The "Work Triangle" is no longer the focal point for the design of a kitchen. No, it's not dead (as the title of the thread I'm going to link seems to suggest), but it has been superseded by the concept of "Work Zones" and their arrangement. Zones are, IMHO, a natural development beyond the triangle.

See the thread linked below...

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread: Death to the Work Triangle??

I have zones. I think I said the same thing on the thread Buehl linked. But I also have triangles. Plural. And two sinks. A lot of modern, larger kitchens solve the oversized triangle problem with a secondary sink. That allows the other zones to pop out and spread out. For actually cooking, I actually need a good fridge-sink-stove-fridge path. Doesn't have to be the same fridge and the same sink, but those the the things I use when cooking.

I'm not quite in my new kitchen, so I don't know how it'll work out in reality, but it was 16' from stove to fridge and a nightmare in the old kitchen. I moved the stove a little closer, and put fridge drawers across from the stove which will house the things I usually decide I need after I start cooking, like leftover wine.

I think the NKBA guideline is pretty good. But if you have 6' from fridge to prep sink, and 8' to stove, 9' stove to fridge, and 7' stove to clean-up sink, or something like that, it's still within the guidelines. Add 6' fridge to prep or baking area, 10' prep/baking to oven and 4' oven to clean-up sink. Still sounds okay. (All random numbers for illustration.) I wouldn't push it much beyond 10', though. But then I really hate hiking in a kitchen.

Sixteen feet when you're doing something delicate is just the pits.

And if the pictures you're finding are in magazines, I tend to go through them and laugh at the badly designed kitchens. I did that before I was even TKO and had never heard of GW. There's some absurd stuff out there.

When I redid our kitchen I kept our stove and main sink in the same locations, but we moved our stove over approx. 6' which made our work triangle distances exceed the guidelines. However, we did install a secondary sink near the stove. Anyway, even though our refrigerator to stove distance is a stretch, it hasn't been a problem. Our island is in between which I'm sure helps. Food items are taken out of the fridge and prepped before being cooked at the range, etc. It works because taking items from the pantry and fridge through the process of washing and prepping, and then cooking is all organized and naturally flows. I think you'll be fine if you have efficient work zones with in the larger scheme of an efficient work triangle even if the triangle legs don't follow the guidelines exactly. It definitely feels different working in my new kitchen, but the pros of more room for prepping, cooking and storage out weigh the con of extra steps. Having the second sink definitely helps though in our situation. Oh and so does having a secondary fridge for beverages.

Its a little bit individual too.

There are people who are happy with a ref or a pantry in locations I think are very remote. I think they tend to be more organized about cooking than I am or use more recipes or somethin'.

I could have an oven fairly far away and be happy. I could have a micro two rooms away and it wouldn't bother me.

One of the good things about zones is the ability to customize them for the way you cook and how you want things organized.

Ooooops

I wrote:

"When I redid our kitchen I kept our stove and main sink in the same locations, but we moved our stove over approx. 6' which made our work triangle distances exceed the guidelines."

I meant to write:

"When I redid our kitchen I kept our REFRIGERATOR and main sink in the same locations, but we moved our stove over approx. 6' which made our work triangle distances exceed the guidelines.

Sorry for any confusion

Would you have designed any differently if you did not have the luxury of refrigerator drawers or a second prep sink?

I think that a factor in the triangle analysis is whether you are a one-item-at-a-time fetcher or if by habit you gang your hauling tasks within the triangle/zones. That would affect how tolerant you would be of a long-side triangle. Studies show that general movements within the home add to the caloric burn that keeps us healthy. I'm trying very hard not to make ease so important to me that I become a bore and a blob. I must have stool seating at the chopping stations and rubber-heeled shoes when I work, no matter how much walking I do in a kitchen. Keeping the stools out of the other person's triangle is important.

We do a lot of commuting inside our lakeshore house. Never mind the logic. We were restricted when planning the kitchen because of shoreland building code rules and investment in a former addition which put living room and bedrooms on the lake side. We decided to leave the kitchen on the street side of the house. A large deck and a patio are on the lake side, but will continue to require a commute to the kitchen. A formal dining room featuring fireplace and deck door is next to the kitchen. Because we eat in the dining room or on the deck or patio, I had to put the refrigerator on the path to them. The rest of the kitchen triangles sides are inside the newly expanded kitchen space.

