Paul Greenspan, president of Milwaukee Kitchen and Bath in Mequon, says the top kitchen improvement request is quite basic — more counter space. "For a high-functioning kitchen, you need a lot of counter space," Greenspan says. "For an average kitchen, the L-shape counter with an island works best for most people. It is efficient in regard to traffic flow. People can come in and out without disturbing the cook."

Elizabeth Tranberg of CabinetWerks in Milwaukee agrees that traffic flow is a basic element of smart design. "Layout of appliances is crucial to good traffic flow," Tranberg says. "A good working triangle has the major appliances in reach but traffic can still move around them. You don’t want an open refrigerator door blocking traffic. The newer refrigerators are countertop depth of 24 inches so they aren’t sticking out into the room. The interiors have pullout shelves and roll-out guides for when you need the extra space."

Jeremy Gunn, partner with RobertSon Cabinetry and Design Studio in Brookfield, says kitchen design starts with five basic work zones.

"We do a lot of larger kitchens and usually the husband and wife each want their own space," Gunn says. "We have identified five zones: consumables, nonconsumables, cleaning, prep and cooking. We have our clients fill out an elaborate questionnaire to determine their tastes and styles. We take into account how tall they are, if they are right-handed or left-handed, and we use that information in making the best design for the owners."

Gunn sites the influence of European design in making kitchens more efficient in terms of storage and usability. "For a contemporary design, we look at how the European design works," Gunn says. "Cabinets are not as high on the wall as in traditional design. There is open shelving and different doors — vertical lift doors or sliding doors. The doors allow easier accessibility to what is in the cabinets. In traditional design, the top half of cabinets is not usually accessible without a footstool. We use more drawer storage for basically everything you need. The interior of the drawer can be configured for whatever you want to store. Lower cabinets use the magic corner pullout, which increases the storage space and allows access to the whole cabinet."

Pullouts are crucial to making the most of your storage whether it is refrigerator space or cabinet space. Even a smaller kitchen can have accessible storage with the smart cabinet space. "Efficient kitchens utilize all the available space,’" Greenspan says. "We’ve even created usable space out of toe kicks."

Gunn says the use of the island in the kitchen has altered how most kitchens are designed. "Islands are used for prep work or entertaining. They have become essential to today’s kitchen," he says. "Often we will have the main sink or a major appliance like a secondary oven in the island in addition to seating and storage capabilities. Some of the larger kitchens we do have multiple islands with a sink in them. It used to be that kitchen sinks were under a window looking outside. Now people have dishwashers and don’t spend a lot of time standing over the sink. They want to face the living room."

Another spot to add storage and enhance design is the furniture-style island cabinetry. "The detail of the furniture leg on appliances or islands is a great space to add a pullout spice rack," Tranberg says. "We tell clients that if you have kitchen pieces that you have to store in another room, you will never use them. We can maximize the storage in any size room. Corner Lazy Susans that pull out give twice the space in the cabinets."

Gunn says the trend of including a desk in the kitchen has passed as more homeowners are choosing to use mudrooms for that spot where the mail, keys and bags are dropped. However, kitchens still can include a charging spot for phones and a place for keys, but the trend is to hide anything that used to take up counter space.

"We do a lot of built-in microwaves, built-in coffee makers, basically anything that used to sit on the counter, we can build it in or hide it behind cabinet doors," Gunn says. "The desks that people used to include just became an area for clutter, but a charging spot can be added to a drawer or cabinet while keeping bags and mail in another room out of sight."

Gunn says higher end kitchens will take efficient storage even further than what is traditionally available. "We are designing a high-tech kitchen for our showroom that has a flip-down computer screen where you get everything from the Internet to recipe storage. We have a flip-down TV and a backsplash where the storage is recessed into the wall over the counter behind sliding doors. You don’t see a lot of that in Milwaukee yet, but it is coming."