Kitchen Layout Decision Preparation Checklist

Sketch the room roughly and mark every fixed feature you can see, including chimney breasts, boxed-in pipework, columns and the position of the meter or consumer unit.

Fixed features rarely appear in inspiration images, yet they usually decide where an uninterrupted run of units can and cannot go.

Note where the floor changes level, where a threshold sits, and any place the floor feels soft, sloping or uneven underfoot.

A level change at a doorway can quietly rule out sliding an appliance into a particular position.

Movement or unevenness in a floor can point to something that needs a qualified professional to look at before finishes or heavy units are planned.

Note whether the ceiling height changes across the room and what crosses it, such as a beam, a bulkhead, a hatch or a run of boxing.

Tall units, extraction routes and suspended lighting all depend on what is happening overhead, and that is easy to forget while looking at floor plans.

Mark where radiators or other heat emitters sit, and note whether any of them are on a wall you would like to fill with tall storage.

Heating positions often remove a whole wall from a layout, and the alternatives are worth raising early rather than late.

Record which walls feel solid and which sound hollow when tapped, and pass that on as an observation rather than a conclusion about what the wall is.

What a wall is made of and whether it carries load can only be established by a qualified professional, so record what you noticed and ask.

Photograph each corner of the room from the opposite corner, with the ceiling and the floor in shot, and keep the photographs with your notes.

Photographs taken before anything is stripped out answer questions later that nobody thought to ask at the time.

Write down which way each door swings and how far it opens into the room, because a door that opens back against a wall often rules that wall out for tall storage.

This is trivial to establish now and awkward to work around once cabinetry has been ordered.

Note where the window board sits relative to the worktop line you imagine, and whether a tap or an upstand would sit in front of the window catch.

A sink under a window is a common wish, and the handle or catch is what usually spoils it.

Record whether any window opens outward over a path, a boundary or a bin store, and ask what that means for anything placed beneath it.

What may open over a path, a boundary or shared land can be subject to local requirements that must be confirmed with the relevant authority.

Mark the route people take from the back door or garden into the room, and whether wet coats, boots or bicycles pass through the cooking area.

A layout that ignores the muddy route through the room tends to be tidy on paper and irritating in daily use.

Note where the room is entered from most often while cooking is happening, and whether that entry point cuts across the space in front of the oven.

Traffic crossing an oven door is the clash that most often gets designed in without anyone noticing.

Write down whether any door could be rehung, moved or removed as part of the work, and flag it as a question rather than a decision you have made.

Altering an opening, even one that appears simple, involves considerations only a qualified professional can assess for your property.

Note where the waste pipe leaves the room, and ask what moving a sink away from it would involve before assuming a fixture can be relocated.

Drainage is usually the least flexible service in a kitchen, and it quietly anchors the sink and the dishwasher.

What is possible with drainage depends on the property and must be established by a qualified plumber rather than assumed.

Record where the incoming stopcock and any isolation valves are, and whether they would still be reachable once cabinetry is in place.

Shut-off points sealed behind a fixed panel become a problem at exactly the moment you need them.

Mark the position of sockets, switches and any isolation switch above the worktop line, and photograph them before anything is stripped out.

Existing positions tell an electrician where circuits are likely to run, which is useful context for a first conversation.

Write down where the boiler, hot water cylinder or heat source sits, and whether it is inside the kitchen or feeding it from elsewhere in the property.

Boxing in, moving or building around a heat source changes the layout options and needs discussing before drawings are made.

If there is a gas supply, pipe or meter in or near the room, note its position and treat every question about it as one for a suitably registered professional.

Any work on or near a gas supply, including moving a meter or a pipe, belongs only with a suitably qualified and registered professional.

Note where the existing extractor appears to discharge, if it discharges outside at all, and record what you can see rather than how you assume it is built.

Many extractors that look ducted are not, and knowing which you have changes the extraction conversation entirely.

Consider whether a single run, a two-wall arrangement, an L shape or a U shape suits this room, and record why each one appeals or does not.

A designer can work with a reasoned preference far more easily than with a photograph of somebody else's room.

Decide and record whether you want the cooking position on an external wall, an internal wall or an island, and note the reason behind the preference.

