KITCHEN LAYOUTS

Kitchen Layouts

Five ways to arrange a kitchen, and how the room itself, its width, its doors and its windows, usually decides which one works.

Plan your layout

Section 01

The Room Chooses the Layout, Not the Other Way Round

People usually arrive with a layout in mind and leave with a different one, because the room decides more than preference does. Where the door is, where the window falls, how wide the floor is between two walls, whether the kitchen is open to the living area or closed off: those four things rule out most of the options before anyone draws anything. What is left is usually two arrangements rather than five. The useful question is not which layout you like, but which ones your room will actually take.

Highlights

Five Kitchen Layouts and When Each One Works

Kitchen islands

for open-plan rooms with floor to spare, where the island does the prep, the seating and the storage and the room stays walkable around all four sides

L-shaped kitchens

two runs on adjoining walls, which suits most rooms and leaves the rest of the floor free for a table or an island later

U-shaped kitchens

three walls of storage and worktop, the most capacity of any layout, and the one that needs the most floor width to work

Straight kitchens

everything along one wall, for narrow rooms, condominiums and any space where a second run would block the way through

Peninsula kitchens

an L or a U with one run extended out, giving seating and a divider without the clearance an island needs

Five Kitchen Layouts and When Each One Works

Section 03

How Much Floor a Layout Needs

Every layout has a minimum width below which it stops working, and it is the gap between two runs that decides it, not the length of the cabinetry. Too narrow and two people cannot pass while a drawer is open. Too wide and you walk further than you need to for every step of cooking. That single measurement, taken from the room rather than from a catalogue, rules out more layouts than any other factor, which is why we ask for it before suggesting anything.

Spotlight

Layout and Style Are Two Separate Decisions

The layout is where things go. The style is what they look like. Any of the five arrangements can be built as a minimalist handleless run, in teak with brass, or anywhere in between, and choosing one does not commit you to the other. It helps to settle the layout first, because it is fixed by the room and by the plumbing, while the style can still change late without redrawing anything.