Kitchen layouts: Kitchen floor plans for real working kitchens

There's more than one way to approach creating a floor plan for your new kitchen.

The classic "work triangle" method dates from the 1950's and involves optimizing the triangle formed by the three main kitchen appliances - sink, range and refrigerator. Some books and articles make a big deal out of this and urge you to make sure you have a triangle... in reality, if you're dealing with three objects they are always going to be arranged in a triangle no matter what you do (yes, even if they are all arranged in a line along one wall, technically that's still a triangle, just a very flat one!). Your job is to make sure the legs of the triangle are neither too long (too much walking) or too short (everything feels cramped and people get in each others way).

Since the 1950's we've added many more possible appliances, and kitchens nowadays can have more than one of some types and more than one cook - so more recently the concept of "work centers" has come into use.

Placing your sink, range and refrigerator in a convenient arrangement that fits in your space will naturally result in a "work triangle". Your job is to make that the best triangle possible. Here are some factors to consider:

• The length of the three sides added together should be less than 26 feet, with each side being 4-9 feet. This will give you a work area which is not too cramped, but not so large that you waste time and energy hiking from one place to another.


• Main traffic route should not pass through the triangle. Sometimes this is impossible to achieve, but redirecting traffic outside the triangle is much safer and more convenient for the cook.


• An island or peninsula should not interrupt the triangle. A "barrier island" between major work areas or appliances causes a lot of extra walking (and maybe bumped hips as you swing past the corners of the island on the way to somewhere else).

Nowadays the work triangle is not always enough to describe how a kitchen will function. Adding appliances (extra sink, dishwasher(s), separate cooktop and oven(s), microwave oven, etc.) adds extra work stations which the simple triangle can't account for. Adding cooks to a single triangle is a recipe for tripping over each other. The concept used to solve these problems in design is that of work centers or zones.

A work center groups everything needed to do a specific type of task into a single area. The three major ones are:

Food Prep Center
Near fridge, near sink (may have its own sink separate from the main cleanup sink), near trash and compost containers: needs counter space, knife storage, cutting boards, measuring and mixing utensils, small appliances such as food processor or blender, casseroles and baking dishes, flavorings, cookbook storage, graters.

Cooking Center
Range (stove) or cooktop and ventilation: oven may be located separately if it's not part of a range (possibly near the baking zone). If you cook using your microwave, you might include it in this zone (possibly mounted over the range), but if you mainly use it for heating up snacks it could be better located outside the main work triangle where non-cooks can access it without getting in the way. Close to the food prep center so that food can go directly from prep to cooking. If you do a lot of cooking involving large pots of water (pasta for 12, canning, etc) a faucet nearby can be very useful. Small cooking appliances like the toaster, toaster oven, convection oven, deep fryer etc might be located here or in a separate snack center. Storage for frypans, possibly saucepans, pot lids, cooking utensils, salt, pepper and spices (away from heat), oils, vinegars and other flavorings, oven mitts and gloves, fire extinguisher.

Cleanup Center
Main sink, dishwasher, garbage disposal, trash and compost bins, recycling bins, waste compactor; storage for cleaning materials, dishtowels, food storage containers and materials, paper towels, garbage bags, colanders and strainers, possibly everyday dishes and flatware (near dishwasher), possibly saucepans (near water source).

Depending on your cooking and eating style, you may have other work centers too:

Baking Center
Counter space (may include marble or stone slab for rolling pastry): cookie sheets and baking tins, cookie cutters, rolling pins, electric mixer, food processor, food storage for baking ingredients, cake decorating equipment, cookbook storage, measuring and mixing utensils, mixing bowls.

Snack Center
Close to refrigerator, cup and dish storage: includes microwave and toaster ovens, popcorn maker, coffee and tea making equipment and materials, water cooler, microwave-safe dishes and dish covers, oven mitts, snack foods.

Eating Center
Eating surface and seating (could be a table and chairs, breakfast bar and stools, or built-in nook); storage for dishes and flatware, napkins and placemats, condiments.

Clearly, there is some overlap between the equipment and materials needed in each work center. Where you choose to keep what depends on your cooking style and needs, the size of your kitchen, and placement of centers near each other. You might also choose to duplicate some items (anything from measuring cups to dishwashers) in several zones if you have the space and it makes work more convenient.

