What are the things you like about your current kitchen layout (if any?). Can you include those in the new kitchen?

Are you a one-cook household, or do several people cook at the same time? If there are several cooks, you may want to make sure there are several work areas, and room for people to work independently without getting in each others’ way. A big possible bottleneck area is the sink, so this is a situation where an extra prep sink can make things much easier.

How many people eat in your kitchen – and for how long will they do so? If your six hulking teenagers are likely to leave home in the next few years, spending a lot of money on an addition to create a larger eating area may not be worth it. Can you squeeze multi-purpose eating spots into your design that can be used for other purposes later?

Consider your traffic patterns. If there’s any way to keep through traffic out of the main kitchen work area, use it! Some methods to redirect traffic include strategically positioning islands, peninsulas,or tables to redirect traffic around the work core:  locating doors so that traffic flow goes where you want it: and positioning kitchen components which are regularly used by non-cooks, especially the fridge, where they can be accessed without going through or into the work area.

Do you want a pantry? If so, will it be a separate walk-in, or a pull-out cabinet style? What do you want to store there – food, equipment, small appliances? Do you actually want to be able to use appliances in there, and perhaps have a sink? At this point it’s starting to sound like a second kitchen!

Try to create at least one decent-sized, clear counter area for each regular cook. By decent-sized I mean at least 3 feet of clear run, preferably not including a corner. Cutting up your countertop space into little chunks between appliances makes it much less useful. Storing small appliances on it permanently also gets in the way.

There’s a lot of fuss made about whether kitchen countertops will stand up to knives, and being cut on. You are much better off doing your cutting on a cutting board than any type of countertop: a separate board (and you’ll need several) can be placed where you want it, sanitized, re-surfaced, replaced, cut on without damaging your knives, used as a trivet for hot pots or a board for serving bread or cheese, or taken outside to the BBQ – none of which is true of a countertop. So choose your counter material without worrying about its suitability as a cutting surface.

How’s your bendability? Physically, bending down to reach stuff in lower cabinets – especially tucked away at the back of the bottom shelf – gets harder and harder as we get older and less bendable. Do you need to design your new kitchen to have more storage at waist-to-shoulder level?

Appliances come in many more forms nowadays than the standard range, fridge-freezer and dishwasher. Everything can be broken up into separate parts and located in the very best position. This includes separate cooktop and oven(s); separate fridges and freezers of different sizes and styles (drawers, under-counter, full-size, super-insulated etc); dishwashers of different sizes or styled as drawers; and sinks that come in a million combinations of size, shape and number of bowls. Make sure you consider all the modern options, not just the old standbys.

Is your electrical wiring up to the job of powering your new kitchen? You may have to add circuits to bring existing wiring up to code or to add appliances, and the domino effect may mean you have to upsize your service and breaker box too. Better to find out at the design stage than when the electrician arrives on the doorstep.

Plumbing too: if you’re moving or adding sinks, adding an icemaker in the fridge, and especially if you plan on having plumbing in an island, get professional advice one what it wil take to do what you want. A plumbing expert may also have good suggestions on how to get what you want without doing as much work.

These are only a few of the factors which can give you great kitchen layout ideas – or save you from following through on not-so-great ones!

Whether it is new construction or a remodeling project, when considering kitchen layout ideas there are some key concepts that you should consider.  Many people will start with details like cabinets or countertops, but you need to start looking at the key functions of the kitchen which are cooking and food preparation.

You want to consider a kitchen design these functions first and foremost.  In most kitchens, the traffic pattern or workflow usually works in a triangle with the focus being on the cooking area, the preparation area (including the sink), and the refrigerator.  You’ll want to design your kitchen to reduce distances between these keys areas without making your space seemed cramped.

Space will be your biggest consideration when pondering kitchen plans.  If you have an expansive area, you will have more options, but even with small space, you have options along with challenges.  With the small spaces, you have to examine kitchen plans that work well with small layouts and find ways to maximize the space you have to work with.

With kitchen planning, you’ll want to answer some basic questions like:

• How large a food preparation area do I need?
• What is the longest distance I want to move hot items from the stove to the table or the sink?
• Will I have enough space to store common cooking items like pots, pans, and cooking ingredients?
• How important is it to have eat-in space in the kitchen?
• How much counter space do I need?
• How many people might be in the kitchen at one time?

After looking at the key functions of your kitchen plans and answering a few primer questions about the new kitchen layout, then you can start looking at specifics such as electric, cabinets and countertops.  With a remodeling project, you need to take into account how many out outlets you have and how much power you will need in your new space?  With a new space, you will want to make sure that outlets are placed in convenient and easy to access places.