I have planned 'plunk spaces' where things wait to be toted to another place. Bags of groceries arriving from garage, dishes headed out for usage or back for cleaning, condiments for the current meal, etc. Trays are useful sometimes but a bother other times. We think through what we need before we launch toward a destination. Because one triangle has a long tote to and from the refrig, I will have to think hard when I'm in front of the refrig with the door open. A pull-out breadboard will lie just to the side of it so that there is plenty of plunk space coming and going from the refrig. Even now in my little kitchen, it's not unusual for such a surface to have most of the salad makings, the dressing, and the cheese plunked on it before I begin to make the salad, so I'm acclimated to this procedure. We sure try to keep the refrig door closed as much as practicable.

As I indicated previously on one of the forum topics, the new design was driven by a mistake--the technical designer we hired for this sweat equity project claimed that I could not vent my stove from the position I had chosen, so the stove was moved and then the vent was still in wrong place and now vent is replumbed so it exits from the roof instead of the soffits. The tail that wagged the dog. Anyway, his design forced us to rethink lots of things we had originally planned and now I think I will enjoy this kitchen a lot because we put so much thinking into it.

At some point in the planning, we had a Better Homes Kitchen Mag which ran a great article with diagrams of the standard kitchen layouts and text that indicated number of cooks. The G-shaped kitchen was listed as a two-cook kitchen but needed a lot of space to prevent being cramped and being trapped in the space. That's what we ended up with. The diagram showed two work triangles that did not intersect but that shared the stove and the refrig on two ends with outrigger angles at each of two sinks.

Thinking has been very difficult but very rewarding. I'm trying hard to gang together "same-usage so same storage space" for food and utensils. The paring knives need to be by the chopping space but the ice cream scoops don't. The beverage-related stuff--wine openers, tea balls, beer opener, tea containers--don't need to be positioned near the stove in a single utensil area; now we're putting coffee pot and microwave and auxiliary induction burner in the upper arm of the G where beverage activities will not interrupt the cook and where they will most easily facilitate drinking beverages elsewhere in the house. We can use the area as a temporary bar/beverage station when we entertain guests also, and they won't need to enter deeper into the cooking arena. My relatives are diehard Swedes who swill coffee deep into the night; my husband comes from a cohort of beer drinkers who savor nuances from microbrews. So...beverages will now be dissociated from the cooking area! Beer drinkers will be routed back outside the immediate kitchen as soon as they have found their brew and coffee drinkers can creep in and out at will.

The refrig is at the start of the G. with plunk space next to it on left. Everyday dishes and silverware will be in uppercupboard next to it. Toast buttering and sandwich making will now be there also, next to refrig on the right top side of the G opposite the stove on the bottom of the G. Sink for cleanup and dishwasher are on the long side of the G with lots of windows. Baking area and secondary chopping are left of the sink near lower corner of G. Stove at bottom of G with butcher block plunk space either side of it and canned goods and other food storage above on either side of the vent hood. Pots and pans below. Peninsula on the short arm of the G will be launching/receiving space for prepared food and dishes plus will allow casual seating outside the kitchen proper and will house the prep sink and chopping pullout board and "double trash" unit on the inside of the short arm of the G.

In our current tiny kitchen, we put utensils of all sorts in one place and all fabric items in another, etc. Often storage was dictated more by depth of shelf or drawer than by relationship to other items on same shelf or in same drawer. The weirdest drawer is the one with batteries, used plastic bags, permanent markers, the least used disks for a chopping appliance, rolling pin, and writing instruments; most likely this collection evolved because all items are shallow. Now am hoping to dissociate stored items so that the groupings will cut down commutes. Flour and sugar and rolling pin and sifter and pie pans will be grouped. If necessary, I plan to make auxiliary containers for things that we use redundantly--bring back the sugar bowl from deep storage, for example, and put it in the beverage area.