Kitchen floor plans are often classified by their shape. The simplest is a kitchen laid out along a single wall.

Two walls opposite each other give you a galley - a very efficient layout with the drawback that if there's a door at each end, the traffic flow passes right through the work triangle.

L-shaped kitchens are laid out along two sides of a room: U-shaped kitchens use three sides. Both of these can be designed to be out of the main traffic flow, depending on door locations. Islands and peninsulas can be added to these basic shapes to direct traffic, improve work flow, and add counter and storage space.

One-wall layouts can be very efficient, provided they are small enough. What's that you say? Isn't bigger better? Not when it involves walking back and forth along a long lineup of appliances and worktops! Keep your layout compact, or add an island across from your one wall if you have the space, and turn it into the equivalent of a galley.

Ideally, you want the work sequence to flow from food storage (cabinets, fridge) to prep area (countertop, sink) to cooking center (range, microwave) to eating area. Right to left or left to right is up to you and how your house is arranged. Make sure you also have at least one decent sized (30" minimum) countertop area to work at.

The galley layout (two walls opposite each other) is one of the most efficient you can get for a single cook. With two points of the triangle on one wall and the other point on the opposite wall, your walking distance will be short, but there's also room for plenty of storage and counter space.

The main drawback occurs if, as in this example, you have a door at each end of the space (or even more doors in the sides!). A door at each end makes the galley into a through traffic route. How much of a problem that is depends on your family and what's at each end of the kitchen. Sometimes it's possible to block off one of the doors and use an alternative traffic route, leaving the kitchen to the cook.

Another possible gotcha to watch for is appliance doors opening into each other across the center aisle. If possible, offset your appliances so that the doors can't interfere with each other.

Width of the aisle between counters should be about 4 feet. More will give you more room for traffic, but more walking back and forth: less can be OK if it's a dead-end galley with only one cook, but can feel a bit cramped.

The main advantages of the L-shaped plan is that it's easy to keep traffic out of the work triangle, it can be compact, and the area opposite the corner of the L can be the perfect place for a table and chairs or an island.

If the L gets too big, though, it can mean a lot of walking. You also have the "corner problem": whether to put the sink or range there (which restricts usage to one person at a time) or a cabinet which either has dead space inside or requires special fittings to use the space.

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Islands have been so fashionable in the last few years that they have been squeezed into every possible - and not-quite-possible - kitchen. In the right situation, an island can really improve your kitchen but they take more space than you might think.

One of the best locations for an island is between the kitchen area and the living or family area of a large all-purpose room. There is usually enough space in a room like this to make an island workable, and the island can mark off the boundaries of the kitchen area and provide seating space without creating tight squeezes in the process.

Things to watch out for:

• creating a "barrier island" which interrupts the legs of the work triangle


• expensive plumbing work to have a sink in your island


• expensive ventilation work to have a cooktop in your island


• visual breaks to hide sink- or range-side mess on the island


• too-short overhangs intended for eating, resulting in bumped knees


• cramped aisles round the island


• appliance doors which open into people sitting at the island


• pointy corners and edges on island worktops (ouch!)

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The U shaped kitchen can be another very efficient design, with everything close to hand and no through traffic.

The main downside is that you have two corners to deal with. Sometimes if the opposite working walls are fairly close together you can be better off using the space as a galley rather than a U.

A galley or L-shape can sometimes be turned into a U by adding workspace across the end of the galley, or a peninsula (see below) to an L shape.

Peninsulas, after being a fashion no-no for years, are back in style again. Style aside, like an island, a peninsula can improve the functioning of your kitchen or make it worse. They can be used to create a partial barrier between the kitchen area of a larger room and the rest of the room (often with chairs or stools and an eating area on the non-kitchen side), to direct traffic, and to add counter space.

A peninsula can also act as too much of a barrier, especially if it includes overhead cabinets as well as base cabinets. You also need to make sure there's enough room to get past the end of the peninsula easily. Another potential problem is appliance doors opening opposite the end of the peninsula, so that the person exploring the fridge for a snack, loading the dishwasher, or taking a hot casserole out of the oven blocks all traffic into the kitchen.

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