Where a cooking appliance may sit depends on services and extraction, and must be confirmed with qualified trades before it is designed in.

Write down which wall you would most like to keep clear of tall units, and what you would be giving up in storage to keep it clear.

Naming the trade-off in advance stops the same argument being reopened at every stage of the design.

Consider whether the sink genuinely needs to sit under the window or whether that is habit, and record how strongly you feel about it.

It is a reasonable preference, but it is also the constraint that most often forces the rest of the layout into an awkward shape.

Note whether you want the fridge reachable without entering the working part of the kitchen, which matters in households where people graze while someone cooks.

This single requirement often decides which end of a run the tall units go.

Record any layout you have already ruled out and the reason, so a design meeting is not spent proposing something you have already rejected.

Rejections with reasons are as useful to a designer as preferences, and they shorten the process considerably.

Consider whether an island is wanted for seating, for preparation, for storage or mainly because it looks right in photographs, and be honest in the note.

An island for sitting at and an island for cooking at end up as very different objects, so the purpose has to come first.

Ask what an island would need brought to it in the way of water, waste, power or extraction, and treat the answer as the deciding factor rather than an afterthought.

Running services to an island depends on the floor construction and must be assessed by qualified professionals for your property.

Walk the gap you imagine on each side of an island carrying a laden tray, with an appliance door open, and write down where it felt tight.

An owner cannot set clearances, but an owner can absolutely notice where the space stops working.

Decide whether the island is somewhere people sit while food is prepared, and record how many would sit there at once and how often.

Seating changes the depth of the island and what can be stored underneath it, so it is not a detail to leave open.

Consider whether a peninsula would give a similar gain in worktop without closing off the route through the room.

In narrower rooms a peninsula often does the same job while leaving the circulation intact.

Note whether an island would sit under a light fitting, a beam or a rooflight, and ask how extraction over it would be handled.

What is above an island is usually decided last and constrains it most.

Note what the kitchen opens onto and whether noise from an extractor, a dishwasher or a fridge would carry into a room used for working, resting or sleeping.

Open plan arrangements move appliance noise into the space where people are trying to relax, and the position of each machine is still open at this stage.

Write down whether the room also has to work as a dining space, a homework table or somewhere people sit while one person cooks.

These uses compete for the same square metres and need to be named before the layout is drawn.

Record whether a utility area, a larder cupboard or a nearby space could take the washing machine, the dryer or bulk storage.

Moving laundry out of the kitchen frees a surprising amount of the layout, so it is worth confirming what is available.

Consider what you want to see from the sofa or the dining table, and what you would rather not see, such as a sink full of washing up.

Sightlines are one of the few things that can still be changed freely at layout stage.

Note where the bins currently live and whether the outside bin store can be reached without crossing the whole room.

The bin route is walked several times a day and is almost never drawn on a plan.

Write down whether pets are fed in the kitchen and where bowls, trays or beds need to sit without ending up in a walkway.

Bowls and beds tend to be pushed into whatever gap is left, which is often in front of a cupboard or across a door swing, so naming the space on the plan is worthwhile.

List everything that cannot move, and mark it clearly as fixed, so the constraint appears on the very first sketch rather than the third.

Constraints discovered late usually mean redrawing, and sometimes mean reordering.

Write down anything you have previously been told about the property by a professional, and pass on the original wording rather than your paraphrase of it.

Advice given about a property applies to the circumstances it was given in, so it should be reviewed by a qualified professional rather than reused.

Record whether you would be prepared to lose a window, an opening or a doorway, and flag it as something to be discussed rather than something settled.

Being open about this changes what a designer can suggest, but the feasibility is not yours to determine.

Note whether the room will need to stay in use while work happens, and what would have to remain working if it does.

Temporary arrangements affect sequencing, and they are much easier to plan for before anything is agreed.

Decide and record who in the household has the final say on layout, so a design meeting does not stall on an unresolved disagreement.

Design meetings are short, and unresolved household preferences consume them quickly.

Gather anything you already have showing the property layout, such as an estate agent floor plan, and mark on it whatever you know has changed since.

Even an inaccurate plan gives a designer a starting point, provided its inaccuracies are flagged.