What is the minimum size for an L-shaped kitchen?

Two legs of about 2400 mm each give a workable L: a corner unit, a sink run on one leg and a hob run on the other, with the fridge at the end. Below that, one leg becomes too short to hold both a landing surface and an appliance, and a single-wall layout with a tall unit usually works better. There is no maximum; long legs just move the fridge further from the sink.

What goes in the corner?

A blind corner base: a 1200 mm unit whose 750 mm blank runs behind the return so its 450 mm door opens onto the other leg. Corner carousels and pull-out mechanisms fit the same footprint; a diagonal corner unit takes more front but reaches in more easily. Never put the sink, the hob or the dishwasher in the corner: the doors of the units either side cannot both open.

Where should the fridge go in an L-shaped kitchen?

At the end of a leg, so its door opens away from the corner and onto a landing surface. In the example it sits at the right end of the back wall with a drawer unit beside it. Putting it in the corner traps its door and wastes the corner cabinet.

Can I add an island to an L-shaped kitchen?

If the room is at least about 3500 mm deep on the open side. The island starter layout is exactly this L with a 1200 × 900 island in a 4800 × 4200 room. The island clearance guide works through the sums.

L-Shaped Kitchen Layout With Dimensions (Plan & Elevations)

When an L suits the room

An L works when two adjacent walls are free of doors for at least 2400 mm each and the door into the room is on one of the other two walls. It keeps everything within a few steps without the closed feeling of a U, and because the third and fourth walls stay open it is the layout that most easily takes a dining table or, in a bigger room, an island. It struggles when the door is in the corner, when a window sits low on one leg where the worktop would run, or when the room is long and narrow, where a galley does better.

A measured example

The plan below is the planner's L-shaped starter as it exports it: a 4600 × 3600 mm room with a 2800 mm ceiling, the sink run on the back wall, the cooking run on the left wall and a 900 mm door on the front wall. Every dimension on it is real.

Dimensioned floor plan of an L-shaped kitchen, 4600 by 3600 mm: a 1200 mm blind corner unit, 900 mm twin-bowl sink cabinet, 600 mm dishwasher, 600 mm drawer unit and 700 mm refrigerator along the back wall; a 50 mm filler, drawer unit, hob with hood, oven housing and base cabinet along the left wall; a 900 mm door on the front wall; unit codes and elevation markers — The L-shaped starter's floor plan, exported from the planner. Codes match the elevations and the schedule below.

Unit schedule for the L-shaped starter
Code	Unit	Width	Wall	Position from corner
B01	Blind corner base, door on the right	1200	Back	0
B02	Sink cabinet, twin bowl	900	Back	1200
A01	Dishwasher	600	Back	2100
B03	Drawer unit	600	Back	2700
A03	Refrigerator, 700 deep	700	Back	3400
B04	Filler panel	50	Left	600 (after the corner unit's return)
B05	Drawer unit	600	Left	650
B06	Hob cabinet	600	Left	1250
A02	Chimney hood, 1550 above floor	600	Left	1250
B07	Oven housing	600	Left	1850
B08	Base cabinet	600	Left	2450
—	Door, 900 × 2100	900	Front	1850

All dimensions in millimetres. Position is measured along the wall from the corner at offset 0: the left corner for the back wall, the back corner for the left wall.

The two elevations

The elevations are what the fitter and the electrician actually read: heights. The back wall shows the worktop at 870 mm plus its 40 mm slab, the 600 mm tiled band above it, and the fridge standing past the worktop. The left wall shows the hood at 1550 mm, and the back wall's corner unit hatched where it returns 600 mm into this wall.

Elevation of the back wall: corner unit, sink cabinet with tap, dishwasher, drawer unit and refrigerator, tiled band to 1470 mm, level markers at 870 and 2800 mm — Back wall elevation. The 100 mm gap between the drawer unit and the fridge is the fridge's door clearance.

The corner

The corner is where an L is won or lost. The starter uses a 1200 mm blind corner base: its first 750 mm is blank and sits behind the left wall's return, and its 450 mm door opens on the back wall. The left run then starts 600 mm out from the corner, behind a 50 mm filler that gives the first drawer front room to clear the corner unit's door handle. Whatever mechanism you put inside the corner, keep the sink, hob and dishwasher out of it: two doors that meet in a corner cannot both open.

The work triangle in this layout

Work triangle legs, measured between unit centres
Leg	From	To	Length
Sink to hob	1650 along the back wall, 300 in	300 in from the left wall, 1550 along it	≈ 1840 mm
Hob to fridge	Left wall, 1550 along	Back wall, 3750 along	≈ 3650 mm
Fridge to sink	Back wall, 3750 along	Back wall, 1650 along	≈ 2100 mm
Total			≈ 7.6 m, inside the 4–7.9 m guideline

Landing space works too: 600 mm of drawers either side of the hob, the dishwasher beside the sink sharing its waste, and a drawer unit beside the fridge to set the shopping down on.

The same layout rendered

The 3D view and a realistic image of it, both from this plan. The render was generated by the planner on 18 September 2026 in the Japandi theme and has not been edited; it is an AI visualisation of the model, so treat the plan above as the record.

The planner's 3D view of the L-shaped kitchen from the corner: sage cabinets, a hob with chimney hood on the left wall, sink and dishwasher on the back wall and a stainless fridge at the end — **The 3D view** · what the planner draws

Realistic render of the same L-shaped kitchen in the Japandi theme: oak fronts, a slatted timber ceiling, a paper pendant, every unit in the same place as the plan — **The realistic image** · Japandi theme, unedited

Adapting it to your room

Shorter legs. Delete the last cabinet on the leg that is shrinking, or swap the 900 mm sink for an 800. Keep the 600 mm of landing either side of the hob before anything else.
Longer legs. Use Fill this wall to run base cabinets into the gap, then put a tall larder at the far end so the run has a full stop.
The door on a different wall. Move it in the Room tab; the planner keeps its swing clear and flags any unit that lands in it.
A window over the sink. Add it to the back wall above the sink at a 1100 mm sill; the hob-under-window check only applies if you move the hob there.

Questions

How this page was made

Every drawing and image on this page is an unedited export from the planner's L-shaped starter layout on 18 September 2026; the schedule and the triangle lengths are read from the same saved project. Guideline figures are from the NKBA Kitchen Planning Guidelines. The layout is an example to adapt, not a design for your room.

Sources

NKBA Kitchen Planning Guidelines · work triangle and landing figures
Kitchen layout dimensions and clearances · the numbers this layout is checked against

Written by the person who builds the planner, who is not a kitchen designer or an electrician: the guides say where a professional or a local code decides. Found a mistake? Write to us and it will be corrected with a note on this page.

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