Ideal Size – Home – Kitchen

Kitchen is one of the most important parts of the house. Planning a kitchen well makes the house look better. It is a normal observation that a kitchen has been squeezed into the house. It is in some corner of the living room with very little ventilation. There are not enough cabinets to keep all the stuff. So here is how we can arrive at the ideal size for a kitchen.

Before that we need to understand the different types of kitchen.

1. L shaped kitchen
2. U Shaped kitchen
3. C + I shaped kitchen
4. Island kitchen

As the name suggest they are shaped in that way.

Normally people do not consider their requirements before deciding the kitchen size. I personally believe kitchen should be decided based on what it needs to hold inside and then arrive at the size requirements. In other words you need to have a figure for what dimension of kitchen is ideal for you and then give that input to architect to arrive at things. If it ends up bigger than your expectations. If not you need to rework the plan for your dream kitchen.

So here are a list of kitchen beings and its sizes that you need to keep in mind before arriving at the size.

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Now you need to decide whether you want be able to place all these on the kitchen slab[Grinder, Mixer] or stacked vertically on-top of each other in cabinets.[Microwave].

Based on this decision let us take an example

STOVE + MIXER + GRINDER + MICROWAVE on same slab requires 3+1+2+2 = 8 feet of slab length.

You will need additional vegetable chopping area of around 3 feet. You could go for a L shaped kitchen where the L part of it is facing the living room or dining area and can be used for chopping vegetables, rolling chapatis etc.

You will need to decide where to place the sink and it should be placed such that it does not interfere with this chopping area so that it remains dry.

So in case of C + I shaped kitchen the sink can be a separate section in the I part of the kitchen.

The portion of kitchen slab facing the dining or living can be made a live breakfast counter. This is normally with a bar chair or stool towards the dining side and is used as a quick dining. You can have breakfast as fresh chapatis etc are served then and there. Its a modern convenience and do consider it if you like the concept. It certainly adds to the look of the house and kitchen in particular.

So we have around 8 feet + 3 feet chopping clean area + 3 feet sink area. So you are looking at around 12 feet in length. Now it is upto you whether you want a L shaped of 9+3 feet or 3+7+3 – U shaped kitchen.

If you want a C+I shaped kitchen you may need 8 feet on either side to make it spacious.

Note that in between the slabs you need sufficient space for 2 people to operate. Cooking sometimes can be a joint exercise in the family. Try not to make the aisle space very small. That will make cooking a cumbersome experience. And you can often hear someone say can you please go out of the kitchen and stop troubling me. So plan wisely!

So a minimum kitchen area from the above equations could be around 9ftx7ft and higher up. A 2ft slab will leave you around 5ft of movement space in the kitchen and will make your kitchen look spacious.

If you want 2 slabs then you have only 3feet space left for movement. Decent, but you may need to increase by around 1feet so that you have around 4 feet movement space at minimum. Then the kitchen dimension would be a minimum 8×8 feet.

Note that this is a minimum spacious kitchen and you need to tweak it to arrive at your comfort levels. There is always scope for compromises when you buy ready made houses and apartments. These metrics are for people who do not have reference and cannot see what is a big size, what is small size. If it is already constructed then you can see it direct and decide whether its good enough for you. So this article is not addressing a already built house, but a reference guide for something that you plan to build.

Hope you got some pointers and what aspects to consider for designing a kitchen. You can arrive at the numbers yourself and decide what suits you based on these aspects.

Keep reading!!!

• Ideal Size – Home – Bedroom
• Ideal Size – Home – Bathroom Shower Area
• Ideal Size – Home – Bathroom Wash Basin
• Ideal Size – Home – Restroom/Toilet