Kitchen Function Must Haves

When designing our new home, it was a priority to create it with aging in mind. Seeing our parents struggle not only with the challenges of aging itself but, overcoming hurdles presented by homes that were not designed to enable the ability to remain independent for as long as possible.

There are some very simple tasks that become more difficult as we age and there are some very easy aids that make life so much easier and Hey they make for cool conversation pieces as you have friends and family “Check this out!”

Our Kitchen island is the heart of our kitchen, it’s where I do most of my food prep, do the dishes, have fabulous conversations and eat. Having electrical cords draped around the food prep area while hanging out with your family can get you wrapped up like a spider web. We installed a pop up electrical outlet at our lake house and it made life so much easier but, when building this home, we found that the advances in pop up outlets were game changing.

The outlet not only pops up but, you can charge your phone, watch, etc by just setting it on the surface. Mind Blown! Here’s the Link

We all love our Kitchen Aid stand mixers but, boy, are they heavy. Especially to lift up from a lower cabinet and set on the counter. There is an easy aid for this as well and it’s so easy to install, I did it myself. This Rev-A-Shelf spring loaded lift is a back saver and one of the features I most love sharing about my kitchen. Like I said, I installed it myself and it took less than an hour, it probably didn’t need to take that long but I took my time and ensured all of my measurements were correct (I do have numerical dyslexia so I have to check myself multiple times). I used scrap butcher block as the shelf and added an extra pull that I had left over from the cabinets, to provide a handle for easier lifting. Just take a look and you will see why this is so exciting to me! (Lift Link)

Lifting can also be difficult with water filled stock pots, we have seen them everywhere but I really do love our Pot Filler, it doesn’t help with needing to dump the water but at least you only have to carry the heavy pot one way. (Link)

I wanted to have that Pinterest look to my Kitchen and that meant no appliances on the counters. So, how did I do it? Well, we have an open door pantry that houses not only our panty but all of our appliances, keeping them out of the obvious visual space.

These features of our Kitchen will definitely add to the functionality as we age, making some small smart decisions now will prevent us from having functional issues later in life.

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