"The Kitchen Triangle"

The fridge-hob-sink triangle is - supposedly - a key consideration when deciding a kitchen layout. Here are some examples from Wonderful Kitchens. I assume they are Australian, hence "stright" instead of "straight":


Two things occurred to me recently:

1. Whichever layout you choose, there will be a lot of traipsing back and forth and people getting in each others' way. If you have the space and can afford it, a far better layout is to have two sinks. A small one between fridge and hob for washing vegetables and filling pans (only needs a cold feed) and a large one for washing dishes - preferably double-bowl so that you can wash in soapy water and rinse in clean water.

2. Work tops are usually 60cm deep, which is far too narrow. Inevitably, you have stuff along the back (kettle, toaster, blender, spices, utensils etc). These take up nearly half the depth, leaving you only with a narrow strip along the front for preparing food. If you go to 75cm or 80 cm depth, you double the effective working space.

The length of the work top is limited by how big the room is, but the depth isn't (unless it's an unusually narrow room). If the room is small, it's tempting to go L-shape to increase useable work surface - but actually the first thing you should consider is increasing it by having a deeper work top just along the longest wall. Also, my wife hates corner cupboards and would rather have a straight run, I agree with her on this.

Applying 1 and 2, we end up with this:

I assume that you have a fridge/freezer under the work top (or a larder fridge and a freezer if there's space). There's space for your kettle/toaster above/behind the fridge/freezer; for spices, cooking oil and utensils behind the hob; and for washing up liquid and scourers etc behind the double sink. The microwave goes on an eyeline shelf above the fridge/freezer or small sink, obviously, otherwise you waste too much work surface.

So you end up with a nice production line - take food out of fridge/freezer; wash/prepare; put in pans; cook; put used pans next to washing up sink; wash, rinse and put on draining board. Two people can easily work side by side with a minimum of getting in each others' way.

... and we're finished!

Before:



After:



And why did this take me nearly a whole week?

There are eighteen doors (and three drawers) which require eight steps (six for the drawers):
- remove door and knob,
- spray with degreaser, scrape off gunk, wash with soapy water and leave to dry,
- first coat all over with 1 part paint to 19 parts thinners to seal the surface a bit,
- drill additional holes for handles and counter-sink on the back (bolts were a bit too short),
- proper second coat on front,
- proper second coat on back,
- proper third coat on front,
- fit handles, re-fit door, faff about with hinges.

Including sticking up dust sheets so that I had somewhere to rest them while they dried, several trips to Screwfix, tea and fag breaks, and replacing two sets of hinges* which were completely knackered, it works out at about 1.5 hours per door and 1 hour per drawer, that's basically a full week's work.

* The new design Häfele hinges (£4.29 per pair) are brilliant. Once you've screwed the back plate to the side and popped the door on, you can adjust them for left/right and forward/backward (as on the previous design) but the new design has a third grub screw for up/down as well.

Another day and a half of proper work and we're done...

Bloody Hell, this is hard work...

Good kitchen design (5)

Continuing my occasional series…

Image from here:


Today's topic is "doors or drawers" and which of those makes stuff easier to find. Clearly, for the eye level cabinets, you want doors or just shelves.

But for the cabinets under the work surface, you are far better off with drawers (the picture shows both). If you have doors, then you have to bend down and rummage around; they are not very well lit; and if there is something at the back, you have to remove the stuff from the front first.

Traditionally, you have a couple of drawers under the work surface for cutlery and gadgets, but the logic applies to everything else - ingredients and pots and pans etc. In the previous house we lived in, they had two large drawers next to the oven for storing pans, and although it seemed unusual at first, actually, it is a much better way of doing it.

Crap kitchen design

From Rightmove (picture 4/13):
1. When you open the oven door, you are blocking the doorway to the kitchen - if you look at the floor plan, the kitchen door appears to open into the room. They could at least have stuck a glass panel into it (I'm not sure if it would be possible to smash said panel with the oven door).

2. There's a single sink not a double sink, which is supposed to be under the window anyway (it's tradition).

3. There's only one unit width between sink and hob. The optimum is two.

4. Basically, the built-in kitchen is on the wrong wall, the inside wall.

Had they put it on the outside wall and shifted the kitchen door into the corner (the hall layout would permit this), they could have an L-shaped run along the back wall and the outside wall, so the oven extractor fan can blow the fumes straight outside and the sink could be under the window. For sure, this leaves you the problem of where to put the radiator, which is traditionally also under the window, but in a kitchen-type-scenario, the sink gets first dibs.

Those are the rules. And don't get me started on the layout of the conservatory.

Xmas Fridge

Good kitchen design (4)

We are renting where we currently live, so I bear no responsibility for the layout pictured below...

* Eye-level split oven/grill? Pass.

* Sink under window? Pass

* Double sink? Fail

* Two units space between hob and sink? Fail

* Shelf for the microwave? Fail

* Massive great big brick-built breakfast bar (at which only three people can sit comfortably) to accommodate fridge and freezer (which would have fitted nicely under the windows if they'd extended the work surface into an L-shaped arrangement), which cuts a very comfortably sized >12' x >12' room (positively manorial by English standards) clean in half, thereby preventing the occupants from plonking down a good old fashioned Kitchen Table, or even two tables next to each other for parties? Fail (or should that be 'Pass'?).

Good kitchen design (3)

Lola has done the decent thing and posted pictures of his own kitchen.

The layout round the door is a bit messy (see first picture on his post - the fridge seems to be plonked in the middle of nowhere), but the second picture fills my heart with joy:
* massive double sink under window - check
* dishwasher near, but not directly underneath, sink - check
* microwave at eye level - check
* a couple of units space between sink and oven - check
* decent sized, free standing kitchen table - check
* loads of power points - check
* spotlights under units - check

Good kitchen design (2)

Span Ows wades into the debate and reckons that the ideal hob/oven/microwave layout is like this:a) I can see the practical appeal of that layout - microwave and grill/oven at eye level; nice big drawer below the oven to put your pans in etc. This is much the same layout as we have in the house we are renting.*

b) Although electric ovens are every bit as good as gas ovens**, I don't like electric hobs, especially not these new-fangled glass induction ones. They just aren't as cosy as gas hobs. And at least you could light a cigarette on the old fashioned electric rings.

c) I think we'll mark him down for having fridge/freezer right next to the oven, but there is a small gap between them so fair enough.

* It's just that when I was a lad we had 'cookers' where the hob was always directly above the oven, and then the grill for making toast was directly above that (tastes much better than electric toast), it all being the same lump of metal. So even though nowadays the 'hob' and the 'oven/grill' are two quite separate bits, I still struggle with the idea that you can site them independently of each other.

** Godwin's Law.

Good kitchen design

Note that the microwave isn't just plonked on the work surface, but is tucked away under a half-sized cupboard (second from the right). This saves valuable work surface area and, because it's at eye level, it's easier to check the contents. What's not to like?