KITCHEN SHOP - planning a kitchen

A well planned kitchen should be easy to use, easy to clean and still be a pleasant place in which to work. Even if you have a small kitchen, careful planning, a little reorganization and a fair amount of improvisation can transform it into an efficient and pleasant place to be.

Studies have shown that in most fitted kitchens, the activity centres around three main areas. The areas are those of food storage (larder and fridge), the sink and the oven. From this information, the idea of an ideal work triangle has evolved: this forms the basis of kitchen planning no matter what the size of your kitchen. The corners of the triangle are ideally linked by work surfaces, providing areas for food preparation and serving. The perfect work triangle keeps distances between the sink, fridge and cooker as short as possible.

The best way of planning a kitchen is to draw up a scale plan of the layout on graph paper. You can use any scale you like. Although 1/25, where each 5mm square of graph paper represents 100mm of kitchen, is normally the most convenient.

Start by during the basic outline. Mark on it all the fixed objects. Such as the radiators, power points, chimney breast, alcoves and also the swing of doors and windows.

Next, on a separate sheet of graph paper and to the same scale as your outline, draw the outlines of your chosen kitchen units and appliances. Having labelled them for easy identification cut out the shapes and transfers them to your outline plan. Move them around on the graph until you have a sensible, practical arrangement.

When positioning appliances, start with the sink, unless you want to be bothered with lengthy and sometimes expensive process of moving it, it is best left where it is. A small sink with only one drainer is best for small fitted kitchens and where space is really limited, consider doing without a drainer altogether. Use a draining rack instead, standing it on the window ledge or screwing it to the wall. If the rack is of the decorative wooden kind, it can act as a display area that also saves on cupboard space elsewhere.

By making a wall plan as well as a floor one, you will have a more comprehensive idea of the space available. Before you make plans for your walls, however, check what they are made of. A partition made of plasterboard, for example, is no place to hang a heavy wall cupboard.

If you have an expanse of wall, measuring around 3 metres, you can have what is considered the ideal kitchen layout of work surface, sink, work surface, oven, work surface, otherwise the three most common kitchen layouts are the gallery, L-shaped and U-shaped. The ideal triangle can be incorporated in each of these layouts.