A kitchen is a workflow before it is a look

Everything here earned its place by changing an outcome. Nothing about kitchen layout is included to round the number up.

Worktop next to things is what runs out

Total worktop area is a poor measure; what matters is continuous run immediately beside the hob and beside the sink. These are where you set things down mid-task, and a kitchen without them forces constant carrying.

Six hundred millimetres either side of the hob is a common minimum recommendation and is frequently the first thing sacrificed for an extra cupboard. People who regret a kitchen almost always name this rather than the doors or the worktop material.

The triangle still describes something real

The relationship between sink, hob and fridge governs how far you walk during ordinary cooking. Modern kitchens with islands often break it, which works when the island is a genuine second work zone and fails when it is a barrier. Walking the route in an empty room, or on tape on the floor, exposes this before it is built.

Over years, the fridge is the one of the three that people who are not cooking also want, so placing it at the edge of the work zone rather than inside it stops someone fetching milk from crossing between the cook and the hob.

Store things where they are used

Pans belong by the hob, plates by where they are unloaded or where they are eaten from, and knives where you prepare. Kitchens laid out by cupboard availability rather than by use produce a small permanent tax on every meal.

The quieter point is that drawers outperform cupboards for almost everything below waist height, because the contents come to you. Two positions defeat this whatever the plan says: the corner unit, where the useful depth disappears behind the carcass, and the high cupboard over a hob or a tall appliance, which needs a chair to reach and therefore ends up holding whatever you have given up on.

Lighting is the most common failure

A single ceiling light puts the cook's shadow directly onto the work surface, which is the worst possible arrangement. Under-cabinet lighting on the work surfaces is inexpensive and transforms usability more than any other change.

A second warmer layer for evenings makes the room habitable when nobody is cooking, which is most of the time. Under-cabinet strips belong at the front edge of the cupboard rather than pushed back to the wall, because a strip against the wall lights the splashback brilliantly and leaves the front half of the worktop, which is where you actually chop, in its own shadow.

Ventilation is not optional

Cooking produces moisture and grease, and a recirculating filter removes some smell and no moisture. Extraction to outside is substantially better and is the difference between a kitchen that stays clean and one that does not.

Live with it a while and extractor performance depends heavily on duct length and bends, which is why an underpowered unit close to the wall often beats a powerful one far from it. An extractor can also only remove as much air as can find its way back in, so in a tightly sealed house a powerful hood underperforms until a window or a vent supplies it, and where the hob burns gas that airflow is doing safety work as well — a burner that soots the pan or burns yellow rather than blue is a matter for a registered gas engineer, not a clean.

Taste is not the argument here; how a room performs is.

Door swings are the collision nobody plans

An open dishwasher door, an open oven door and an open fridge each project roughly their own depth into the floor in front of them, and a plan drawn as flat rectangles hides that completely. The recurring failures are a dishwasher that blocks the only route past while it is being loaded, an oven directly opposite a run of drawers so both cannot be open at once, and a fridge hinged so the door itself stands between you and the nearest worktop. Hinge side on a fridge is fixed at the point of order on many models and reversible only on some, so it is worth confirming rather than assuming it can be swapped later.

Room to room, drawing the swing arcs onto the plan, or simply opening every door in the existing kitchen and noting where you are forced to stand, catches all of these before anything is ordered.

Everything above, in order of what to do first

1. Worktop next to things is what runs out. Total worktop area is a poor measure; what matters is continuous run immediately beside the hob and beside the sink.
2. The triangle still describes something real. The relationship between sink, hob and fridge governs how far you walk during ordinary cooking.
3. Store things where they are used. Pans belong by the hob, plates by where they are unloaded or where they are eaten from, and knives where you prepare.
4. Lighting is the most common failure. A single ceiling light puts the cook's shadow directly onto the work surface, which is the worst possible arrangement.
5. Ventilation is not optional. Cooking produces moisture and grease, and a recirculating filter removes some smell and no moisture.
6. Door swings are the collision nobody plans. An open dishwasher door, an open oven door and an open fridge each project roughly their own depth into the floor in front of them, and a plan drawn as flat rectangles hides that completely.

The takeaway

Fight for worktop beside the hob and the sink. Everything else is easier to change later.

Buy slowly. The gaps are not a problem.