I have a galley. I love it! It's tiny and violates every kitchen rule known to exist, but it's the best I could do in my small space and it's super efficient.

As someone who's lived with many small galley kitchens my frustration was mainly with not having much space beside the range where I had my ingredients out and did most of my "operating" so to speak. Having a range & sink on the same run, I would find ideal. Prep first, then prep dishes are already next to the sink to be washed. Easy and no lugging boiling pasta across a walkway!

What are your dimensions for your elements Carrie? 18 in dishwasher? 30-36" prep space? Sink? Fringe? Pantry? Space left of range? I'm interested because I may want this layout in my future small kitchen. :-)

Llucy - dimensions as as follows:

Sink run: 18" *counter, 30" range, 36" counter, 30" sink, 18" DW

Fridge run: 18" pantry, 27" fridge, 39" counter

*counter, in my kitchen, includes lower drawers & upper cabinets. In my listing of each run, I started at the door & moved toward the interior.

Thank you. I'm going to save this thread for future reference. :-)

Sometimes, we just need our "Aha!" moment(s) to hit us no matter how many times we've been told differently.

I have a tiny "L" in a 10'x12'4" kitchen. Complete with worthless blind corner (Ugh).

I need more counter space and more storage.

First iteration:

A "U"! It will give me great expanses of counters! It will give me more storage (drawers, naturally)! Of course it would give me two corners, and counter space completely away from any "zone."

Second iteration:

A big "L"! I can have a longer counter run! I can knock down a wall! I can have an island! Of course I would still have a corner, and the island would be crammed in without really enough room to navigate around.

Both iteration #1 and #2 were cases of trying to put 10 lbs of sugar into a 5 lb bag...

Third iteration:

A "Galley"! I can get rid of the corners! I can have smaller, but useful counter spaces! I'll have a generous (65") aisle! So I started flipping around layouts on paper and in 2020.

Easier to have range & sink on different walls... but what about the "dumping hot water" scenario everyone mentions?

So... back to flipping around the design, eventually settling on a layout nearly identical to CarrieB's.

AHA Moment #1 - Local big box re-did their kitchen displays, one of which was a 10' x 12' galley! It gave me an wonderful feel for how roomy & functional it could be. Way better than I could visualize on paper or in 3-D on 2020.

AHA Moment #2 (The Clincher) - Stumbling across one of CarrieB's weekly update threads! Realizing her layout was nearly identical to the one I came around to after 3 years of planning.

As I mentioned in one of your threads Carrie, digging back through all of your threads was like watching my kitchen come to life from graph paper to reality! It's been a fun journey!

Your kitchen looks very nice. I love the natural light. Open floor plans are overrated.

tmy_jax - your post made me smile. I've found so much help on these forums, and am so happy when people can relate to my posts!

I also want to add that I know that a lot of people here have found useful storage in corners - good places to put those large, but not often used items. I'm not in any way trying to minimize or discredit the uses you've found for your corners.

Sedona - while I agree that there are times that open floor plans are not the best option, I'd also say that there are times where they absolutely are the best option. My entire first floor is about the size of a nice sized room. Splitting it up into two (or even 3, with dining) separate rooms would make my house feel tiny & cramped. Even as an open floor plan, my first floor feels cozy.

I like a galley kitchen! if set up properly. yours is good. going straight thru it is probably not best for those with kids tho. kids would always be in the way of the cook! but great for singles, even couples and definitely those getting older. mine is an L with the stove to L of sink and fridge to the R of sink. It's very good for me. about 2 steps in either direction.

Desertsteph - in a small rowhome, it's pretty inevitable that the you'll have either the front door, or the back door in the kitchen. Before my rehab, I did not have a galley kitchen - and that kitchen would have been way worse for a family with children!

The way my kitchen is now, a child could get something out of the fridge without being in my way if I was at the stove, the child could wash his hands in the sink, again, without being in my way while I was at the stove.

Totally agree with you Carrie. There have been many creative corner solutions that would be great in the right kitchen, or given how the space is allocated for usage.

I'll have a window where your awesome door is, but otherwise have the fridge & bev center easily accessible without entering the cooking zone.

