The Ultimate Kitchen Remodeling Advice for Baking Enthusiasts

With the perfect mixture of sugar and spice and everything nice, the holidays are swarming with baking enthusiasts of all ages and walks of life. If you are someone who loves to bake, consider these kitchen design essentials that will sweeten your baking experience all year around.

Storage Solutions

If you love to bake, chances are you have a treasure trove of cookie sheets and bakeware in all shapes and sizes. Custom storage spaces for these oversize items are a great storage solution and give you quick and easy access to them when you need them.

Photo Courtesy Medallion Cabinets

Baking also involves lots of measuring cups, spoons and other smaller utensils. A pull-out drawer with dividers keeps these items organized and easy to find. The same can be said for spices, vital to baking. Whether you need cinnamon for snickerdoodles or vanilla for chocolate chip cookies, a pull-out spice drawer or a custom spice rack is just what you need to keep your spices organized and easy to access.

Courtesy of Trade Mark Interiors LLP

Deep drawers are perfect for housing dry goods like flour and sugar. If you don’t like the idea of bending over to pull out a large drawer, another option is to create open shelving where you can store your dry ingredients in decorative glass containers.

Courtesy of Kitchen Express

Courtesy of Seattle Custom Cabinets

If you must store baking items overhead, a built-in step stool is a handy way to access those hard-to-reach items.

Courtesy of Midwest Stone Source & Custom Cabinetry

Most bakers have a prize collection of cookbooks. Open shelving at the end of an island or a designated spot overhead keeps recipes within reach. Open shelves are also great spots for go-to mixing bowls. An oversized island with a large workspace and multiple outlets (or a mounted outlet strip) for stand mixers and other small appliances is also ideal.

Courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens

If you have embraced technology and house all of your recipes on a tablet or computer, consider a pull-down holder for your tablet or a technology station for your computer so it is out of the way but still easy to access.

Courtesy of MasterBrand Cabinets

Countertop Considerations

Any successful baker’s kitchen has ample, uninterrupted counter top space. And the right kind of countertop material is also important to help ensure you end up with the perfect pie crust or confection. Most bakers will tell you that stone counters work best for rolling dough since they naturally stay cooler than room temperature.

With the mess that comes from baking, consideration should be made to avoid tile and grout, which can be difficult to clean. Instead, choose a flat, even surface that can easily be wiped off and swept up. If space allows, a lowered baking station is a great addition to a baker’s kitchen for rolling dough and working with confection. These multi-tiered counters are also a great solution if you have multiple cooks in the kitchen. They not only add visual interest but can help preserve the resale value of your home.

Appliances Made for Bakers

Ask any baker and they will tell you their critical baking appliance is a standing mixer. Appliance garages are a great way to “hide” appliances while keeping them within easy reach. A custom pull out drawer made specifically for your mixer is another effective option.

Photo Courtesy of Flavin Designers

Courtesy of Plain & Fancy Cabinetry

Second in importance is a double oven, especially since the only thing better than warm chocolate chip cookies is MORE chocolate chip cookies!

When choosing a refrigerator, consider one with a bottom freezer, in lieu of a side by side. The shelves should be wide enough to hold baking sheets, as many bakers need to chill their baked goods.

Baking often involves using odd-shaped pans, oversized cookie sheets, and large mixing bowls, as we mentioned previously. Many of these items are too big to place in a dishwasher. As a result, an extra deep, wide, drop-in sink is helpful to clean these items and store dirty baking utensils until you have time to wash and put them away.

Install Good Lighting

Last but certainly not least, bakers need good lighting. Windows are important for bringing in an abundance of natural light. Consideration should also be made to use bright, halogen lighting throughout the rest of your kitchen to expand your baking creativity—the more you can see, the more you can create. Under-cabinet lighting is also helpful in lighting up any dark corners of your kitchen.

If you are a home baker with a favorite “must-have” for your kitchen, please let us know what essential ingredient you would recommend designing into your kitchen space. Just add your comment(s) below.

If you’re considering a kitchen remodel designed with baking in mind, we would be happy to help you begin the process of designing and building your ideal living space. Contact Acton ADU for a complimentary design consultation.