What I Would Do Differently If I Built My Kitchen Again

We built our first home in 2023, and while we absolutely love our home, there are definitely some things I’d do differently next time.

After living in our kitchen for nearly three years, I’ve learnt a lot about what works in theory versus what actually works day to day.

1. We put a smaller sink in the island

We put a smaller sink in the island and a huge sink in the butler’s pantry. I do really like having a sink in both places, especially when entertaining, but I thought I would use my butler’s pantry a lot more than I actually do.

But really, who wants to be shunned to the pantry to do the washing up?

We really only use the butler’s pantry when we are entertaining, which means that for our day-to-day life we are stuck with a smaller sink.

Now, don’t get me wrong, our sink isn’t tiny. It’s the 520mm Fragranite single bowl, but there are times when I wish I went that little bit bigger.

2. We put our bin in the wrong spot

This one drives me crazy every single day.

I kept seeing people saying bin, sink, then your dishwasher, and while I understand the concept, the practicality of it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that you should be rinsing off all of your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and this simply isn’t true.

Scrape your dishes off into the bin and then straight into the dishwasher.

A good dishwasher is designed to deal with food residue, so pre-rinsing is generally unnecessary. Modern dishwashers can also use the amount of food soil on the dishes to adjust the wash programme.

For me, the bigger issue is simply the location of the bin. Think about how you actually move around your kitchen when you’re cooking and cleaning up, rather than automatically following the traditional layout.

I wish I had done that.

3. We didn't think enough about our future refrigeration needs

We did integrated refrigeration, which we love. It looks great, and because we purchased the Miele integrated fridge and freezer, our food stays a lot fresher for longer, especially fruit and veg.

However, we did a full-height fridge and a separate bottom-mount fridge/freezer as we have a large French-door fridge in the garage.

This has worked amazingly until we had a baby and I have to freeze a lot of her food.

This is why it is so important to think not only about how your appliances fit into your lifestyle today, but how they’ll work for you in the future.

We have appliances for many years and many stages of life, so we have to think about the years to come.

4. I wish we had put in a food waste disposer

I wish we had put in a food waste disposer, and we probably will in the near future.

This is something we really don’t utilise as much in Australia, and after living without one, I can definitely see the appeal.

Food scraps take up so much room in your bin, and they also get smelly really quickly!

A food waste disposer can deal with some of that additional food waste at the sink, without having to worry about a compost bin that gets awfully gross.

Obviously, there are things you need to consider around plumbing and what can and can’t go down a disposer, but it’s something I would definitely investigate if we were building again.

5. Storage on the other side of the island bench

We didn’t do this because we thought we had so much storage already.

It fills up quick.

I regret it constantly.

If you have a deep island bench, make sure you utilise that space and put storage on the other side. You will thank yourself next Christmas!

The funny thing is, even after more than a decade in the appliance industry, there are things I only really understood once I lived with my own kitchen.

You can spend months choosing beautiful appliances and designing a beautiful space, but it’s the little decisions you make based on how you actually live that you notice every single day.