Kitchen Layout

Where We Go From Here

Below is our empty kitchen. On the right are the pantry doors. The doorway to the half bath and laundry is right center. We placed a window about where we want our sink to be. I have a strong preference for sinks with windows to the outside, so, wherever possible I include one. This plan will be no different.

But, it's time to get out some cabinets and fill in this space. First, I recommend visiting Kitchen.com to see what they have to say about kitchen layout and planning. Once you have read what the experts have to say, let's talk about our own kitchen strategy.

Kitchen Strategy

Looking at the plan view of the kitchen, below, we see that there are three good, usable walls, with the west (left hand) wall being over 17' long. We placed a doorway into the central east-west hallway, but of course, we can move it if we need to. But, I see we have not placed a doorway into the dining room, which amounts to a serious oversight on my part.

So, without any fanfare, take the doorway in the south dining room wall, and copy it into the east dining room wall, so that we can get from the kitchen to the dining room. You might want to place it near the bottom of the dining room's eastern wall, for now. The revised plan is shown below. And, to help us along with the design process, I have drawn in some counter outlines, including a peninsula. We can use these in our discussion.

The bottom half of the kitchen makes a good informal dining area, and there is room for an island or peninsula in the center. We could think of other, perhaps more interesting variations, but this proposed layout seems reasonable. For now.

By the Numbers

Let's do some analysis.

Measuring the usable wall space (in a U-shape) between the dining room doorway and the doorway to the back hall (on the right), we get 21'6" of maximum usable counter space. We arrive at that number by taking 6'6", (the length of the left side wall, less the depth of the back wall base cabinets), plus 9'6" of back wall (13'6" less the base cabinets along the side walls), plus 5'6" (the right hand wall less cabinets). Our kitchen area (within the boundaries of the 21'6"), is 114.75 sq. ft. It's a small kitchen. But, is it usable?

Let's consider the placement of the 3 primary kitchen appliances, those that make up the so-called "work triangle". I have already said our sink is going under the window, in the center of the back wall. Depending on your preferences, the stove/cook top could go in the peninsula, and the refrigerator could go on the right-hand wall. Depending on where the stove is placed, this would make a work triangle of 18'5", more or less. Acceptable.

An image showing my calculations, as well as some notes on appliance location, is below.

So, if we are satisfied with the basic shape and layout of the kitchen, we can proceed to filling it with cabinetry. But first ...

Other Considerations

Here are some additional things to consider:

Look through catalogs and web sites for standard cabinet modules from various manufacturers (assuming you haven't chosen a cabinet manufacturer, already). Use these as a guide when determining the cabinet layout in your kitchen. Sticking with "standard" sizes means less cost. You can get custom cabinets built to any size or configuration you like--for a price.
Painted or vinyl covered cabinets can be less expensive than finished hardwood cabinets because a lesser quality wood can be used, and it doesn't show. Personally, I prefer something in a nice oak finish, but hardwood is relatively expensive.
There is a very wide variety of countertop materials, and you can easily spend thousands for the "good stuff". Think about what you'd like, and what your budget allows. Formica may be in the future of many of us. Materials such as DuPont's Corian®, and such materials as granite or quartz make great countertops, but as always: at a price.
Also think about some details, too, such as counter backsplashes. In my own condo they're about 6" high, but I can tell you that that isn't enough. Unless you really can't afford it, I recommend running the backsplash up to the wall cabinet bottoms. The backsplash doesn't have to be of the same material as the countertop. In many of my designs, I sometimes use a contrasting (or coordinating) tile for the backsplash.
Wall cabinets. Smaller ones, that is shorter ones, cost less than taller ones. But taller ones have more storage space. Unless you're very short, I would opt for taller cabinets. The space above your wall cabinets can either be left open, or you can decide to place a soffit above the cabinets to enclose the space. I've done both, and I prefer having a soffit enclose the space, or having the cabinets go right to the ceiling. The experts recommend cabinets no shorter than 30", so we will keep that in mind.
Optionally, beyond the "big 3" appliances, we might want to consider including the following: built-in microwave oven (with stove vent), dishwasher, and trash compactor.
I always plan for a pantry, and as you can never have too much storage space, I recommend it highly. This design already includes a rather large pantry. You could consider making it smaller, but having that much ready space means your kitchen cabinets won't have to store all your food. One downside of the current plan is that the pantry is somewhat removed from the kitchen proper.

Well, maybe we can make a few changes to fix this problem. Let's remove the doorway to the back hall (and place an invisible wall to separate the two "rooms"), and turn the pantry doors to face the kitchen. This makes the pantry deeper than it is wide, but we may decide we want a smaller pantry, anyway, and use the remaining space for closet space onto the central hall. There's plenty of closet/storage space there, already, but we know we can't ever have too much.

Let's see what these changes might look like.

I'm not altogether satisfied with these changes, but I think they are an improvement. So, let's move on to putting in some kitchen cabinets.