I am an empty nester. I don't think I would have a use for additional refrigerator drawers even if I had a large family living nearby me. I don't think I would have wanted the when the kids were growing up either. Too many decisions--does this item go in that one or in this one? Where did I put that avocado? A refrig. just for butter and jelly and sandwich meat is silly, an example of American arrogance.

I live in Minnesota so I do use the garage for cold storage during the winter--beverages especially, but also for overflow of leftover containers and baked goods, etc. at Thanksgiving and Christmas. In summer, the garage is usually cool enough to begin the refrigeration process for some things. I also have the former well pit room in the basement which is great for wine, cold storage of squash, etc. My children live in Alaska and their visits are in weeks-long spurts. I am not too proud to go buy a bag of ice and use a portable cooler for short-term spare refrigeration space. I don't want to own oversized appliances just because I have a party or houseguests once in a while.

Very large cook gear like the blancher, the dehydrator, the auxiliary turkey baker as well as vacuum cleaner and brooms, potatoes and onions, cleaning supplies, and the dog food will be in a new closet in the former kitchen-- a hall behind the stools of the peninsula arm of the G. I still need to procure or design a decent-sized bookshelf for cookbooks, which will have to wait until serendipity renders me the right item. This will probably also be placed on the kitchen hall.

I like to give dinner parties and this kitchen is set up for that. I want to retain the restaurant-like ambiance of the separate dining room but will now be able to do a better job of herding guests out of the cooking area instead of simply demanding: "You may stand there or there or leave." My guests are guests, not choppers or waiters, although perhaps I will change this when the multi-station G becomes familiar enough for me to allow others besides the DH and my children into it. The room will allow as many as 6 cooks and assistants, I think, but the sacred triangles will not be honored very much at that time.

I demanded that the prep sink be large enough to hold a pumpkin. It's positioned to serve for general hand-washing but also for washing down garden produce and for filling the dog water pail so I bought a one-bin Kohler regular sink. The cleanup sink is a two-bin Kohler sink on the opposite side. Faucets have a high arc and a separate sprayer. I think I would have liked a pot filler to shorten the number of steps between sinks and stove, but the sweat equity contractor said NO more plumbing, please.

I talk to the cupboard man today here at our place and we might come to an agreement. He likes our plan and his marketing guy is already hoping to get some photos when we're done. But we're not done sweating yet.

Florantha

Florantha, thanks, you really talked me through the process. I would love to see your layout!

When I cook lately I have been trying to visual the three remodel options currently swirling in my head. It's a difficult process as you said, but worth it in the end.

For those with work zones how do you have them laid out???

Kay, standard advice in these situations is to build a lifesized model of the layout(s) and pretend to cook whole meals with all the steps you usually do.

Florantha's point about taking more steps for exercise is a very good one. The reason why I don't want to do that while cooking is that with the 16' between stove and fridge in the old kitchen, I'd be stirring a delicate sauce, decide it needed a little wine to thin it, and not be able to get to the fridge and back for the leftover good wine without ruining the sauce. Or worrying some eggs and decide it needed a splash of milk, though at least the eggs can be turned off. Similarly, having the stove too far from the sink to carry a hot pot means going to the sink for a cup of water to deglaze with. And using a pasta insert because one can't drain the pot. There are always work arounds with enough preparation, but those are ways of coping with inconvenience, not ways of designing convenience into a kitchen.

First you have to decide how many people cook/clean/unload groceries in your kitchen AT THE SAME TIME. It's very hard to have a layout that is optimal for both, so consider which you do MOST. KDs ask, "Do you both cook?" but remember that if you don't usually work in there at the same time, what you need is a ONE-cook layout.

Remember to consider cleanup, unloading DW, and unloading groceries, too. KDs and magazines always seem to consider cooking and entertaining only. But you clean and put things away at least as often, and the ergonomics are at least as important for those tasks.

For me, it's all about ergonomics -- remember, I'm the one who found the TapMaster! -- safety, health, and convenience. So I always start with the placement of the sink, the stove (cooktop or range), and the dw, and then the whole thing works itself out like a logic puzzle.

1. The stove needs to be close enough to the sink so that the cook can pivot and reach both, or pretty close to it.

2. The dw needs to be right next to the sink, and the garbage has to be right around there, too.

3. The storage for your most used glasses needs to be right by the DW (because you can only hold 2 at a time). Next closest is for your most used dishes and silverware.

