If you have children, or are planning to have children, do yourself a favor and plan for success in your kitchen (re) design. You’ll be glad you did! Their safety and your sanity will thank you.

We have some tips about how to plan kitchen remodel to include spaces for children and some advice on things you can do after the fact as well if you’ve moved into a kitchen or just can’t afford to totally remodel after baby comes. Read on for our best advice on how to design a kid-friendly kitchen.

Kid-Friendly Kitchens: Design Considerations

The best way to design a child-friendly kitchen is to do it from the beginning. If you’re able to design your kitchen and plan from the start to include children in your design, you’ll want to make sure to allow space for kids and kid’s things in the kitchen.

Allow Ample Space for Traffic Flow

When you’re designing a kitchen from the ground up, or renovating a kitchen,  you’ll want to be sure to plan for ample space for traffic to flow easily through the kitchen without impeding on the work triangle. Make sure your aisles are 36″ at a minimum, but allow 48″ for better pass-through if you have the space.

Place Switches at Kid-Height

When you’re wiring your kitchen, you have the opportunity to place light-switches at child-friendly heights, or to install lightswitches with sensors like the Leviton occupancy switch on the right.

Leave Space for a Stool

Whether you leave a full stool-width space underneath a countertop, or you purchase a
foldable slimline stool that fits in a niche in your kitchen design, do remember to leave space for a stepstool in your kitchen plan. You’ll share

Design a Shelf or Drawer for Each Child

If you want to make sure that your children respect YOUR space in the kitchen, try making a special location for each child their own things. We installed a PERFEKT cabinet with cubbies (pictured right, now discontinued) and each kid had their own drawer in which we put snacks. They also each had a short shelf on which to keep anything they wanted. The array varied from sticks to experiments to frogs (not for long!) and favorite rocks – but the kids have always felt as though they ‘own’ that space.

Lower a Countertop

If possible, add a 24″ – 30″ section of countertop at 28″-30″ height instead of the usual 32″ countertop height to allow children to participate in food prep. Really young children will be able to use a stool to work at the counter and older children will be able to stand tall at their special counter. Later, after the kids have grown a lowered countertop makes a perfect baking counter. Rolling dough on a lower countertop is much better for your back and your rolls!

Kid-Friendly Surfaces

If you’re planning for success with kids in the kitchen, make sure you’re choosing the right countertop for the long run.

Easy Clean Surfaces

Take your kids into consideration when choosing your countertop materials – you may love that granite or marble countertop, but you may not love the upkeep or maintenance issues. Don’t choose tile countertops if you want to spend time with your kids – you’ll be spending all your time cleaning grout instead. Choose laminate countertops for hard-wearing, easy to clean surfaces.

No Sharp Corners

When you’re picking appliances, choose ones that offer features that are of benefit to children.

Induction Cooktops are Kid-Friendly

Because the surface of an induction cooktop doesn’t get hot (only the cooking vessel gets hot when in contact with the cooking surface), it does not pose a burn risk as soon as the hot cooking pot or pan is removed.

Child-Friendly Refrigerator

Whether a refrigerator with a water and ice dispenser is a child-friendly or a hostile feature is up to debate. But you will get more mileage out of a side-by-side fridge or a fridge with a dedicated snack space for kids to access.

Kid-Friendly Kitchen Cabinets

Aside from the usual cabinet locks, you can protect your little ones in the kitchen in additional ways.

Soft Close Doors and Drawers

Use door dampers and soft close drawers. IKEA offers BLUM soft-close drawers and special dampers that you can install on the hinges to slow the closing of the door to prevent slammed fingers.

Dishes in Base Cabinets

Store at least your kids’ sets of dishes, bowls, glasses and silverware in drawers they can reach. This makes it easier for them to take responsibility for setting their own places at the table as well as to help with emptying the dishwasher. Win-win!

Snack Drawer

If possible, assign one drawer as a snack drawer – fill it with healthy snacks and make rules about their availability, i.e. choose one for an afternoon snack, or they’re free anytime.

Play Drawer in the Kitchen

An oldie but goodie – If you have one to spare, toss a bunch of plasticware into a bottom drawer and allow your kids to play with anything in that drawer while you’re cooking. An alternative is to use a shallow base cabinet as a cooking station for the little ones.

Parent-Friendly Kitchen Suggestions

A few more suggestions to help parents…

Fruit Bowl – Keep a fruit bowl stocked with washed fruit. In our house – fresh fruit is an anytime snack.

Magnetic Board - Attach a magnetic board inside a cabinet door on which to pin a calendar, appointment cards, and those special pieces of artwork.

Locked Cabinet - You may wish to keep a locked box in which you can store prescription medications, over the counter meds and vitamins out of the reach of children.

Lowered Hooks – We installed hooks at a kid height to make sure that our kids could reach hand towels. Use Command strips
to ensure that you can remove them later, when the kids have grown.

Tags: how-to, IKEA Children's, IKEA Kids, IKEA Kitchens

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 11:27 PM by Susan and is filed under IKEA Kitchens, Product Information, Tips and Tricks, family, kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.