17 Must-Have Features For Your Dream Kitchen

If you could build your dream kitchen from scratch, what would you include?

A large island? Specialty cabinet inserts? A private chef hidden away in the pantry😉?

One of my best friends had the rare opportunity to plan her kitchen from ground zero when she built her home. This project would be overwhelming for most people purely because of the unlimited choices available when you aren’t working within an existing room. She invested tons of thought and time, and the result is a stunning kitchen with a clean yet rustic elegant style and an ideal layout for cooking, cleaning, and entertaining.

This dream kitchen isn’t only about looks with its beautiful design features—double islands, custom cabinetry, gorgeous walnut floors, dramatic vaulted beamed ceilings, and large windows that let in lots of natural light. It’s also chock full of functional features.

Whether you just like to fantasize about what you’d put in your dream kitchen, or are planning your own build or kitchen renovation, you’re sure to appreciate all of the features in this thoughtful kitchen design!

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Double Kitchen Islands.

If you have an island in your kitchen already, you know it’s where everything in the kitchen happens—cooking, eating, and hanging out. So what’s better than having an island in the kitchen? Having two!

This middle kitchen island is meant for food prep, and during a party it becomes the serving space to spread out the food buffet.

And the second island is devoted to eating at and hanging out around without the food in the way:

It also helps define the kitchen in this open floor plan. I’ve been to many a gathering in this kitchen and I must say it’s a game changer for the flow of people and food!

Drawers, Drawers, Drawers.

Instead of the usual lower cabinets with doors and shelves, this kitchen features lots of wonderful deep, soft close drawers. Like these huge, wide drawers for pots and pans under the oversize rangetop:

Drawers can store smaller items more neatly than cabinets, take advantage of more vertical space, and fit better in some of those odd areas for additional storage.

In this kitchen, the dishes are easily accessible in drawers. She passed on the wood plate pegs that you sometimes see in dish drawers because of the space they take up, and because they limit how you can put things in the drawer.

Another genius touch? Every top drawer is extra deep with 4 1/4″ of functional depth for more clearance. No more battle of the potato masher keeping the drawer from opening!

Pull Out Cabinet Drawers.

Behind many of the cabinet doors in the islands are even more drawers. This cabinet in the middle island has a useful combination of two deep pull-out drawers for larger items and three smaller drawers for smaller items:

Don’t judge me—I get a thrill from how neatly these boxes fit in these roll-out drawers. And that they’re labeled.😍

Hidden TV Cabinet.

There’s a surprise hidden behind these cabinet doors—a television to watch shows while cooking or eating at the counter. (Adding feature I didn’t know I needed to dream kitchen list…)

The cabinet doors fold in half like a bi-fold door and even slide back into the cabinet:

Garbage and Recycling Cabinet Pull-Outs.

The garbage pullout cabinet is one of the features that gets nonstop use in my home. This kitchen has two separate garbage bin pull-outs handy within easy reach of the sink for cleanup—one designated for trash and one for recycling.

Drop Zone/Command Center.

I know at my house, the kitchen countertops tend to be a dumping ground. This command center area at the end of the kitchen cabinets devoted to notes, mail, etc. solves that problem. This one has nice extra storage with drawers and cabinets to hide the clutter. (I’m sure one of these has to be the kitchen “junk” drawer.) It even has a glass top to protect the painted top surface.

Secret Mini Pantry.

Here’s another surprise hidden feature in this kitchen of clean lines. These large cabinet doors open to reveal…

A snack station! This hidden mini pantry could serve many uses. For this family, it’s used as a handy place to grab snacks and breakfast. But it would also make a wonderful coffee station.

The cabinet doors slide back in to be out of the way when the pantry is open. And like the command station, it has a glass top to protect the work surface.

Vertical Tray Dividers in Cabinets.

These dividers hold trays upright in the cabinet space above the ovens:

And in one of the islands, there’s all this fabulous storage space for serving plates and platters:

Statement Vent Hood.

The range hood in this kitchen matches all of the cabinetry but it doesn’t get lost. It’s tall and dramatic in this vaulted ceiling space, yet still clean and simple.

Lots of Lighting.

A kitchen should be loaded with light. This kitchen starts with lots of natural light from the two levels of picture windows. But the rest of the lighting was carefully planned out.

Three recessed lights over the kitchen sink shine light onto this highly used task area. More recessed lights are spread around the room for general lighting. A pair of pretty pendants hang over the middle island, bringing light and style. And instead of repeating pendants over both kitchen islands, more canned light fixtures are recessed into the beam over the eating island.

And the perimeter counters are well lit for ambience and tasks with undercounter lighting all around.

Utility Sink.

The food prep island calls for a vegetable/utility sink. This one brings personality to the kitchen and says a lot about the owner, who’s a Texas girl through and through. She even included a garbage disposal to make it even more functional.

Large Divided Kitchen Sink.

The one large undivided sink has been the popular choice for a while, but personally I like a divided sink better. It allows me to wash in one side and stack dishes in the other, keeping the disorder of drying dishes off the counter.

This one even has a third garbage disposal basin and two custom-fit sink racks.

Built-in Kitchen Appliances.

This kitchen is all about clean lines and no clutter. Having a microwave drawer keeps this small appliance from being a focal point on the counter or wall.

And this kitchen wall was custom-built around the large Electrolux two-column refrigerator. It’s tucked flush into this wall for a neat and streamlined look.

Hidden electrical outlets and switches.

To enhance the clean look further, instead of seeing awkward electrical outlets and switches throughout the pretty natural stone backsplash, they’re hidden away up under the cabinets!

The Finishing Fixtures.

With all of these great features tucked away in this streamlined kitchen, it just needed the finishing touches of a little jewelry.

These transitional pendant lights bring style right to the center of the of the room:

And the champagne-colored faucets and cabinet hardware finish off this dream kitchen with warmth and elegance.

Statement Pantry Door.

A great way to up the design style in a kitchen is to replace a ho-hum white pantry door with a statement door. This walk-in pantry is covered by a beautiful stained wood sliding barn door that matches the ceiling beams, plus it’s never in the way swinging in or out!

A Butler’s Pantry.

And a beautiful butler’s pantry rounds out the list of useful features in this dream kitchen. It has lovely tall cabinets with glass doors for storage and display, plus another utility sink for an additional prep or cleanup area:

More must-have kitchen features to consider.

Depending on how you live and use your kitchen, here are a few more cool, popular kitchen features that might be ideal for your own kitchen:

• A built-in wine refrigerator
• A built-in ice maker
• An appliance garage to cover small appliances that get daily use (make sure you’re willing to give up some counter space for this one)
• Two dishwashers for a large family
• A dishwasher with two drawers that can be run individually for a small family
• A pull-out cabinet beside the stove for spices or cooking utensils

You can see the features we added to our kitchen during its makeover in the post “Modern French Country Makeover: The Kitchen Transformation“.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour of this dream kitchen design and filed away some ideas for your own kitchen remodel, new kitchen, or your maybe someday wishlist.

Let us know some of your other favorite cool kitchen features and kitchen design ideas in the comments!

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