Guide · KitchensModular kitchen layouts, explained
The shape of your kitchen decides most of its design. Here are the five layouts, drawn from above, and what each one suits.
Before colours, shutters or handles, a kitchen has a shape. The shape comes from the room: where the walls are, where the door opens, where the window sits and where the water and gas lines run. Pick the layout that fits the room, and the rest of the kitchen falls into place around it.
In the drawings below, the light outline is the room, the solid line is the counter, the small box is the sink and the two rings are the burners.
The straight kitchen
Everything sits on one wall: sink, hob and storage in a single line. It suits small kitchens, studio apartments and open plans where the kitchen faces the living room.
The trade-off is walking. With everything in a row, you move back and forth along it, and the counter space runs out quickly. Tall units at one end and wall cabinets above help make up the storage.
The L-shaped kitchen
Two counters meet at a corner. It is a common layout in apartments, because it fits a square kitchen and leaves the floor open for a small table or a second person.
The corner is the part to plan with care. Without a corner fitting, the deep space where the two counters meet becomes a place where things are lost. A carousel or a pull-out corner unit makes it usable.
The U-shaped kitchen
Counters run along three walls. It gives the most counter and the most storage of any layout, and keeps everything within a turn or two.
It needs width. If the space between the two side counters is too narrow, two people cannot pass and the lower drawers clash when both sides are open. It also has two corners to plan instead of one.
The parallel kitchen
Two counters face each other with a walkway between them. It suits long, narrow kitchens, and it is easy to work in: turn around and the other counter is there.
A common way to split it is a wet side and a dry side: the sink and dishwashing on one counter, the hob and cooking on the other. The walkway width, drawn in the plan as the dimension line, is the number to check.
The island kitchen
A free-standing counter sits in the middle of the room, with space to walk all around it. The island can hold the sink or the hob, or simply give more counter and a place to sit.
It needs a large, open room. An island squeezed into a small kitchen blocks the way more than it helps. In villas and larger apartments with an open kitchen, it often becomes the place the family gathers.
Questions to ask before you choose
- Where are the water inlet, the drain and the gas line, and can they move?
- Which way does the door open, and does it hit a cabinet?
- How many people cook at the same time?
- Do you want a separate utility area for washing, or a dishwasher inside the kitchen?
- Is the kitchen closed, or open to the dining or living room?
On a site visit, we measure the kitchen and draw the layouts that fit it, side by side, so you can compare them on paper before anything is made.