Kitchen measurements: heights, distances and best practices

The kitchen is the room where a five-centimetre mistake gets paid for every single day. It isn't a matter of taste: it's the only room in the house where you work standing up, hands busy, and where the distance between two things decides whether the space is pleasant or irritating.

These are the measurements I design with, and what each one solves.

Counter height

The standard is 90 cm, arrived at by adding the base unit (72), the legs or plinth (10 to 15) and the worktop (2 to 4).

But the standard is an average, and whoever cooks isn't an average. The rule I use: the counter should sit 10 to 15 cm below the elbow of whoever cooks the most. For a tall person, 95 cm spares the back; for a short person, 85 cm avoids cooking with the shoulders raised. It's a two-minute decision made once that lasts twenty years, and it costs no extra money — you just change the height of the legs.

Depth: 60 cm of cabinet, with the worktop projecting to 62–65. On the upper cabinets I go down to 30 to 35 cm — any deeper and your head hits them when you're leaning over the counter.

Counter to wall cabinets

50 to 60 cm of clear space. Below 50 you already hit your head working facing the wall; much above it, the top shelf stops being reachable without a step stool.

The top of the wall cabinets usually sits between 210 and 220 cm, aligned with the height of the house's doors. When they run up to the ceiling, the top level is seasonal storage — the Christmas china, not everyday use.

Work triangle or linear sequence

Fridge, sink and hob are the three points you move between all the time, and the classic layout is called the work triangle: the sum of the three sides should ideally fall between 400 and 700 cm. Less than that and you trip over yourself moving from one to the other; more, and you spend the day walking.

In a narrow kitchen, single-run or galley-style, a triangle isn't possible — and that's fine. The answer is to line the three points up in a linear sequence, always in the same order: store, wash, cook. What matters isn't the shape, it's not forcing yourself to cross your own path halfway through a task.

The extractor hood

Above the hob, the distance depends on the type of hob and it's the manufacturer's spec that rules, because it's a safety matter, not an aesthetic one:

• Induction or ceramic glass: 60 to 70 cm.
• Gas: 70 to 80 cm.

Lower heats up the appliance, higher stops it extracting properly. Always check the technical datasheet of the model chosen.

Walkway width

Between two working fronts — two counters, or a counter and an island:

• 107 cm is the minimum for one person working, and it already feels tight.
• 110 to 120 cm is the comfortable range for everyday use.
• 122 cm, at minimum, when there are deep drawers on both sides, or when two people cook at the same time: an open drawer on one side and an open oven door on the other take up the entire walkway.

A detail that's easy to lose when reading a floor plan: the walkway width isn't the clearance between the two fronts — it's the clearance plus the depth of both counters. A 60 cm counter on each side with 120 cm of clearance between them takes up 240 cm wall to wall, not 120.

In narrow kitchens, the right call is often to give up the second front: a single-run kitchen with a good walkway works better than a U-shaped one nobody can walk through.

Prep zone: between the sink and the hob

60 to 90 cm of clear counter. It's where you cut, and it's the most-used zone in the kitchen — the one that should least be cluttered with small appliances just sitting there.

Coordinating the sink, the dishwasher and the bin

I like to keep the logical sequence for dirty dishes: cleared from the table, rinsed or scraped, into the dishwasher. That's why I put the bin underneath or right next to the sink, never further away, and the dishwasher right next to that — so nobody carries wet plates across the whole kitchen. A standard dishwasher takes 60 cm; there are compact models at 45 cm, which work well for a small kitchen or a household with little washing-up.

Around the hob

• On one side of the hob, at least 38 cm; on the other, at least 30 cm — it doesn't need to be symmetrical. Without this there's nowhere to set down the lid or the pan coming off the heat.
• Next to the fridge, 40 cm to set down whatever comes out of it.
• From the hob to a side wall, never less than 30 to 40 cm — pot handles need room to turn.

The fridge

The door's opening direction gets decided before the purchase, not after: a door that opens against the island or the wrong wall stays permanently half-open. I always leave some side clearance for the door to open fully, and I don't put the fridge next to the oven — one heats up what the other has to keep cold. Ventilation, front or rear depending on the model, is dictated by the datasheet, not by the cabinetry design.

Islands and eating counters

Around an island, 100 to 120 cm clear on every side people walk through.

Depth changes with function: a work-only counter, 60 to 70 cm is enough; with storage on both sides, it rises to 90 to 120; with seating, the 90 cm module gets 25 to 30 cm of knee overhang added to it, and the island ends up with 115 to 120 cm of total depth.

If the island takes stools:

• Worktop at counter height (90 cm) → stools with the seat at 65 cm.
• Raised bar-height worktop (110 cm) → stools with the seat at 75 cm.

And 55 to 60 cm of width per seat, or elbows start meeting.

Oven and microwave in a tall unit

An oven installed in a tall unit sits with the tray at elbow height, between 85 and 95 cm off the floor. You take out a roast without bending your back or lifting above shoulder height, which is where burns happen.

The microwave never above 140 cm at the bottom of the appliance: any higher, and you're pulling out a hot plate blind and over your head.

What doesn't get decided in the kitchen

Two things that get decided elsewhere but are paid for here:

• The sockets. Over the counter they sit between 1.05 and 1.10 m, and they need to be counted in advance — the socket note has the rest.
• The light. Downlights aligned to the centre of the ceiling leave whoever's working with their own shadow over the board. They line up with the counter, and the work zone gets its own light under the wall cabinets.

The most common mistake

A kitchen with plenty of cabinets and no clear counter is the most common mistake I see, and it almost always comes from choosing the cabinets before designing the work — from deciding the catalogue before deciding where your hands are going to be.