Kitchen upgrades
If you are thinking of building a new kitchen, renovating a kitchen or sprucing up your existing kitchen to modernise it or before putting your house on the market, it is a very good idea to become familiar with the concept of the perfect kitchen work triangle.
What is a kitchen work triangle
While it may appear that the kitchen work triangle is a modern designing touch, it has in fact been with us since the 1940s. So what is it? Different people may give you different definitions but at its core is the principle that it is an important way to design functional, ergonomic kitchens.
It is a simple concept. In essence, the perfect kitchen work triangle ought to comprise of a plan where you can draw a triangle between the kitchen sink, the stovetop, and the fridge.
The right distance
The second element to this, and perhaps the more important, is that most designers believe there has to be the right distance between these three components of the kitchen. The “rule” is that the three sides of the triangle should be:
- Be between 1.2 metres and 2.7 metres
- Add up to a total of between 4 metres and 7.9 metres
How kitchen triangles are changing
Much of the design principles first put forward about the perfect kitchen triangle occurred after the Second World War and were based on far smaller houses than we live in now. Plus, modern-day builders and architects are more likely to put forward designs which include island benches and integrated designs nowadays.
Relevant factors today
However, it would be a mistake to dismiss the idea of incorporating the perfect kitchen triangle into your new design to create a modern, practical and aesthetically pleasing kitchen – it’s just that it is no longer the only factor to consider in the space’s layout. You will need to also think about these factors:
- Will the kitchen be used by two or more people at once – perhaps with a second sink to create two work triangles in the same kitchen
- Think about creating a rectangle or pentagon rather than a triangle to accommodate how the appliances will be used
- Where will the bins be positioned
- Where will the dishwasher be in relation to the sink
- How much clearance there is around the three work centres (stovetops and sink, especially)
- What about room for some seating around the kitchen so that people can sit and chat or eat
- What kind of foot traffic is expected
- How the kitchen relates to other areas of the house so that the people doing the cooking are not on their own
Whatever your situation, if you decide to do some work on your kitchen, remember to seek out expert kitchen design advice and have that discussion about what would make the perfect kitchen triangle in your premises. Request a consultation today.