Kitchen Layout Remodeling

People usually call about cabinets. Then they describe the kitchen, and it turns out the problem is that the refrigerator door blocks the only walkway, or the sink is under a window on the wrong wall, or there is no counter next to the range to put a hot pan down.

Those are layout problems. New doors will not solve them, and it is worth knowing that before spending money on finishes.

What the room is actually doing wrong

A useful exercise is to describe the last thing that annoyed you in the kitchen rather than what you would like it to look like. The complaints cluster into a handful of patterns:

• No landing space. Nowhere to set a hot pan within a step of the range, or nowhere to put groceries down beside the fridge.
• Traffic through the work zone. The route from the back door to the rest of the house crosses in front of the sink.
• Collisions. The dishwasher door blocks the corner cabinet. The oven door hits the island. The fridge cannot open fully.
• Isolation. The kitchen is a closed room and whoever is cooking is cut off from everyone else.
• Wasted corners and interrupted counter runs that never give you a continuous working surface.
• Wrong sink position, usually a window the sink is placed under regardless of whether it made sense.

What can move, and what it costs to move it

The sink

Moving the sink is the most common request and the one most dependent on the house. It needs hot and cold supply, a drain with correct fall, and a vent. Over an open basement, running those a few feet is straightforward. Moving it into an island means routing through the floor and venting the drain properly, which is more involved but normal work.

Over a concrete slab, the drain is in the slab. Moving it means cutting concrete, which is a different scale of project. This is the single biggest fork in the road for kitchen layout work, and it is why we ask about the basement early.

The range

Gas means extending a line, which requires a permit and an inspection but is ordinary work. Electric means a dedicated 240-volt circuit to the new position, which is easy if the panel has capacity and the route is accessible.

The real constraint on moving a range is usually the hood. Ducting to the outside needs a route to an exterior wall or through the roof, and moving the range to an interior wall may mean a long duct run through cabinets or a dropped soffit. A recirculating hood avoids the problem and does a considerably worse job of removing grease and steam from the house.

The refrigerator

Easiest of the three. It needs a receptacle, ideally on its own circuit, and a water line if it has an ice maker. Both are simple to run. The constraint is spatial: a refrigerator needs door swing clearance, and putting it at the end of a run rather than mid-wall usually improves traffic flow.

Doorways and openings

Moving or widening a doorway in a non-bearing partition is straightforward carpentry. In a bearing wall it needs a header sized for the span. Removing a door that swings into the kitchen, or changing it to a pocket door, can recover real floor area in a small room at modest cost.

Walls

Removing a partition wall between the kitchen and a pantry or back hall is often the cheapest way to gain meaningful space. Removing a bearing wall, typically the one between kitchen and dining room in a center-hall colonial, needs a beam, posts, and a load path all the way down. That is covered in more detail on the open concept kitchens page.

Clearances that decide whether a plan works

These are the numbers we check on paper before anything is ordered:

• Walkway between opposing runs: 42 inches for one cook, 48 for two.
• Landing space beside the range: at least 12 to 15 inches on one side, ideally both.
• Landing beside the refrigerator on the handle side, so you can set things down.
• Space in front of the dishwasher for the open door plus a person standing at it, and a check that the open door does not block a corner cabinet.
• Clearance in front of an island, 36 to 42 inches on every side, more where seating is.
• Oven door swing, particularly with a wall oven opposite an island.
• Corner cabinet doors against adjacent appliance handles.

Individually each is minor. Collectively they are the difference between a kitchen that flows and one that irritates you for the next fifteen years.

Common layouts and where they suit

The galley is efficient and suits narrow rooms, which describes a great deal of the older housing in Newark, Irvington and East Orange. Two parallel runs, no wasted corners, everything within a step.

The L-shape works in a squarer room and leaves a corner free for a table. It has one corner cabinet to solve.

The U-shape maximizes counter and storage but needs width. In a narrow room it produces an aisle nobody wants to cook in.

The peninsula is the most underrated option in this area's housing. It gives you the counter and seating benefits of an island in rooms that cannot support one, because it only needs clearance on the open sides.

The island needs a room roughly twelve feet wide before the arithmetic works. Below that, a peninsula is the honest answer.

Permits and inspections for layout changes

Moving plumbing or electrical requires permits under New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code, and layout changes almost always involve one or both. Structural work brings in the building subcode as well, and a load-bearing wall removal typically requires a sealed drawing from an engineer or architect.

Rough work is inspected before it is covered. Requirements vary by municipality and by scope, so we confirm with your town's construction office before starting; each of our town pages links to the right department.

Sequence for a layout change

1. Confirm what is under the floor and inside the relevant walls.
2. Settle the plan on paper with real clearances, and specify appliances.
3. Engineering and permits for any structural change.
4. Order cabinets to the new plan.
5. Demolition, then framing changes.
6. Rough plumbing, gas and electrical to the new positions.
7. Inspections.
8. Close walls, then flooring, cabinets, counters, backsplash, fixtures, trim.

Layout work across our service area

Layout changes look different in a 1930s colonial than in a 1960s split. We do them in Maplewood, South Orange, Livingston, Springfield and across our service area. Back to kitchen remodeling.

Every town has its own kitchen remodeling page covering the housing there and what it means for a project. See the full service area.