I think it's a great solution for a small kitchens! Mine is somewhat similar, with sink and stove on opposite sides as my runs aren't quite as long. Aisle is 57" though so not as far to traipse across. I dohave the fridge where your door is so it's not quite a true galley (there are doors on both side walls of the kitchen, so no U shape here). I kept wanting to put in a peninsula with a couple of counter seats but it's just so much better and open without it - and we have a kitchen table so there really is no need. It's fine not having blind corners and after seeing many bad countertop installs (both here and while house hunting) I was happy to not need any seams. The problem is galley kitchen still conjures up a tiny apartment kitchen with under 4ft of aisle space and stove inevitably in the corner or against a fridge... ugh.

Iharpie - really good point about no seams. I was really glad not to have any seams. My old stove, in my non-galley kitchen only had 6" between it & the corner.

Yes! No seams! +1 Iharpie!

I now have a galley kitchen also, and love it so far, but it's not fully operational yet. I predict this will be the best kitchen I've ever had. Mine is 66" between cabinetry, the right size for me. Carrie, I agree with your points and have admired your beautiful space too! Wish i had done a garden window like yours. Sigh.

I purchased a house a couple of years ago - with a galley kitchen. Several people (including my mother) bemoaned my situation. I was sad about the kitchen, but the house has a number of other features that made it the best option for me. I LOVE MY GALLEY. Let me say it again - I LOVE MY GALLEY. It is a family house with 4 cooks (2 adults and 2 teens) and often times extra people due to said teens and a swimming pool. This kitchen is almost perfect for us. It is a corridor kitchen that leads to laundry room and garage on one end but even with that it is very rare that we find ourselves trampling on each other. Usually we have 2 people in it cooking at the same time (and my stove is across from the sink - the horror) but a simple "I need to drain the pasta" is all it takes for 20 seconds of paying attention. If I were to build a house from scratch I would really really seriously look into another galley. I might do a little tweaking on a couple of things, but I love the design.

I have a galley kitchen right now that I dislike in the extreme. It is not the galley part that I hate though! It's a major corridor in our house between the back door/garage/laundry/office/playroom and the front of the house/living room/dining room. There is always someone walking through or one of my kids running through. Drives me crazy!

It is a functional kitchen as far as layout and has more counter space than my former kitchen. But I like it way less because it has no windows. That is the clincher for me. If it is not feasible to add on and/or move the kitchen to another room, we will move.

I like the layout of most galley kitchens and think they can be easy to work in. I dislike busy corridor kitchens. So I think a galley is only a problem when it's a main traffic thoroughfare and/or if the aisles are too narrow. But that's true of any kitchen, imho.

Our previous home was a galley/corridor with a lot of traffic as the family room/powder room/backyard/deck and garage were through the kitchen. Sure, it made the kitchen the heart of the home but the constant traffic drove me crazy.

Our current kitchen is laid out a bit like a galley kitchen, kinda, with an L and a peninsula across from the long leg of the L but it's a dead-end galley. No traffic comes into the kitchen at all. If you're not actually doing something in the kitchen itself, there is no reason to even walk into the kitchen. I love that. Our first house was the same and I didn't realize what an annoyance it would be for me in our last home until I had to live with it for awhile and it became worse as the kids got bigger, had more friends over, and such. If I ever have to move, a non-traffic kitchen is a major feature I'll look for.

Yes, I love a good galley, too! Yours is especially lovely and functional. I grew up cooking in a narrow galley, and I t was extremely efficient. Only problem was for my mom when she had parties. It was the connector between two entertaining spaces, and it was always packed with people. For regular days, though, I don't think the layout could have been better.

I'm another converted fan of the galley! I moved from a big U layout, so I was concerned about this smaller kitchen. We moved for the yard and view, which I see from the kitchen, so I was willing to work with it :) After a year with this layout, I loved it, and kept it for my remodel. It's not a small galley, but so efficient and easy to cook.

I can totally see how a narrow corridor kitchen can be dysfunctional, especially if the range & sink are on different sides, and even more so with pets & children running through.

Mine is a corridor to the back yard, but I'm the only one living here, and it's wide. If I were standing at the range, and someone was going out the back door, it would be tight. So far, I had a birthday party here and the openness was really nice. I wasn't using the stove during the party, and the only people going outside were smokers.

