Kitchen design — work triangle, appliance specs, MEP coordination

Why this is its own step

A kitchen is the densest piece of design in any house. In ~150 sf you have:

• 12–25 cabinet boxes, each with its own door, hardware, and interior fittings.
• 4–6 appliances, each with its own electrical, plumbing, ventilation, or gas requirement.
• Counter material that has to be fabricated, transported, and installed in panels.
• Lighting that addresses task, ambient, and accent at three different switch zones.
• A range hood that has to vent to the outside, often through a complicated duct path.

Getting any one of these wrong eats $3K–$15K of rework. Doing the kitchen design as a dedicated pass — not as one piece of the larger design — is what keeps it coherent.

What the kitchen designer produces

• Cabinet plan. Every cabinet drawn, dimensioned, and labeled with door direction, hardware, and any specialty interior (pull-out trash, lazy Susan, drawer banks).
• Appliance schedule. Make, model, dimensions, electrical/plumbing/gas/vent requirements for each appliance. The schedule drives the MEP rough.
• Lighting plan. Recessed locations, pendant locations over the island, undercabinet lighting, switch zones.
• Counter take-off. Square footage by material, edge profile, finished-edge locations.
• Backsplash and finish schedule.

Work-triangle thinking

The classic work triangle (sink, range, refrigerator) still shapes kitchen functionality. Modern open-plan kitchens often replace it with zones (prep, cook, clean-up, storage), but the underlying logic is the same: short, uninterrupted travel between the things you use together. A kitchen designer's first pass on your layout is checking the zones work before any cabinet is drawn.

Appliance specs and MEP coordination

The single biggest source of mid-build kitchen problems: appliances chosen late. Each appliance has to be picked before MEP rough so:

• The electrician knows the range is 50A vs. 40A vs. 30A.
• The plumber knows whether there's a pot-filler.
• The HVAC sub knows the hood CFM (a 600 CFM hood needs a make-up air kit; a 1200 CFM hood needs a serious one).
• The gas line is sized for the actual range BTU rating.

Pick appliances during this step, even if you'll order them later. Models change, but specs (BTU, CFM, amperage) are stable enough to design against.

Specialty kitchen-and-bath designer vs. main designer

Some main designers are also strong kitchen designers; some aren't. If yours isn't, a separate kitchen-and-bath specialist for $2K–$8K is money well spent. They produce the cabinet plan, the appliance schedule, and the order — the main designer integrates it into the overall set.

When this is done

When the cabinet plan is ready to order, the appliance schedule is finalized, and the MEP coordination notes have been handed to the engineer. You can change details later, but the bones of the kitchen are locked.