When factoring cabinets into your kitchen planning, you should pick a design that is both functional and consistent with your aesthetic sense and style.  Functionally, cabinets should be placed at a height somewhere between 15″ and 48″ for access by people of different heights.  To make the cabinets easy to open, you should limit the cabinet doors size to 18 inches and also consider touch latch cabinets.  Having an ample assortment of drawers is also a good idea.

When it comes to the counter top, you will want to make sure that you not only get something that compliments that cabinets and fits your sense of style, but also get something that is easy to clean and maintain along with being easily repaired.  Some of the most attractive surfaces are difficult to clean and maintain and can be very expensive to repair.  Take the long view when it comes to countertops.

Successful kitchen plans start with balancing out many factors including space, function, practicality, and, of course, budget.  Finding the right balance takes some planning, but a well planned kitchen helps the heart of the home function smoothly and also provides an attractive place for your family to gather and enjoy for years to come.

A 3D kitchen design makes it easier for you to conceptualize what your kitchen will be like when it’s finished.  After all, a kitchen is a 3 dimensional space, so it makes perfect sense to have kitchen designed using computer software!  Kitchen design tools give you the convenience of “trying on” different cabinets or tiles and seeing the overall effect on the computer screen.

There are a lot of different kitchen design software programs to choose from.  A Google search will provide a start, and you can find the program that’s right for you!

SmartDraw is a great beginners program which allows you to begin with a template and fill in kitchen features with simple commands.  You can download a basic version of it from the Internet.  Also, you can access online tutorials to learn how to use the features.

3D Kitchen provides software for cabinet makers.  Their program is available for purchase, or a free trial download is available at their website.  For homeowners getting their feet wet with 3D kitchen design, a free trial of one of these programs is a good starting point.

Plan 3D is subscription software (you pay only for the time you need to use it, as low as $2.95 a month) which gives you easy layout of single rooms like kitchens, or entire houses, a huge library of furniture and textures (including kitchen cabinets and appliances), and many ways to view your 3D model.

Professional cabinetmakers can purchase professional 3D kitchen software programs such as Pro100 can do “photo realistic” renderings of 3D kitchen designs.  This program is an investment.  It can be purchased for $2000!  AutoCAD is another professional software that allows professionals to manipulate the 3D space of a kitchen or other room.  If you are a homeowner working with a contractor, ask them if they have access to professional software programs such as these.  It takes a lot of the guess work out of the process, and also gives you a realistic picture of what your finished kitchen will look like.

Another benefit of 3D kitchen design software is that it makes it very easy to get measurements.  The program will give very accurate dimensions, which can be used to get accurate measurements of materials.

If you’re a homeowner who is not technically inclined, there are other options for achieving a 3D kitchen model.  The first place to start is in the kitchen itself.  If you’re standing in the kitchen, what overall impression do you want to achieve?  For example, if you want a kitchen that feels open, you may want to avoid cabinets hung from the ceiling.  Color is an extremely important part of remodeling.  You could try different paint swatches from hardware stores on a small section of wall to see the effect a certain color of paint will have.  By constructing small-scale cardboard models, you can try rearranging kitchen components.  Keep in mind that water supply lines make sinks fairly stationary.  If space is limited in your kitchen, consider options like a rolling island counter top which can be moved to different parts of the kitchen.

By using 3D software, homeowners can get an idea of what their kitchen remodeling project will look like.  They can also use small models to see how different kitchen components can be arranged.  A 3Dmodel provides the benefit of a finished picture before any counter tops are changed.

In a small space the most important thing that you can possibly consider is storage.  There are a certain number of things a kitchen needs and that number doesn’t change when you’ve got a small kitchen.  As you embark on your small kitchen remodel ask yourself if you’re including enough cabinetry.  Don’t even consider skimping here.  Well designed cabinets can multiply your storage space by several times.  Slide out drawers and cupboards can store all your stuff very densely while still letting you get to all of it easily.

That brings us to the next most important thing, efficiency.  If you design your kitchen and later find that you always have to walk all the way across it  every time you need to do something you’ll quickly find that you never cook in there again.  Plan out where to put the major appliances to minimize walking. Also make sure that you organize the cabinets to make sure that things you use together are stored together.  There’s nothing more annoying then having to open every cabinet in your kitchen to do a simple task.

