02 Jun 10 Common Kitchen Layout Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

10 Common Kitchen Layout Mistakes 

When planning a new kitchen, getting the layout right is crucial. A kitchen that looks beautiful but is impractical to use will be a source of constant frustration. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to fix issues you have with your old kitchen, we have 10 of the most common kitchen layout mistakes —and how to easily avoid them.

1. Ignoring the ‘kitchen triangle’

The kitchen triangle is one of the most enduring design principles in kitchen design. It endures because it still works, and it’s very simple. The kitchen triangle refers to positioning your cooker, fridge, and sink in a triangle formation. This positioning is about efficiency in the kitchen, making it easy to access the three most-used areas of your kitchen as you prepare food.

If these three elements in our kitchen are not in easy reach of each other, your kitchen will feel impractical and inefficient to work in. This kitchen is a great example of setting up these three elements in a practical, triangle formation.

2. Limited worktop space

Having enough surfaces in your kitchen is important to consider when planning your layout and thinking about what small appliances you want on the worktops. If you have a coffee machine, air fryer, kettle, toaster, blender, etc, you’re quickly going to run out of food prep area unless this is all taken into account.

A great solution is a pantry unit with storage for small appliances, such as toasters, mixers, or coffee machines. This makes for a great ‘breakfast’ or ‘baking’ station, and then these items can all be neatly stowed behind doors when not in use.

Space allowing, add a kitchen island or a peninsula to your design to increase your worktop space. This kitchen has a countertop cupboard for its small appliances, enabling the worktops to remain clear and ready to use.

3. Limited storage solutions

It’s easy to underestimate how much storage you need, but the most stylish and most practical kitchens utilise all the best storage solutions to make it easy to keep clutter to a minimum.

When you don’t have a dedicated space to put something or store it away, your drawers and cupboards become disorganised and too full, making it difficult to access certain items or even find the item you need.

Think about the amount of crockery you have, pots and pans, cleaning materials, chopping boards, dry goods, glassware, small appliances, utensils – this all needs a home, and you need room to grow too!

Consider utilising tall larders, pantry units, combinations of deep and slimline drawers, and corner solutions to give everything its own ‘home’ and make it easily accessible.

4. Lack of lighting 

The kitchen is a multi-use space, we not only do our food prep here, but many of us use our kitchens for a multitude of things, such as children’s homework, entertaining family and friends and sorting the washing! So, your lighting is really important, not only for practical reasons but also for creating the right ambience.

A well-designed kitchen has layers of lighting: general, task, and mood/ambient lighting, and sometimes, statement lighting too, if you want a gorgeous pendant or chandelier over your island or table. Having options ensures your kitchen is both practical to work in when you’re cooking and more atmospheric when you’re ready to unwind, with more ambient lighting.

Under-cabinet lights are a great addition to a lighting scheme, providing a soft light in the evenings.

5. Poor flow around the kitchen 

In busy homes, especially, having a kitchen that has a good flow around it is vital. Family coming in and out, opening and closing cupboards and appliances, more than one person cooking, where the doors are, where’s the dog bed going to go — it all needs taking into account when planning your kitchen layout.

Make sure there is enough room for you to pull down a dishwasher door, or open the fridge and still move around and work in the kitchen. Where is the family coming in and out? Give yourself room to accommodate multiple people using the space.

6. Having an island when your space isn’t really big enough

Kitchen islands are always a popular wishlist item, but some kitchens just can’t accommodate one practically. It would negatively impact your use of the rest of the space, limiting your movement around the kitchen and where you open and close cupboards and appliances.

To comfortably accommodate an island, you need at least 90cm clearance the whole way around it. If this isn’t possible, talk to your designer about a peninsula design. This is a great solution if you’re limited on space but would love to incorporate a breakfast bar area. Check out this project where our customer really wanted an island, and we created something truly unique for their kitchen.

7. Poor planning for your appliances

To make your kitchen a practical space to work in, it’s important to get the placement of appliances right. For example, you don’t want an oven in an awkward corner, making it difficult to check on food or get hot food out safely. Or a design featuring a large American-style fridge freezer, without taking into account that you don’t have a doorway big enough to enable one to be delivered and installed.

Consider all the appliances you want in your new kitchen. Can your space accommodate them all?

8. Forgetting the bins

Not high on customer wish lists, but don’t forget to plan your waste disposal. What waste do you need to separate? Would you like it to be integrated and hidden from view? Bins need to be in the thick of the action, near your dishwasher and sink and easy to access.

9. Not enough sockets

With so many small appliances in modern kitchens, you’ll need more sockets than you think—and in the right places. Plus, it’s not just appliances competing for sockets, our phones, earbuds, tablets, laptops and kindles all end up on charge in the kitchen.

Place sockets above worktops, near islands, and inside cupboards. Use sockets with USB outlets where you want to be able to charge your phone.

10. Not matching your kitchen to your lifestyle 

Your kitchen should be set up for you and your family. If you never bake, you don’t need to allocate space to baking equipment! Perhaps you love cooking with spices, you’ll need plenty of storage for spice jars and right by your hob, too. If you have a wheelchair user in the family, you’re going to need to consider lowered worktops or allowing more than 90cm around the island.

Think about how you cook, eat, clean, and socialise—and design your layout around those routines.

Get the layout right the first time

Avoid these kitchen layout mistakes and get your design right the first time by working with an experienced and independent designer, like us. We’ll give you the right advice, not what’s on a promotion that week. We’ll look at awkward spaces and come up with clever design solutions and make recommendations that take your home and lifestyle into account. Book your free design consultation by calling 01342 311 133 or by emailing info@kitchensbespoke.co.uk.