Kitchen Layout Dimensions Checker

A galley kitchen needs a clear gap of at least 1200mm between its two runs; a kitchen island wants 1200mm of clear floor on every side; and the work triangle between hob, sink, and fridge should total 4m to 7m. This checker takes your room length, width, and chosen layout and tests them against those recommended minimums, so you know a layout fits before you order a single unit.

Getting this wrong is expensive. Once units are ordered and the screed is down, a galley that is too narrow or an island with no room to walk around it cannot be fixed without ripping work out. Checking the numbers on a drawing costs nothing.

The dimensions that decide whether a layout works

The five standard kitchen layout types each apply their own clearance rules, and almost all of them trace back to one figure: the depth of a base unit. Most UK carcasses are 570-600mm deep, and the worktop overhangs the front by a few millimetres. Every clearance check starts by subtracting those units from your room dimension to find the space that is actually left to move in.

For a galley, that means the room width minus two runs of units must still leave the 1200mm minimum gap. The checker flags anything below that as a fail, because two people cannot pass and you cannot open a dishwasher door across the walkway. A gap of 1500mm is the point where two people can pass each other comfortably, so results between the minimum and that mark come back as a workable but tight warning.

An island is the same idea in two directions. After the island and the surrounding units are subtracted, the clearance left on each side and each end must reach 1200mm. The island itself also has to be worth the space it takes: below 900mm of worktop length it behaves more like a table than a prep surface, so the checker warns you off islands that are too small to be useful.

The work triangle is the efficiency check that sits over the top of all of this. The checker estimates the route between hob, sink, and fridge for your layout and confirms each leg lands within 1.2-2.7m and the whole perimeter stays inside the 4m to 7m range. Too short and the three stations crowd each other; too long and you spend the evening walking.

A worked example

Take a rear extension kitchen measuring 5m long by 3.4m wide, and say you want an island. Base units line the two long walls, so each wall takes 570-600mm of the width before you place the island at all. Drop in a 1.2m by 0.9m island and the checker subtracts the units and the island from the room to work out what is left on each side.

Across the width, two runs of units plus the island leave the walkways tighter than the 1200mm target, so the end-clearance check comes back as a fail: there is no comfortable way to pass the island while an oven door is open. The fix is not subtle. Either lose the units on one wall, drop the island for a peninsula, or accept the room only really suits a galley or L-shape at this width.

Rerun the same room as a galley and the maths changes. Two facing runs of 570-600mm units leave a central gap that clears the 1200mm minimum but sits under the 1500mm comfortable mark, so the checker passes it with a warning and suggests removing wall units on one side to keep it feeling open. The work triangle in that arrangement lands inside the 4m to 7m range, so the layout is sound even though the island version was not.

That is the whole point of running the numbers early. The checker will not draw your kitchen for you, and it is not a substitute for a kitchen designer producing a dimensioned plan. What it does is rule out the layouts that were never going to fit, before you have spent anything, so the drawing you commission is one you already know works.