So if you’ve throught through your design and planned to have enough storage and planned to use your kitchen efficiently then you’re most of the way there.  The finishing things that most people spend inordinate amounts of time and money on are really very secondary.   As you use your kitchen you’re unlikely to think, “Man, that granite counter top really makes it easy and quick to cook my dinner and clean up afterwards.”.  A super premium fridge may look nice, but if you blew your budget on that and had to get poorly laid out cabinetry then you will curse that fridge every time you can’t find that pot you needed.

The other thing to remember is that fashions change.  There was a time that a tile counter top and avocado appliances were all the rage.  Be careful about following the latest trends, what hip’s this year might be declasse in a few years.  Nothing looks as dated as those orange refrigerators and it seems likely that some of the stranger trends we see today will turn out to be the shag carpets of this generation.  It’s best to design things as well as you can, make sure your choices are simple and as much as possible timeless and leave the trend chasing to the people with unlimited budgets and people to impress.

Finally I’d say that the most important thing about small kitchen design is that you love it.  This is a room that you’re going to live in, probably for years.  Ask yourself what you like about other small kitchen designs.  For your small kitchen design pick out all the pieces that made you happy about every other kitchen you’ve been in, then make sure it’s laid out as efficiently as possible and that you’ve got room for all the tools you might need.   If you get it right you’ll have a little gem that will bring you happiness for years, not to mention something that will support the value of your home.  If you get it wrong you’ll be itching to try again right away and crying about all the money you spent chasing that latest trend in kitchens.

One of the best locations for an island is between the kitchen area and the living or family area of a large all-purpose room. There is usually enough space in a room like this to make an island workable, and the island can mark off the boundaries of the kitchen area and provide seating space without creating tight squeezes in the process.

Things to watch out for in your kitchen island designs:

• creating a “barrier island” which interrupts the legs of the work triangle
• expensive plumbing work to have a sink in your island
• expensive ventilation work to have a cooktop in your island
• visual breaks to hide sink- or range-side mess on the island
• too-short overhangs intended for eating, resulting in bumped knees
• cramped aisles round the island
• appliance doors which open into people sitting at the island
• pointy corners and edges on island worktops (ouch!)

A peninsula can also act as too much of a barrier, especially if it includes overhead cabinets as well as base cabinets. You also need to make sure there’s enough room to get past the end of the peninsula easily. Another potential problem is appliance doors opening opposite the end of the peninsula, so that the person exploring the fridge for a snack, loading the dishwasher, or taking a hot casserole out of the oven blocks all traffic into the kitchen.

The main downside is that you have two corners to deal with. Sometimes if the opposite working walls are fairly close together you can be better off using the space as a galley rather than a U.

A galley or L-shape can sometimes be turned into a U by adding workspace across the end of the galley, or a peninsula to an L shape.

The main advantages of L-shaped kitchen floor plans are that it’s easy to keep traffic out of the work triangle, they can be compact, and the area opposite the corner of the L can be the perfect place for a table and chairs or an island.

If the L gets too big, though, it can mean a lot of walking. You also have the “corner problem”: whether to put the sink or range there (which restricts usage to one person at a time) or a cabinet which either has dead space inside or requires special fittings to use the space.

The main drawback occurs if, as in the example layout above, you have a door at each end of the space (or even more doors in the sides!). A door at each end makes the galley into a through traffic route. How much of a problem that is depends on your family and what’s at each end of the kitchen. Sometimes it’s possible to block off one of the doors and use an alternative traffic route, leaving the kitchen to the cook.

Another possible gotcha to watch for is appliance doors opening into each other across the center aisle. If possible, offset your appliances so that the doors can’t interfere with each other.

Width of the aisle between counters should be about 4 feet. More will give you more room for traffic, but more walking back and forth: less can be OK if it’s a dead-end galley with only one cook, but can feel a bit cramped.

One-wall kitchen floor plans can be very efficient, provided they are small enough. What’s that you say? Isn’t bigger better? Not when it involves walking back and forth along a long lineup of appliances and worktops! Keep your layout compact, or add an island across from your one wall if you have the space, and turn it into the equivalent of a galley. You could also consider adding a rolling island cart which stows out of the way when not in use, or pull-out work surfaces or cutting boards to add more work space.

Ideally, you want the work sequence to flow from food storage (cabinets, fridge) to prep area (countertop, sink) to cooking center (range, microwave) to eating area. Right to left or left to right is up to you and how your house is arranged. Make sure you also have at least one decent sized (30″ minimum) countertop area to work at.