Since it's a small city yard, even if there were children here, they'd be very unlikely to be running out to the yard - they'd go out the front door to play. In the summer, I usually have a few garden parties - with people floating in & out of the house. I think my setup will work very well for that.

For those who love their galley's...please share your pic's! :-)

Well anybody with an L or u-shape that has an island with a sink and stove in that same line has essentially created a mini galley kitchen within the rest of the kitchen. Galleys if organized properly I think are very efficient and makes it easy to work in.

We had a galley in the house where I grew up. As a kid I never thought about it at all, but the older I get the more I realize that it really was an excellent design, with room for three or four people in the kitchen at once, plenty of storage, and people could sit at the dinette table and chat with the cook without getting in the way. My mom chose the house based on the kitchen, and I can see why.

Yeah, people do say, "No galley kitchen for me", but I think they mean they don't want a narrow, closed in space. Keep in mind that this set-up, which is all the rage right now is a galley kitchen -- it's just that one side of the galley is an island, open to another room:

Mrspete - good point about the island galley. How wide is your too-wide galley?

My galley kitchen has sink on one side, range on the other. Lots of walking back and forth, between the two. I'd rather have them on the same side (or in an L) but not going to happen in our current situation.

That being said....I do like the way it's open to our little nook and we've made the best of the situation. I wouldn't design a kitchen with this layout (especially with 3 cooks). But, I am very thankful....that I'm fortunate enough to have a kitchen that I love, even if it's not perfect. What is?

And, the right decor can make any kitchen a lot more fun to be in :)

I kind of love that mine is a corridor. It down to 4 doors from 5, so you can still get pretty much anywhere (front entry way, side/exterior exit, dining room, basement/garage) in the house which is great because I'm pretty much always going through the kitchen on my way to places. That being said, it runs parallel to the LR/DR, so you can skip the kitchen to head to the back of the house through the LR/DR instead. I kind of think it's the best of both worlds really. I really don't mind having the stove and sink on opposite sides either - but I'm also embracing the fact that I love old well used/loved wood floors.

Love the island galley as well (although prefer that I have a separated kitchen, and definitely not room for both!).

Carrie, My too-wide kitchen is 6 1/2' wide. It's a large kitchen, but it's hard to imagine something laid out worse.

My teeny galley is 36" between counters! LOL I'm two steps from everything, one step or spinning in place to empty the dishwasher. LOL Everything is on one wall in mine, stove, sink, dishwasher, fridge. Pantry and counters/cabs opposite. It's a thruway to the back yard and we use the back door for the main entrance. The boys just have to wait if a door is open or something. :)

Mrspete - so my galley is even wider than yours. I can see how it would be more convenient (fewer steps) if it were narrower. For me, the benefits of the width, in terms of feel and aesthetic make up for the inconvenience (but can totally see how it would not in other situations.)

As an adult, I've had small galley kitchens in all but one place I've lived. I like the efficiency of them.

Thinking back, the big problem with the galley kitchens I haven't liked wasn't the configuration; it was layout / size. In the particular cases I have in mind, there wasn't sufficient counter space to facilitate food prep for two parts of a meal, especially with another cook helping. And if food was being prepared, there was not also a good landing area for things coming out of the oven. My favorite of the group was a galley that was long and narrow, with adequate landing space that didn't interfere with food prep. In fact, one of us would do food prep and baking, and the other would climb up on a stool and use another bit of counter as a desk.

^ Love the sunny eat-in nook!

Historian- thanks! This is the view from the nook, and one of the many reasons why I love my kitchen!

Wow, @johnsoro25, that's stunning! I have a much more humble galley but I have come to like it. Mine is only 7.5 feet wide total, so we had to recess the fridge and use narrower depth lower cabinets so that we could have a 48" aisle. It is a corridor, so the aisle was the most important thing. We opened up one end of the kitchen to a breakfast room with a banquette where I spend half my waking hours. It's still small, and kind of awkward.

But when I'm making breakfast and packing lunches for my kids every morning before work, it feels like the most efficient space in the world.

agreed. I put my oven in the corner. the only thing on my short part of the "L" is the fridge/freezer and walk-in pantry. I despise corners, especially when they have upper cabinets above them.