adds Friedemann Weinhardt, owner of Ottawa’s Design First Interiors. There are basic guide-
Interior details are important in helping to make your kitchen sing. Think pullout pantries, recycling centres and spice organizers, among others.
This eye-catching kitchen minimizes the use of upper cabinets and utilizes lower drawers. lines we need to follow in the design of a kitchen and ignoring them will create problems, he says. “The work triangle is still really, really important and always will be because that’s the flow of work when you’re in the kitchen.” (The work triangle is the area from the sink to the stove to the fridge and back to the sink and
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forms the starting point of any design.) “If you don’t get the fridge and the stove and the dishwasher and the sink and everything in the right spot, it’s not going to work very well,” Deslaurier says. And there is a right spot. According to the National Kitchen and Bath Association, you need a minimum
Sandi Ramsdell
of four feet between points in the triangle and a maximum of nine. Any more than that and you’ll have “a lot of wasted steps,” says interior designer Sandra Gibbons. But just as you don’t want your appliances too far apart, they shouldn’t be too close together either. Anything that impedes the flow in the kitchen cuts down on its ef-
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ficiency, like appliance doors that block off the space when they’re open, she says. And squeezing everything together, as is often done when the kitchen space is small, can mean not enough counter space. “That doesn’t mean that you need miles of counter space,” Weinhardt says. “What that means is you need
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the counter space in the right place.” It’s important, for instance, to have counter space on either side of the sink to ensure there’s an easy work flow for the two main functions at a sink — washing dishes and preparing food. All of them stress the importance of work flow and function in the kitchen. “The functionality is where you really have to get it straight,” adds Giuseppe Castrucci, vice-president at Ottawa’s Laurysen Kitchens. But before it even comes to the design of the kitchen, there are things to consider, like what Castrucci refers to as the hate list and the wish list — because it’s important to know what you don’t like about your current kitchen as well as what you’d like to have in a new one. “Sometimes a hate list is more important than the wish list,” he says with a grin. The lists create a process of elimination that usually helps you figure out what will work for your new design, adds Deslaurier designer Pam Vanderbraak.
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ISIT COME V S REGINA’ LY T NEW LARGES TED COMPLE PARK!
★ Green Meadow Park is now completed. Featuring ponds, mature trees, walkways, a playground structure and plenty of open space, Green Meadow Park is the activity hub of The Greens On Gardiner. For the active family, now is the best time to buy a home in The Greens On Gardiner. Phase 3 lots, only minutes from the park, are available now. There are also a few select Phase 2 park-adjacent lots still available. Talk to your builder now to ensure best selection.
A Perfect Family Playground Phase 3 Lots Now Available
Open Showhomes NEW!
Please visit our website at
www.greensongardiner.com to view a 3D animation of the community park
Daytona Homes 4773 James Hill Road 522-3210
Harmony Builders 4818 Upson Road 205-7313
Varsity Homes 4717 Hames Crescent 525-2329
Harmony Builders 4777 James Hill Road 205-7313
Century West Homes 4810 Upson Road 522-1062
Pacesetter Homes 5264 Aerial Crescent 565-4663
Homes By Dundee 4707 Glass Street 347-8100
Janson Homes 4805 Upson Road 537-3200
Homes By Dundee 4413 Padwick Road 347-8100
Artisan Design Build 4826 Upson Road 546-8030
Gilroy Homes 4802 Upson Road 789-6080
North Ridge Dev. 4761 Padwick Ave 352-5900
Crawford Homes 4813 Upson Road 525-9801
Homes by Deveraux 4606 Curtiss Avenue 522-5556
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