Factors To Consider When Choosing A Kitchen Layout

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Planning the kitchen was a massive job when we were designing our extension. We went from a small narrow galley kitchen to an open plan kitchen with much more room. So we thought there wouldn’t be any problem in fitting in everything we wanted and with gaining all that extra space, we would have room to spare…….no it didn’t work out like that! 

My Factors To Consider When Choosing A Kitchen Layout

So I’m sharing my factors to consider when choosing a kitchen layout from our experience of planning a kitchen, and I hope it helps you come up with your perfect kitchen layout. Do consider working with a kitchen designer in Chandler’s Ford as they will help you come up with lots of ideas you didn’t even think of yourself! 

List Everything 

List everything you want in your kitchen, every appliance, every type of cupboard space, every small appliance, cutely space, and plate spaces. List the areas you want in the kitchen, like tea making area, clear worktop spaces, cooking prep area, and even coffee machine area. 

This will allow you to see what you want from your kitchen and how you need it to work. So when you’re planning you can tick off these areas and items so you know they’ve been included in your planning. 

Worktop Space 

Picking the worktop is just as important as the layout and unit colour. The worktops are a big impact and they need to work well for you. We visited various places when picking our kitchen worktop, taking a look at all options including Laminate, Wood, Composite, Granite worktops and then decided on Quartz worktops. 

I love our worktop, picking the Quartz worktops meant we could have a grey ice looking worktop which is super different and really does make an impact in the room. For a family I think Quartz worktops are brilliant, they’re hard-wearing, you can spill liquids on them and they just wipe off. The sink area always gets wet and with the kids splashing water all around the sink area, I don’t need to worry. If you’re looking for something even more hardwearing then go for Granite worktops, but you won’t get the icey white worktops as easily as granite is a natural product, rather than a man-made one. 

Once you’ve decided on your type of worktop, think about how much worktop you want. Don’t be tempted to fill it all up with items, small appliances, hobs and sinks. You need to have a worktop space to prep food and dish up dinners. We decided to have a large clear space that had nothing on it. This is amazing for the kids baking and when dishing up dinners for five people! 

Walking Around Space 

Make sure you have space to walk around as much as you can. We had a small galley kitchen and you couldn’t have more than two people in this space without knocking into each other or getting in the way. So don’t be tempted to fill all the space you have in the kitchen. 

We have all the units around the walls of the room, with walking in and out space to the side. This allows plenty of people in this area without stepping on each other’s toes or knocking things off the sides. 

Sink Area 

Plan your sink area to be a functional space that can be kept clean, space at the sides for dirty items and if you’re having a dishwasher, plan this to be next to the sink area for ease of rising items or throwing out drink before placing inside the dishwasher. You can use the cupboard under the sink as a useful place to store cleaning items and dishwasher tablets. 

Plan Out Storage 

With your list of items you want in the kitchen, plan out where you want these to be located. Start with all your large appliances, then small appliances, then start looking into different types of food items, kitchen tools like saucepans, plates and cutlery. You want them to be in easily located areas where you’re going to use them so you don’t spend your time going back and forth around the room! I do wish I had a pantry, like a large tall cupboard to store all our cupboard foods and baking ingredients. But we decided a full-sized fridge and freezer would be better for us. 

Electrical Sockets

This is a very important stage of kitchen planning, if you’re building from scratch it’s really easy to place new sockets in the room. Decide where you want everything, everything that needs a plug and pop a socket there for it. Think about where you would like to prep food and need small electrical items, mixers for baking and choppers and place sockets there. But always go more than you think! We thought we really planned it out and covered all bases, but there’s one area we wish we had placed a socket! 

Lighting 

Whilst planning out your electrical points, think about your lighting options. You want to make sure your important working areas are well lit and you have various options. I didn’t just want bright practical lighting, I wanted to be able to have softer lighting, and lighting for when we weren’t using the room too, and maybe when sitting in the dining area. 

We had under counter Philips Hue lighting to light up the worktops, main spotlights that light up the room fully, a small over the sink light, and 3 pendant lights over the main worktop area. This gives us so many options for whatever we need. 

Flooring Options 

When having the kitchen installed you will want to know what type of flooring you will be having, as the units need to be adjusted to suit the height of the floor and where you want the worktops to be. We went for the solid wood flooring which isn’t a practical version of flooring for the kitchen, but we loved it and have it running throughout the downstairs. We have a rug placed by the sink area as the water and wood flooring don’t mix! There are lots of options on the Stories Flooring solid oak wooden flooring page on their website, which is why I love solid wood flooring as you have so many different colours, tones of wood, and grains of wood to pick from. You will find a perfect match for your home. 

Ventilation  

Think about ventilation for the hob area, where will you place an extractor fan and where can it be vented out? If you’re having a hob over a large island area, where will you be able to vent it and what would it look like? 

We have ours boxed in over and vented out over the top of the units to the garden, this has worked really well. Make sure you invest in a decent extractor fan to work efficiently in your room. 

I hope this has helped you think about the factors to consider when choosing a kitchen layout and all the things to create your perfect kitchen layout