Your kitchen should have more functionality than just cooking and storing food. Even if you are working with a small kitchen, you can find ways of make it work. A dining table in the kitchen area is a great place for the family to get together for dinner.
If you are working with a small kitchen space, you need to be more creative if you want to have enough storage and seating space. When your kitchen is being built, that is the best time to have the space utilized properly. However, you can under take a DIY kitchens project of your own and do something about it to save yourself some money. A good built-in banquette will go a long way in saving space by combining a dining area and some storage space. To ensure that you get it right the first time, you need to have a little bit of carpentry skills and be well prepared. The following is a short guide on how to build your own banquette in about two days:
- Tools and Materials
Before you attempt to do anything; you first need to have the right ingredients/equipment. Proper preparation goes a long way in ensuring that your project runs smoothly. If all you can fit in your kitchen is a banquette bench, you can improvise it and get some storage room out of it too. DIY kitchens tend to have some uniqueness as compared to those build by contractors. Some of the tools and materials that you will need for the job include the following;
- Tape Measure
- Power Drill
- Plywood
- Wood Glue
- Saw
- Finish Nails
- 1 ½ inch Wood Screws
- Preparation
The next step will be to take the measurements of the different dimensions of your banquette storage bench. You can easily get the length of the bench by measuring the floor, but for the proper seat depth and height you will need to use a chair. Drawing a sketch of your end product and using it as a guide can be very helpful when you are cutting up and assembling it. These measurements are to be transferred on the plywood you will be using. If your DIY kitchens project is going great, your measurements should leave you with five pieces of plywood. Now you are ready to work on assembling your banquette bench.
- Project Completion
The final step is to assemble all the wooden pieces together and then use the screws to fasten them. You will still need to add some braces to give your DIY kitchens project a firm hold on the frame. You could even use a beadboard to cover the banquette. Use the wood filler to make sure that none of the screw heads is visible before you fit in the beadboard. Use two pieces of plywood at a forty five degrees angle and fit it into the corner. Fit it snuggly and then use screws or wood glue to hold it in place. To finish up, you will need to frame the bench top. This frame gives the bench strength to handle the weight of people sitting on it.
Conclusion
DIY kitchens can increase the value of your house by a big percentage of its current value. This is more so if you have a great outdoor kitchen. If you have some space outside, you should do some projects that will not only increase the value of your home, but also make your backdoors a great place to relax after a hard day at work.
