I have a little U-shape kitchen. The cooktop is in the middle with the sink and oven on opposite sides. It's clearly a 1-butt kitchen and I like it that way. The refrigerator is next to the ovens although not visible in this photo. I like this arrangement since spills on the cooktop are within one step of the sink. And the sink is one step across the floor to the refrigerator. Why not sketch the layout you want and determine how convenient everything will be?

Here is a link that might be useful: U-shape kitchen

Depends on how you cook. In my U-shape, the stove is in the middle, with the sink and frig on opposite sides. Unlike a lot of people, a lot of my cooking is either frig to stove, or sink to stove.

What I find most important to me is a long stretch of counter between sink and stove. 90% of my prep is done there. I was surprised to find I hardly ever prep between frig and stove, although it made sense once I thought about it afterwards, LOL. I do a lot of make-ahead cooking, so that goes into the frig which is then reheated on the stove or in the oven.

The sink to stove prep area works best for me because not only the sink, but utensils, knives, plates/bowls, and the DW are on that side. Once I have everything assembled from the frig or pantry it takes no more than two or three steps to do even elaborate, multi-meal prep, rinsing and/or stacking dirty items in the DW as I work.

As long as your layout works for you - think about making your favorite dishes, and imagine walking through your suggested layout - that's all that matters. The longest countertop in the world won't help if it's in the wrong place.

We've planned a G-shaped kitchen which is variant of the U kitchen. It's got a range at the bottom of the U, a sink on each side of it, and a refrig. beyond one of the sinks at the top of the G. We really worked over the plan before we ordered the cupboards and I'm very eager to use the kitchen. We have two work triangles anchored at the range and refrig which do not intersect, although one of them has a long commute to the refrig. The microwave is a part of our regular cooking regime, so we've positioned it beyond the second sink. This is a 2-cook kitchen with potential for 4-6 more helpers.
We do a lot of veg prep and we do a lot of cooking from scratch and eating usually takes place in adjacent dining room or patio. This kitchen will allow DH and me to work together without saying "excuse me" if it works the way we think it will and we can use the large amount of counterspace to lay out dishes, foods, dirty dishes, etc. I agree with jkom51 that space between stove and sink is useful--in past I never had it so I had to yell "here I come" whenever I had cleaned veg, etc. to haul to stove or headed from stove to sink with hot pressure cooker or cooked pasta.

More important than the order of the 3 items is the absence of non-cooks walking through the work triangle. The refrig. can be the farthest from the other two items. It needs "plunk space" adjacent to it. So does the stove.

The problem with putting the refrigerator & range on the same wall is that you are eliminating valuable counter/workspace in the most important place...b/w the sink and range...

The most useful location of the Prep Zone, which is where 70% of the work in the kitchen takes place, is b/w a water source (whether a separate Prep Sink or sole sink) and the range/cooktop.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you also need emergency landing space as well as workspace on both sides of the range...24" on the side opposite the water source and at least 36" b/w the water source and range, preferably more. (From my experience, 42" to 48" seems to be the ideal amount of space w/o separating the sink & range too much.)

My advice to you is to maximize the amount of space b/w the range & sink plus provide adequate workspace around the range.

BTW...you probably are not getting responses to your thread emailed to you even though you checked the box that says "Check here if you would like copies of follow-ups to your message emailed to you." This is b/c you do not have the email option turned on in your profile.

See the "Read Me" thread for more information (linked below). Scroll down to the post w/the subject "Getting Emails Sent To You...3-step Process"

Here is a link that might be useful: Read Me If You're New To GW Kitchens!

All the comments listed so far are spot-on.

I have a U-shaped 11 x 9 kitchen with the sink at the arc of the U. The fridge is at the end of a wall and the range is 24" from it, which is cramped, but it's a good landing space. That was the original footprint, which for lots of reasons I'm not changing.

Bueul is right about the most important prep zone being between cooking and sink (which gives me 36" corner space). When I'm making a simple meal that's where I find myself working. Yeah, I'm prepping at a corner but it's not horrible because I put a little tv under the upper corner cab so I can entertain myself with all the aggravating news of the day while prepping dinner. My dog, a sheltie, enjoys dropped veggies. My DH is not a kitchen person so we never compete for kitchen space.

On the other hand -- I have the other leg of the U, a clear peninsula that is about 6' long and 30" wide. When I want to haul out serious cooking/baking tools and work in a big space, the peninsula is delightful. It's granite (over Ikea, btw) and bulletproof.

Cheers,
rc

What we really need is to know the dimensions of the space...

I have a modified "U"...two very short legs with another row of counters across the aisle. My Ref, Sink, DW, and ovens are on that wall... My cooktop is in the base of the "U" and I have a corner prep sink to the right of the cooktop w/approx 42" of workspace b/w them.

You can see it here...

By doing it this way instead of having longer legs, I don't experience the "trapped in the U" that many dislike and it allowed me to open the kitchen up quite a bit.

Our current U-shaped layout has the range right next to the fridge with no counter between...it is horrible you cannot even turn a pot around with a handle on it. Our sink is in the middle and then the peninsula is complete counter space, which ends up collecting all types of things like mail, tools, etc. I usually end up prepping between the sink and the range and not using the peninsula counter space.

We are getting ready to remodel and are keeping our sink in the middle and our fridge at one end. Then we are putting an induction cooktop on the peninsula. This will give me a pretty good prep space between the sink and fridge...or I can do some prep between the cooktop and sink if I had to. The induction still allows the peninsula to be used a a landing space since it is almost flush with the counter.

I have a 14.5 x 9 U-shaped kitchen with the sink at the top of the U. Like rcvt, I do most my prep work between the sink and the range. I actually like the corner space because it feels so deep.

We are in the middle of our remodel so I had this picture handy....

I have the stove and fridge on the same side of the U (with a bank of drawers between them). But my sink is not in the middle of the U, rather it's on one corner (regular sink, set in a corner cab). It gives me lots of landing space for stove and fridge, and plenty of prep room. Works very well.