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‘Dirty’ kitchen is a mother’s worry, but in this blog we will be talking about dirty kitchens that can remove the stress of a continuously ‘dirty’ kitchen. These are extensions of the actual kitchen but are where most of the kitchen work takes place. Let’s face it, kitchens can get dirty fairly easily. If you are entertaining guests regularly, you need a presentation station and a place where you can dump your pots and pans. Having just one place to do all of this work can be strenuous, and we don’t want that. If you are building your house or renovating your kitchen, and you have the budget and space, you need to incorporate a dirty kitchen in your construction plan.
Benefits Of A Dirty Kitchen
Dirty Kitchens are more common in South Asian and Middle Eastern countries. This is primarily because of their unique cuisine that is cooked on fire or mud stoves which if situated inside the house would produce smoke and make the house uninhabitable. Therefore, dirty kitchens, where most of the cooking takes place, came into form.
In your new house, your luxuriously-designed kitchen with modern appliances and new fixtures does not need to be covered in grease, ever. This allows you to keep your main kitchen clean, especially from dirty dishes and trash that needs to be taken out regularly.
A smaller kitchen that is outside the premises of your main house, will be much easier to clean and reorganize. If you have guests over, and you want to entertain them in the kitchen space, a dirty kitchen will easily let you do that! Cook in the smaller space to entertain in the bigger, cleaner kitchen where your friends and family can see you prepare hot plates of food, while you have a chat as well.
Also, in Pakistan, which is a warmer country, the long summer months can be especially dreadful for anyone who wants to cook traditional cuisines, which again, have to be cooked at higher temperatures. To maintain your house’s ambiance, you can shift part of your kitchen, especially the stove to outer premises. Install a bigger exhaust fan, or let natural ventilation run its course. Dirty kitchens are famous in other countries like the Philippines as well where people also cook at higher temperatures, with lots of spices, and like to entertain guests in the kitchen area.
If you have children who you want to keep away from the main cooking area, then a dirty kitchen will do just that. It will let you cook in peace while keeping your children out of any potential danger. Also, you can stock up your spices here in a little pantry that will surely keep them out of reach of children.
Don’t take this smaller kitchen as a place that is supposed to be dirty, there are a number of ways your can decorate this smaller kitchen as welll.
A dirty kitchen is your best friend for easy managing your cooking and catering as well as entertaining. Now that we have established the benefits of a dirty kitchen, let’s move forward with how you can incorporate it in your home design, and what is the ideal location for it.
Incorporating A Dirty Kitchen
For houses that have a kitchen right in the middle of the house, or if it opens up to the living room, the dirty kitchen is constructed at the back of the main kitchen and, typically, opens up to the backyard area, or the side open corridor.
In the Philippines, you’ll see all kinds of dirty kitchens – from semi-open sheds to scaled-down versions of luxurious kitchens. You can instal one that works best for your budget. If you are in a country that experiences a regular rain season, like most of Pakistan, you should get a four-walled kitchenette. For drier regions, a semi-open shed works.
However, what every dirty kitchen needs is a big stove, oven, a dedicated pantry area, a sink and an exhaust fan. The ‘big’ stove should be just enough to cater to all your cooking needs, and so should the oven. The pantry should be well-organised and make the most use of space. Install racks, get labels for your spice jars, and use baskets for your vegetables, and fruits. Also, get a bigger storage fridge, if you like to stock up your groceries.
For your countertops, you can install a wooden panel on top of marble. This will serve as your cutting and meat resting station, and protect the marble from cracks caused by heated pans.
For most people, the kitchen is where they install their washing machines as well. No need to wash your laundry in the public, quite literally! Instead of doing that in your main kitchen, add a laundry space in your dirty kitchen. Here you can fold, and iron before taking the entire load inside the house.
Now that we have sorted out the place and things needed inside a dirty kitchen, allocate a big enough space in your home construction plan. The overall size of course depends on the shape and size of your plot, and you don’t need to fret if your neighbor has a bigger dirty kitchen. You simply need one that works best for you, and makes the most use of space. Add all luxurious kitchen cabinets and furnishings inside your main kitchen, but keep all things minimum and optimal for your dirty kitchen. For ease of access, your dirty kitchen should open up to the main kitchen on one side. In most houses you’ll see, however, that a dirty kitchen is completely outside the ambit of the main kitchen, and that works especially well for people who like to entertain guests more frequently.
You just have to pick the best location that works for you!
If you have any ideas about installing a dirty kitchen, write to us at blog@zameen.com. For more easy home decor and kitchen cleaning tips, check out Zameen Blog, one of the best lifestyle blogs in Pakistan.
