Good to know. The kitchen in our 1920's bungalow/cottage/foursquare is ap. 13.5 x 13.5, adjacent to a DR with the same dimensions, but that includes a stairway. The opening between the two rooms was recently widened to improve traffic flow, and to accommodate a 3x5 island. Sometimes we have seating at the island, if we pull out a small bench that fits under the island-top. The aisles are 35"-37" on three sides, and work well for my family, even when we have extended family (16-24 people) serving themselves from a buffet on the 35" aisle.

So, I guess if you don't count the occasional seating, it falls into the workable parameters of 'minimum kitchen space,' although I always refer to it as a small kitchen in a 'Smaller Home.' ;)

My kitchen is 13.5' across its short dimension. On paper I seem to only be able to fit:

One normal counter + aisle + quite narrow island (24-27") + aisle + one 30" deep counter required by my hulking 48" range. The aisles are 42", each, which is minimum according to the NKBA.

I am unsure enough about this lay-out that I am going to take the trouble to set up a functional working temp kitch in this room to test it live for a few months. I see plenty of examples of narrower aisles here, but am too timid to just launch on that path without living with it first. If I could "harvest" a few inches from them I could make the island wider, and/or deepen the standard depth counter. I don't plan on having seating at my island, but I could use extra top space, and to some extent the storage underneath.

The room is longer (17.5') than wide and I am constrained by on overall design because this is an old historic house.

I love my current (GW/KF-assisted) layout, but it is so unusual I have weeks when I think it is going to be an expensive flop.

I think of my kitchen as being on the small side of medium, but it is more 300 sq. ft., so that's probably inaccurate.

L

You're right, some people are okay with 36" working aisles on one side of an island, and actually promote them in here. You are taking up an extra 6" with the deep counter for the range.

I personally like 48" aisles but I don't mind walking from side to side.

A lot of difficulties arise not just because of size, but also doorways, windows, traffic patterns and such. For instance my future renovated kitchen will be 15.5 ft x 12.5 ft, which is bigger than any other kitchen I've had, but because of the structure and traffic, it won't be the medium- big kitchen that the same space could house with less constraints.

I agree that if you are in between sizes, so to speak, you still have the smaller size kitchen with just more feet of travel. Although the NKBA guidelines are to be taken with a grain of salt, IMO; plenty of people are perfectly happy with 36" aisles or 12" of overhang. I've never had a full 60" of clearance behind seating except on 1 side (when the DR opened onto the kitchen) and never missed it, we did fine with 48".

A set-up I dream of is a simple U shape kitchen with a 4' x 6' island, so about 18 ft wide (2' of counter on either side, 4' aisles, 6' island). I would want it to open onto a DR or LR or den, with side doorways opening onto the far side of my island, so that from wall to far island side would be 10 ft (counter + aisle + 4 ft island). Of course it would have to be wider than 10 ft if there were a wall or half-wall on the far side.

Seriously though, this is so individual that how can one decide on measurement standards? Not to mention the huge cultural influence.... I grew up in France and Switzerland where kitchens are teeny tiny, and it didn't bother most people at all. Here we talk about 36" aisles as too small... Also the type of cooking, I know some cooks who would plan for 4' - 5' of flat cooktop like in a restaurant. Personally I love seeing tons of non-standard, idiosyncratic kitchens - blows the NKBA "must-haves" to bits while remaining married to function. One just has to choose which functions are the most important.

48 inches from side to side gets a lot smaller when oven and dishwasher open into center portions of the space--trust me on this. If the two were on same side at least there would be a single skinny passageway on the opposite side.

I have a non-standard, idiosyncratic kitchen myself, so I know where you are coming from. I agree that the NKBA guidelines need to be taken with a grain of salt, too. Kitchens would have to be enormous to meet all of them.I was just noticing that there are dimensional differences of several feet that are "near misses" for the next level of layout complexity.

I know Europeans make do with a lot less space than we do, particularly with refrigeration. However the strangest thing I saw was an Italian kitchen that had an additional wall oven.....reached by step ladder. I would love to see how that went over in America 8-l

I'm too tired to think about the numbers right now, but I really like your way of thinking about this. One really could put together a notebook of optimizations for these spaces, and then adapt the solutions to the idiosyncrasies of an actual space. Much more useful, I think, if enough variations are worked through, than the classic "this is a U" and "this is a corridor" with no consideration for size and scope.

Florantha has a great point about appliance distribution - same spaces can be tight or pleasant to work in depending on the set-up. A sink, fridge and range crammed close together with acres of counter elsewhere does not translate into a spacious kitchen, no matter the room dimension. And her point about door swings that face each other also reduces usable square footage. It's one reason I do like the work triangle concept - it often gives you the "real" kitchen size by illustrating what paths most of the back-and-forth activity will follow. Onto that you can add extra satellite stations - beverage centers for example - but you do get a good feel for the actual workspace you will get.