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Space Planning Principles for your Kitchen



Planning a new kitchen or planning to remodel your existing kitchen? Below are some space planning principles to keep in mind for this area of the home. Please note that these principles can also be applied to outdoor kitchens and cooking areas.

The kitchen is considered by many to be the heart of the home. It's a place where people tend to gather, which is why many recently built or remodeled kitchens tend to favor open floor plans and expansive places to sit and/or stand. Kitchens should be both functional and fashionable: a place for you (and your family) as well as guests and visitors; it should be about the gatherings and conversations as much as about the cooking, snacking, and food storage.

Here are a few space planning principles to keep in mind for the kitchen:
  1. Kitchens should have an efficient work triangle and optimal (and ideally non-overlapping) work zones for the tasks needed. If you don't know what a kitchen work zone is, fear not and read this Houzz article on the subject.
  2. Kitchens should be located outside of the primary circulation routes in the home so that cooks and people passing through do not interfere with each other. Similarly and ideally, food storage areas like refrigerators and pantries (or pantry cabinets) should be located outside of the prepping, cooking, and cleaning zones of the kitchen.
  3. Kitchens should have an adequate amount of storage, at minimum, and sufficient counter space.
  4. Ideally, kitchens should have plenty of natural light.



These principles are best accomplished through a remodel of your kitchen and a good kitchen designer will apply as many of the principles as possible while working within the various project constraints such as room dimensions, budget, project timeline, client wants and needs, etc. So, if you are thinking about remodeling your kitchen, try to apply as many of these principles as possible.

If you haven't already, see these principles in action on our Houzz ideabook.
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