Figure that out, and the rest falls into place. It really doesn't matter where you put the refrigerator, pantry, MW, and other storage as long as they have appropriate landing space. A few steps to any of those things won't drive you crazy, create a hazard or a mess, or wear out your back, but a bad stove-dw-sink distance would.

gellchom you had some great thoughts, and they overlap with triangle death/work zone thread as well.

A work zone can be a partial zone if it contains a couple of elements. A frig can be a bit away from the prep zone if it has a landing area for both groceries and to collect items for a given dish, is in a friendly location for standing in front of sayiing hmm what do I need from here, and if it includes a place to set your glass while you get ice and pour drink or milk. An oven can be in a partial baking zone if it has a hot landing/ turning area, light to see by, a place to leave hot mitts and utensils. It may not need to contain a water source or all the space where the bread dough is stirred and kneaded. I still would not want these to be 20 feet away or behind a barrier island, but depending on how you use your kitchen, they are opportunities for flexibility to gain other floorplan priorities.

Gellchom, thanks for the Tapmaster. Even my plumber was impressed! And you make some great points, but I'll challenge one.

I can carry 7-8 tumblers, safely and cleanly at one time. Without a tray. And I can carry the same number of mugs, plus half a dozen juice glasses at once too. To another room. It's the normal way where I grew up. I actually prefer glasses and dishes near point of use than near the DW if I have to choose.

Regarding planning for multiple cooks: Absolutely do! But also make sure that the kitchen works okay for a single cook too. The kids won't be there forever, the DH may work late or be sick, etc. And there's always a day when there's a lone cook because everyone else is working on a project, or gone to visit Grandma or whatever. It might be a kitchen that's more convenient for several cooks than one, but don't make it downright inconvenient for just one cook.

My kids eat breaksfast on the kitchen island every school morning. We cook dinner at home nearly every night. I have to put dinner together in 30 minutes to 45 minutes most evenings. I do not use "precooked" food. I work so I do not have the luxury of taking time to cook fancy meals. So my kitchen has to be efficient. For me, how the kitchen functions everyday is much more important than how it functions for parties. I can make do on those rare occasions but cannot "make do" for every day needs.

My current kitchen is 13ft x 13ft with a large island and i walk no more than 5 to 7 ft for anything. I would not want my kitchen any bigger. I have alot of uninterrupted counter space that works as landing areas, and that is the key for me. I also have very organized "zones". My DW is right next to where the dishes go, which is right next to the dining area, so dishes get put away from the DW and the table set with only couple steps.

All of my unrefrigerated sauces/vinegars/oils, spices are next to the range on the upper cabinet. My pots and pans are next to the range on the lower cabs (to be replaced with drawers). Frig, range, sink are in a classic work triangle only a few steps from each other.

All of my "dry" food is in the walk-in pantry which is about 6 ft from the kitchen BUT I pull out everything I need from the pantry before cooking starts, ie flour, chicken stock, canned tomatoes and so on. I put the large appliances, ie waffle maker, food processor, hand mixer, rice cooker etc in the walk in pantry so that it is NOT in the immediate kitchen area. I save the kitchen for every day things, ie serving platter, utentsils, pots/pans, dishes etc. I think more than the larger kitchen size, it is the walk in pantry that allows me to organize my kitchen efficiently. My mother had a large pantry in a small kitchen and it worked quite well. My MIL had a big kitchen, which was very poorly laid out with no pantry and it was a really bad kitchen. She also kept many things on the counter because she had no pantry, so it made the kitchen function even worse!

I am with florantha in that I do not want to figure out which refrigerator gets what. I only want one. We eat alot of fresh fruits and vegies, so our refridgerator needs are large/multiple crisper drawers. My kitchen functions exactly as gellchom listed.

We do not drink juices or soft drinks much. Too much sugar and I do not allow it for kids except on rare occassions. So no need for a "drink" refrigerator in my particular kitchen.

The only thing that would make it better for multiple cooks is the second sink but the kitchen was not big enough for that. So we nixed it.