Kitchen Cooking Habits Record Checklist

Name everyone in the household who cooks a full meal rather than just reheating, and note roughly how often each of them does it.

Kitchens are frequently planned around whoever attends the meeting, which is not always the person who cooks most.

Record whether the people who cook differ noticeably in height or reach, and note whether anyone currently stands on something to reach a shelf.

Any change made because of somebody's height or reach should be put to a qualified professional who can advise for that particular person.

Note the moment when the kitchen is at its most crowded, who is in it and what each of them is trying to do at that time.

The busiest moment is the real test of a layout, and describing it is far more useful than describing an average evening.

Record whether the person who cooks is also the person who clears up, or whether those roles fall to different people at different times.

Split roles change where the clearing zone should sit relative to the cooking zone, which is a genuine layout consequence.

Note whether the main cooks are left or right handed, and which side they naturally set a chopping board down on relative to the sink.

Handedness quietly determines whether a run works with you or against you, and it is almost never asked about.

Record how often you cook for people beyond the household, and whether those occasions involve someone helping in the room or staying out of it.

Cooking for guests is what people design for and rarely do, so the honest frequency should be written down alongside the wish.

List the dishes that appear again and again in your household, and be specific about the method each one uses rather than just naming the dish.

The method is what the kitchen has to support, so a dish described as slow simmered tells a designer more than the name of the recipe.

Note which pans and dishes are in constant use and which have not been touched since you moved in, and write both lists down.

The constantly used pans decide storage position and the untouched ones can go, which frees more space than most owners expect.

Record how many separate things are typically cooking at the same time for an ordinary evening meal, and how that changes when you have company.

Simultaneous cooking determines how much heat surface and landing space is genuinely needed, rather than how much looks impressive.

Note honestly how much of what you eat is prepared elsewhere and simply reheated, since that changes the balance between preparation and heating.

A household that mostly reheats needs a different kitchen from one that mostly chops, and pretending otherwise wastes the brief.

Record whether anyone in the household needs food kept or prepared separately, and how that separation is managed today.

Separation requirements affect storage, surfaces and equipment, and they are much easier to accommodate before cabinetry is drawn.

Note which meals you avoid cooking because the current kitchen makes them awkward, and describe exactly what makes them awkward.

The avoided meals identify the failures of the current room with more precision than any general complaint about it.

Describe where shopping lands when it comes into the house, and how far it travels between that spot and the fridge or the store cupboard.

Unpacking is a heavy, repeated journey, and the landing spot is almost never marked on a kitchen plan.

Note whether you lay every ingredient out before starting or fetch things as you go, since those two styles need very different amounts of surface.

The lay-it-all-out cook needs continuous worktop, while the fetch-as-you-go cook needs short distances, and no layout serves both equally.

Record where the chopping board actually ends up in use, and what is immediately to the left and right of it while you are working.

The board position is the anchor of the preparation zone, and what surrounds it decides whether the zone works.

Note where peelings and packaging go while you are preparing, whether you scrape into a bowl, a bin or straight onto the worktop.

Waste handling during preparation is one of the most useful things a designer can know and one of the least often mentioned.

Record whether you clear and wash as you go or let everything accumulate until the end, and note how the sink area looks at the worst point.

Accumulators need a large clearing zone that stays out of sight, and clearers need the sink close to the preparation area.

Note where a recipe is read from, whether a book, a screen or a scrap of paper, and where it is propped while your hands are busy.

The recipe position is a genuine requirement with a surface, a sightline and often a power need attached to it.

Record which methods dominate your cooking, such as frying, boiling, roasting, grilling or slow cooking, and roughly how the balance falls.

The balance of methods shapes what heat surface and oven arrangement is worth discussing, and it varies enormously between households.

Note how often the oven is used compared with the surface heat, and whether it is usually used for one dish or several at once.

Households that rarely use their oven and households that fill it daily have very different requirements, and both exist.

Record any strong preference about the type of heat you cook with, and mark it as a preference to be discussed rather than a decision you have made.

Which fuels and appliance types are available and appropriate for your property must be established with suitably qualified professionals, including for anything involving a gas supply.

