On a whole-house remodel, the kitchen is the room. Three reasons: The kitchen is where you spend the most money. Cabinets, counters, appliances, fixtures — easily 25–40% of the project budget. The kitchen drives MEP rough. Where the range goes decides where the gas line goes and where a structural beam can or can't be. Where the sink goes decides the plumbing rough. Open-plan layouts radiate from the kitchen. Once the island is placed, the dining and living layouts follow almost automatically.

2.2 Program development with kitchen-first thinking · Renton WA whole-house remodel and addition: the project workflow

Q: What the program covers

A working program is a 1–2 page document naming: Kitchen — galley, U-shape, island-centered, peninsula. Approximate footprint. Whether it opens to dining, living, or both. Primary suite — bedroom size, en-suite bath, closet. Secondary bedrooms — count, sizes, shared or split bath. Public spaces — living, dining, family room. Mudroom / entry — where the family actually comes in. Laundry — main floor or other. Outdoor connection — deck, patio, slider doors. Bring your scope memo from feasibility step 0.3 to the first programming meeting. Don't bring floor-plan sketches — those come later. The job here is to articulate what before where .

Program development with kitchen-first thinking

Before any drawing happens, work out the program: which rooms, what sizes, what adjacencies. On a whole-house remodel, the kitchen drives most of these decisions — work it out first, then everything else follows.

Who

Homeowner, Designer

How long

2-4 weeks

Cost

Included in design fee

You end up with

Written program: room list, sizes, adjacencies, kitchen layout direction

Why kitchen-first

On a whole-house remodel, the kitchen is the room. Three reasons:

The kitchen is where you spend the most money. Cabinets, counters, appliances, fixtures — easily 25–40% of the project budget.
The kitchen drives MEP rough. Where the range goes decides where the gas line goes and where a structural beam can or can't be. Where the sink goes decides the plumbing rough.
Open-plan layouts radiate from the kitchen. Once the island is placed, the dining and living layouts follow almost automatically.

What the program covers

A working program is a 1–2 page document naming:

Kitchen — galley, U-shape, island-centered, peninsula. Approximate footprint. Whether it opens to dining, living, or both.
Primary suite — bedroom size, en-suite bath, closet.
Secondary bedrooms — count, sizes, shared or split bath.
Public spaces — living, dining, family room.
Mudroom / entry — where the family actually comes in.
Laundry — main floor or other.
Outdoor connection — deck, patio, slider doors.

Bring your scope memo from feasibility step 0.3 to the first programming meeting. Don't bring floor-plan sketches — those come later. The job here is to articulate what before where.

Program development with kitchen-first thinking

Why kitchen-first

What the program covers

Where this information came from