If your kitchen is cramped, dark, or has a dysfunctional layout, it’s probably not a space where you and your family enjoy spending time together.
However, if you’re aware your aversion to your kitchen is taking a toll on your family’s health, you may be ready to make a change. Keep reading to discover some creative ideas to remodel your kitchen to promote a healthier lifestyle for everyone in your household!
How Does a Kitchen Remodel Promote Healthier Living?
When your kitchen isn’t functional or inviting, it reduces the time you want to spend in your cooking space, resulting in quick, easy, and often unhealthy meals. Remodeling your kitchen can improve your mental and physical wellbeing in the following ways:
Family Time
Your kitchen is an excellent place for your family to gather after a busy day of school or work. You, your spouse, and kids can spend time together while preparing meals and continue the conversation at the table while you enjoy dinner as a family.
Homemade Meals
Of course, one of the keys to a healthier lifestyle is healthier eating habits, and one of the best ways to encourage nutritious eating is to have a kitchen you love to use! If you have spacious countertops, convenient appliances, and plenty of room to prepare fresh meals, you’ll be much more likely to make healthy choices for yourself and your family.
Entertain Guests
While physical health is crucial for a healthy lifestyle, emotional and mental health are just as important. Inviting family, friends, and neighbors into your home is a great way to encourage a happy, well-balanced lifestyle, and a spacious, inviting kitchen is one of the best places to entertain guests!
Elements to Incorporate into Your Healthy Kitchen Remodel
There are dozens of ways to remodel your kitchen to create a healthier lifestyle, but here are just a few of our best ideas to spark inspiration!
Spacious Countertops
Healthy meals typically involve food preparation, including chopping, cutting, and mixing. It’s critical to have plenty of work areas, like spacious countertops and a large kitchen island, where you and your family can prepare food together.
Ample countertop space also allows you to prepare multiple meals simultaneously. For instance, you can be dicing veggies for tonight’s dinner while stirring batter for your children’s breakfast muffins for the week—without needing to clear the countertop between meals.
Water Filtration System
It’s common knowledge that drinking plenty of water is key to a healthy lifestyle—and one of the best ways to encourage your family to drink water is to ensure you have clean, healthy water easily accessible.
Tap water contains harmful pollutants and heavy metals, like mercury, lead, copper, and aluminum. If your refrigerator doesn’t already come with a spigot for filtered water, you can install a secondary faucet on your kitchen sink, so your family can quickly fill up a glass of water to drink while they’re at home!
Range Hood
Did you know your kitchen is one of the rooms in your home most prone to developing mold besides the bathroom? This is because of the steam produced when cooking—particularly when boiling water. Additionally, if you cook with a gas cooktop, your kitchen is more likely to be filled with harmful gasses, like carbon monoxide.
You can eliminate both of these health concerns when you install a range hood over your stovetop and oven to improve ventilation in your kitchen. Just make sure the range hood is large enough to collect all the gasses and moisture produced while cooking!
Modern Appliances
If you dislike cooking in your kitchen right now, you likely don’t have enough handy appliances to make cooking enjoyable!
When remodeling your kitchen, invest in modern appliances you’ll love to use, like a hands-free faucet, spacious refrigerator, and double oven. If you don’t cook at home at all right now, you can even invest in some handy kitchen tools, like a pressure cooker and blender, to make preparing healthy meals quick and easy.
Natural Light
Sunlight is great for your physical, mental, and emotional health, so if your kitchen is dark or crowded—it’s time to make a change.
If your current layout is cramped, consider knocking down some walls to expand your kitchen. You can even add floating shelves to grow plants and herbs in your kitchen. Plants can help clean the air in your home, and you can incorporate the herbs you grow into your healthy dishes.
Compost Bin
If you’d like to expand your garden past your kitchen shelves, you can grow fresh fruits and vegetables in your backyard to incorporate into your nutritious meals. However, it’s crucial to have healthy soil to grow healthy plants.
You can create your own compost for your garden by incorporating a compost bin into your kitchen design! Find a place where you can add a small can that seals tightly into your countertop (you don’t want to smell decomposing food, after all!) and put non-animal food scraps, like fruit, eggshells, and coffee grounds, into the bin.
Storage Space
Many older homes lack adequate storage, especially in the kitchen, which can be problematic since a well-designed home should have plenty of storage space. If you can’t have your tools and appliances readily available, you’ll be much less likely to spend time in your kitchen preparing healthy meals.
When you work with an expert home remodeling company to build your dream kitchen, they can help you incorporate storage spaces in your kitchen, like cabinets, drawers, and closets where you can store food and cooking utensils!
Begin Your Healthy Lifestyle with Kitchen Remodeling from VL Builders
If you’re ready to make a significant change in your family’s lifestyle—your kitchen is the perfect place to start.
VL Builders has helped hundreds of homeowners across Minneapolis and St. Paul renovate their homes to fit their unique needs. Learn more about our kitchen remodeling service to discover how we can add space, style, and functionality to your kitchen!
