How to Fix a Weird Kitchen Layout, Straight From Designers

10.02.2024 - 11:31 / thespruce.com / Megan McCarty

We aren’t all blessed with magazine-worthy kitchen layouts. Maybe your kitchen is cluttered with appliances because you lack counter space, or maybe a closed-off footprint makes entertaining tricky.

Unless you’ve renovated your kitchen exactly to your liking, kitchen layouts can be luck of the draw, and some are better than others.

With the help of two experts, we’ve narrowed down five of the most unfortunate kitchen layouts. No need to feel defeated though—they also help us how to make the most of them. 

The Spruce / Christopher Lee Foto

“Suboptimal”—that’s how Alex Robinson, an interior designer at Mackenzie Collier Interiors, describes a galley kitchen layout, a long, narrow kitchen footprint with services on one or both sides. 

“These kitchens typically lack ample cooking space, resulting in a cramped environment,” says Robinson.

Not only do galley kitchens make for tight spaces, but they tend to isolate the kitchen from the surrounding rooms. That makes being a present host while entertaining tough and cooking elaborate meals tougher.

Like it or not, galley kitchens are sometimes a necessity due to a lack of square footage. To enhance functionality in a galley layout, it’s crucial to maximize surface area utilization, which helps ensure each area is clutter-free.

Keep any appliances that aren’t used daily off the countertops to make the most of the counter space you do have.

For many, a cramped kitchen is the nemesis, while an oversized, airy kitchen is the ultimate dream. Jason Jacobson, the director of consumer insights for SHAWOOD, warns that there is such a thing as having too much space though—especially in a kitchen. A layout that’s too open isn’t conducive to efficient cooking, cleaning, or