
Well, specifically, this plan. Ignore the soft focus – this is supposed to be an arty shot. I’ve seen hundreds of these in my career, right up until I started specializing in remodeling. If you have this plan, are a new contractor, designer, or homeowner, maybe I should have titled this “It’s a Trick—Runnnnn!”
Or something subtle like that.
There are more than 2 potential trouble-spots, but we’ll discuss them as we go along. (For those of you new to the blog, my middle names are “It Depends.” In other words, this is what I know; your mileage may vary.)
It looks good at first glance, right?
There are nice counters between all the appliances (also referred to as landing spaces), a big pantry, and some typical echoing of architectural angles for both cabinets and walls. There’s no indication of wall cabinets in this plan, but that's okay--most homeowners add them when they visit the cabinet showrooms.
Here’s what I see:
- 2 major “this is going to hurt” factors
- 1 “somewhat annoying” detail
- And 1 “what were they thinking?!?” outright flaw.
Can you spot what they are?
(For those experienced ones in the audience, shhh. No yelling out the answers. *grin* )
I’ll give the rest of you a hint: everything depends on who you’ve picked to spot these details, and the appliances you select.
Here's another hint: I first saw this plan around the early 90s. O stock plan designers – do you really think that appliances and lifestyles have remained the same for 20 years?
I can barely keep up on a monthly basis anymore, and I’m not even talking which manufacturer is now making which brand name, and who’s outsourcing where. I’m talking basic design, an oxymoron in our business if I ever heard one.
The 2 “this is going to hurt” factors
1. How will we fully open the refrigerator door?
Did you guess this? Good. Give yourself a point.
Most refrigerator doors do not swing open so that the face of the door lines up with the side of the refrigerator—no, it protrudes right over the framed pantry wall, like this:

The first thing that’s going to happen is a huge dent in your wall. Your refrigerator door will open, oh, about 15 degrees max. before you hear the crunching.
Purchasing an integrated refrigerator with a swing-pivot door (where the face of the door when opened will line up with the side of the refrigerator) might work; just be careful not to swing the door wide or you’ll dent it against the wall. And co-ordinate with the family so both the pantry door and refrigerator door aren’t used at once.
This plan is a modification of an earlier plan and the back wall is bumped out to accommodate a 30” deep refrigerator. There should have been a filler between the refrigerator and the pantry the same size as the thickness of the door.
2.
Haven’t handles gotten larger and deeper on some dishwashers? Why yes, give yourself another point. There should be cabinet spaces, ears, fillers, extended stiles – whatever you want to call them—between the dishwasher and the sink cabinet. There’s a curved handle out there on one line of dishwashers that protrudes almost 3-1/2” from the face of the dishwasher. Imagine swinging open a full-height sink door. This is another crunch moment.
That’s why we leave some filler space in the angle—which has to take in the size and depth of the dishwasher door, its handle, and the style and construction of the sink cabinet.
I never design a kitchen this way. There should be at least one cabinet between the sink and the dishwasher. It leaves more room for a person to remain at the sink area when someone else wants to load the dishwasher, and … well, we’ll talk about the other later on.

The one “somewhat annoying” detail
We were having a recent discussion on Twitter about desks and their usefulness in a kitchen based on one of Paul Anater's latest posts on desks. Again, 20 years ago, this was the “I need to look up recipes or pour over my grocery list or dump mail” desk. Certainly most of the desks I see in the homes I remodel seem to be a great repository for the big dog food bags, but this could be a regional thing. I remove a lot of these desks in older homes.
So, let's look at the desk. Let's look at said desk in relation to the pantry door. Interior doors on a plan are typically drawn at a 90-degree angle from the wall, but it really swings 180-degrees unless you install a hinge-mounted door stop. I think a wall- or floor-mount wouldn't work well here, but maybe you have it and like it just fine.
Now imagine a chair in front of the desk. Or if you have younger children at the “Eeee, fling everything open with full force!” stage. This is a perfect illustration of the "it depends" factor. Might not even be an issue for a couple who never open the door fully anyway.
Did you get this one? Good. Give yourself another point.
The “what were they thinking?” flaw
Let’s have another look at the overall kitchen. Do you notice anything?
There aren't enough cabinets in this kitchen for a family of 4. There’s one corner lazy susan cabinet, a 6” condiment pullout to the left of the range, and one possible bank of drawers in this entire kitchen. Oh yes, and a desk. Hooray.
I have a small galley kitchen that has more storage than this one.
Sure, we could store a lot of items in the pantry, yet going back and forth opening that pantry door a couple hundred times a day isn't my idea of functional. And where does one store the cutlery? If the answer is “between the
refrigerator and range because there isn’t any other room and I’m not
giving up my lazy susan for a blind corner cabinet”, then where do you
put your pot-holders? Your spatulas? Sandwich bags and wrap? Knives?
I've written about over-appliancing the kitchen before.

So if you have a stock plan, ask yourself the following:
- How do the doors swing and/or open? (Why yes, this is a continuation of last week’s post on keeping your kitchen ding-free, which you can find here.)
- Can you cook your favorite dish here? Imagining your way through a meal can pinpoint the above, even if you only cook pizza. After all, you have to figure out where the pot holders and paper towels will be…
- Do you need a desk?
If that lovely architectural angled wall for that hallway wasn’t bearing (and I didn't have the entire plan so who knows?), I might suggest losing it in favor of adding that bank of drawers I was talking about earlier between the sink and the dishwasher. That’s one idea. Another’s an island. There are quite a few ideas to do in this space, and each is a domino lining up in a row of others.
In the meantime, those of you with the most points, please trade your points in for some Easter chocolate. The points make it all non-caloric…honest. If you’re dubious, I understand. You can send it to me.
My apologies to those of you that have this plan; I hope you had the better variation, and good people to help you. If not, perhaps you could share your story with the rest of us.