When you are planning to renovate your kitchen, you probably feel like you are being bombarded with choices. What color, wood and cabinet doorstyle are you going to select? What type of material will your countertops be? And when should you choose to start your kitchen renovation? There’s all that and more. Some questions and choices you expect. But then comes the questions that you don’t consider at all, many of which relate to design. And perhaps the most perplexing of all: Where should you locate your dishwasher?
You might be surprised by all the elements of your kitchen that you need to take into consideration when it comes to placing your dishwasher. At Reico Kitchen & Bath, we ask a lot of questions about your entire space to help create the best possible remodeling and kitchen design experience. There is so much that we thought we would give you heads start on where to locate your dishwasher with some helpful tips.
Finding the Perfect Position for Your Dishwasher
First thing’s first...it is not all rocket science when it comes to where you should put your dishwasher in your kitchen. It is already pretty obvious that your dishwasher should be placed near the sink. You do not want to have to run all the way across your kitchen with your dishes from the sink to be able to place them in the dishwasher. That’s just common sense. The less obvious choice? Whether that dishwasher should be placed on the left or the right side of the sink (more on that later).
Your dishwasher should also be placed in close proximity to storage. When you are taking your dishes, utensils and glasses out of the dishwasher, you want to efficiently move them into your cabinets and drawers. If storage is too far from the dishwasher, this task is going to take much longer than it should simply due to the placement of your dishwasher.
Now back to that dishwasher on the left or right side question. The first and most hard and fast question when it comes to dishwasher placement is which is your, and/or other users dominant hand? Survey says...
Why do you need to know this information, you might be asking yourself. We will let you decide if that is a simple answer. A right-handed person stands at their sink doing dishes. They scrape or wipe the plate with their dominant right hand, holding that plate with their (less dominant) left hand. After a quick rinse, we reach with the hand that was holding the plate - in this case the left hand - and place it in the dishwasher naturally. Can you imagine having to twist or turn to go across your body every time to place your dirty items in the dishwasher? Of course not! Therefore, a right-handed person should have their dishwasher placed on the left side of the sink.
Let’s go over it again, but for someone who is left handed. You already know the answer. A left handed person should have their dishwasher placed on the right side of their sink. When the lefties are doing the dishes or scraping their food into the sink, they will almost certainly be holding the plate with their right hand and scraping with their left, the dominant hand. The hand that is holding the plate, the right hand, would be poised to naturally reach to the right without having to twist and place the dish in the dishwasher.
This is a detail that you have most likely never considered, about a task we all perform every day without giving it a second thought. But now that you have thought through some makes a lot of sense. Plus, if someone ever asked you where you should put a dishwasher, you should be able to give them the perfect answer. And in the event your current kitchen design was not set up properly to have the most functional design, we will take care of that. No more moving and turning uncomfortably in your kitchen or extended task time with the proper placement of your dishwasher. Once you have reminded yourself whether you are a leftie or a rightie, then you are on your way to knowing exactly where your dishwasher needs to be.
Freedom of Movement
There is another thing to consider when you are deciding where to place your dishwasher. Ask yourself: how is your mobility?
Are you able to walk around your kitchen freely, whether the door to the dishwasher is opened or closed? Take a moment and walk around in your kitchen if you are not sure and see if anything feels tight or awkward with the door both open and shut. Maybe bending over is becoming more difficult and you want to consider options for elevating your dishwasher off the floor.
When you are in your kitchen, stand in the center and visualize what you feel would be the perfect location for your sink and dishwasher area. Consider how you work on a daily basis and tend to move around the area. That way, you will be able to develop a clearer picture of where you want to place your dishwasher that will allow you to move about and access with freedom.
Another movement tip is to avoid putting your dishwasher in a location that is too near to the cooktop or to the entry of the kitchen itself. Those are areas typically have higher foot traffic and your dishwasher will definitely get in the way of moving about easily.
Each kitchen should have a functional layout that makes each task easier to perform, and your dishwasher should be included in the plans for that functional layout. With your dishwasher nearby to your sink and storage, you can complete your tasks more efficiently and reduce the work that you have to do in the kitchen. .
A fun fork fact about dishwashers!
Are you prongs up or prongs down? According to a survey by the Research Institute for Cooking & Kitchen Intelligence (RICKI), 57% of people doing the dishes place their forks prongs up in their dishwashers. Millennials as a group were split more evenly between forks being prongs up and prongs down, and a small group of people put their forks in the dishwasher both up and down.
When you are planning on renovating your kitchen, there is no detail too big or too small to discuss. Whether it is the small detail of deciding where to place your dishwasher or the larger detail and impact of what style of kitchen you want, we are the experts for all your thoughts, ideas and questions. We love to listen, to discuss and to answer! Find a Reico Kitchen & Bath showroom near you, and get ready to have all your questions answered. Or call today!