Note where a hot pan or tray is set down when it comes off the heat, and whether that spot is a surface you would be happy to keep.

Every kitchen has a landing spot that takes the punishment, and identifying it before finishes are chosen is worthwhile.

Record how often you cook in ways that fill the room with steam or lingering smells, and what you currently do about it.

Extraction and ventilation arrangements depend on the property and the appliance, and must be discussed with qualified professionals rather than assumed.

Note whether any cooking moves outdoors when the weather allows, and what has to be carried out of the kitchen when it does.

Outdoor cooking changes the route through the room and often needs a door, a surface and a store that the plan has not allowed for.

Record how often you cook in bulk, bake or preserve, and be honest about whether it is a genuine habit or an aspiration you keep alive.

Bulk activities demand a large clear surface and heavy storage, so they should only shape the design if they really happen.

Note how much continuous surface a bulk session actually takes over, and which parts of the room end up covered when one is underway.

Describing the spread of a real session is more useful than asking for a large worktop in the abstract.

Record what needs somewhere to cool, rest or prove, and whether that place has to be out of the way of everything else happening in the room.

Cooling and proving space is a genuine requirement that competes directly with preparation surface, and it is rarely stated.

Note the heavy equipment that comes out for bulk work, where it is stored and how far it has to be carried when it is needed.

Heavy occasional equipment stored badly simply stops being used, and where it lives is a decision worth making deliberately.

Record where batches end up being stored afterwards, and whether the freezing or chilled space you have is genuinely enough for the way you cook.

Batch cooking without somewhere to put the results tends to stop almost as soon as it starts, so the two decisions belong together.

Note how many containers, jars or tins the household keeps for this, and where the lids currently live in relation to the bases.

Container storage is the single most complained-about cupboard in most kitchens and can be planned for properly if it is mentioned.

Note where other people naturally stand or lean while somebody is cooking, and whether that spot blocks a cupboard, a drawer or an appliance door.

People gravitate to the same spot every time, and a plan can either accommodate that or fight it for as long as the kitchen lasts.

Record whether children help with cooking, at what surface they work, and whether they get there past the heat source.

How children can be kept away from heat, blades and hazards in a kitchen is a matter to raise with a qualified professional rather than settled from general advice.

Note whether the person cooking wants to face into the room and talk, or prefers to face a wall and be left alone, and record which it is.

This single preference drives whether cooking sits on an island or against a wall, and it differs sharply between households.

Record how food travels from where it is cooked to where it is eaten, how many hands are involved and what gets carried across a walkway.

The serving journey is a daily hazard that gets designed out easily once someone has described it.

Note who is in the room during clearing up, whether more than one person is at the sink area at once, and where the queue forms.

The clearing-up crowd is different from the cooking crowd, and the sink zone has to work for both.

Record what else happens in the room while cooking is going on, such as homework, laundry or a pet being fed, and where each one takes place.

Competing uses share the same floor area, and they should be on the plan rather than resolved by whoever gets there first.

Keep the notes while you are actually cooking rather than writing them afterwards, because the irritations fade from memory almost as soon as you sit down.

Notes written at the sink are far more specific than notes written at a table, and specificity is what a designer can act on.

Separate what you observed from what you wish were true, and mark each entry clearly as one or the other before handing it over.

A designer treats an observation as a constraint and a wish as a preference, and mixing them leads to the wrong things being prioritised.

Pick the handful of things that frustrate you most in the current kitchen and put them in order, so the brief has a clear top priority.

An unranked list of complaints gets treated as equally weighted, which is usually how the most important one ends up traded away.

Record which habits you are not willing to change for the sake of a design, and be explicit that they are fixed rather than negotiable.

Designers can work around a stated fixed habit, but they cannot work around one they were never told about.

Note where the cooks in the household disagree about how the room should work, and hand that over as an open question rather than resolving it silently.

Hidden disagreement resurfaces at the worst moment, usually once units have been ordered and changing anything means unpicking them.

Ask what form a designer would find most useful for this information, and whether they would rather have photographs, notes or a conversation.

Different practices work in different ways, and asking first avoids preparing material nobody reads.