We all love to have friends visiting and entertain guests in our home. Usually guests mean a messy kitchen and dining area. With some very simple rearrangements, both the kitchen and the dining area is the perfect optional get-together place.

Just for the day-to-day use, the kitchen and the dining area are the most important places in a home. The kitchen is where the three necessary meals are made and the dining area is the place where you get to relax and enjoy the meals.

Many people combine the dining room and the kitchen into one or have two separate ones. Either way, creating a spacious cooking place and an easily accessible and comfortable dining area could make meal times less stressful.

Here are some helpful tips for space management in the kitchen and dining room.

• Kitchen should be kept spacious with minimum amount of furniture. If the kitchen is also the dining area, a small table and chairs is enough. Even with a separate dining room, a small table away from the stove is useful to keep cooked dishes and plates before sending them to the dining room.

• Usually the kitchen counter with the stove and basins are built along the walls. This leaves plenty of room for other kitchen appliances.

• The refrigerator should be placed in an area where its door is easy to open. Keeping it away from the stove area is highly recommended.

• The far corner of the counter, opposite of the stove, is a perfect place for a microwave and grinder, et cetera. These items are regularly used, so keeping them within hands reach will make cooking experience more enjoyable.

• In Nepali cooking, lots of pots and pans are used. Once they are used, there is no need to keep them on display in the kitchen. Store them away.

• You can never have enough storage space, so it’s good to have storage cabins along the walls of the kitchen, and preferably a separate storage room also.

• The dining room should be within few steps of the kitchen so it’s easy to carry things to and from.

• The dining table should be placed in the centre of the room to allow lots of rooms to go all around the table. If the table is placed in a corner, it becomes quite a nuisance when you want to push the chair back and it hits the wall or some other furniture. The centre is the best place for movement and accessibility.

• The corners of a dining room are perfect for show case cabins for those fine Chinas and glassware. The cabinets are also a good place to stow away the extra cutleries.

(Tips given by Shaila Maskey, interior designer at Homemaker)