I have walked into a lot of kitchens that were built last year and already do not work. The cabinets are fine. The counter is honed quartz from a real fabricator. The hardware came from a high-end showroom on Bank Street. None of that matters because the layout was wrong from day one.
A working kitchen is not about the finishes. It is about how a person moves through it while holding a hot pan, a wet plate, and a four-year-old asking for juice. Here are the five layout mistakes I see most in Ottawa, and what we draw instead.
1. Sink in front of the only window
Every homeowner asks for this. I get it. You stand at the sink for 40 minutes a day. You want the view.
The problem is that a kitchen has one or two long uninterrupted runs of counter, and the window almost always sits on one of them. When you put the sink there, you cut your prep counter in half. The dishwasher next to the sink eats another 24 inches. Now your useful counter run is 36 inches and you are chopping vegetables with your elbow against the fridge.
What pros do instead: put the sink on the island, facing the window across the room. You keep the view. You keep your perimeter run unbroken for prep. The faucet sees the same daylight. In a galley with no island, we move the sink to the side of the window, not centred under it, to recover at least 30 inches of contiguous counter.
2. No landing zone next to the fridge
The fridge is the highest-traffic appliance in the kitchen. You open it 30 times a day. You pull out a tray of leftovers, a gallon of milk, a sheet pan of marinated chicken. If there is no flat counter directly beside the fridge on the handle side, you have nowhere to put any of it.
Code-of-thumb in our shop is 15 inches of clear counter on the handle side, minimum. We prefer 18 to 24. We will pull a wall cabinet upper and float a single shelf instead, before we will accept zero landing zone next to a fridge.
The fridge wall measurement
Stand at your current fridge. Open the door. Is there bare counter within arm's reach on the handle side? If you have to pivot and walk to put down a tray, your kitchen is fighting you 30 times a day. A new build should fix this on paper, before any cabinet is ordered.
3. Outlets in the wrong places
Code requires an outlet every 12 feet of counter run and one within four feet of any plug-in appliance. Code is the floor, not the ceiling.
The rookie move is to space outlets evenly along the back-splash and call it a day. The pro move is to map every appliance the homeowner actually uses. Coffee station gets two dedicated outlets, both behind the toaster line.
Stand mixer station gets a 20-amp outlet at counter height because cheap 15-amp outlets buzz under load. Phone-charging zone gets a USB-C outlet inside a cubby so the cord does not snake across the prep zone.
I have seen high-end kitchens in Manotick where the homeowner ran an extension cord from the dining room to plug in a slow cooker on Sunday because the designer never asked where she made stew.
4. The dead corner that blocks the drawers
Almost every L-shaped or U-shaped kitchen has a corner. When the corner is on the cabinet run, the inside corner is essentially dead space. Builders put a blind cabinet there with a magic-corner pull-out and call it solved.
The bigger problem is when a designer puts a deep drawer base directly next to the corner cabinet, and the corner cabinet door swings into the drawer face. The drawer cannot open until you close the corner door. It is a daily friction point that nobody catches on a 2D plan.
What pros do: we either run a 6-inch filler between the corner and the next drawer base, or we spec a corner-drawer system (Blum LeMans, Hafele Magic Corner) that does not need a swinging door at all. The filler is a trivial bit of plywood. The frustration of a kitchen that fights you costs you for 20 years.
The corner cabinet is where the drawings either work or fall apart. Look at every corner on every cabinet plan. If the door swings into another door or drawer, redraw it.
5. No garbage pull-out
This is the silliest one because it is so cheap to fix on paper and so impossible to fix later. A 15-inch double-bin pull-out beside the sink is a small line item in hardware and extra cabinet box. Against the cost of the whole kitchen, it is a rounding error.
If you do not draw it in, the homeowner ends up with a freestanding garbage can in the corner of the room. It looks bad, the dog gets into it, and they hate the kitchen for that one reason every day.
Even worse is the homeowner who builds a kitchen without a pull-out and three years later asks if we can retrofit one. We can, but it means rebuilding the cabinet box and re-fitting the door. The retrofit costs many times what the part would have cost in the original drawings.
What a real design phase actually catches
When we run a proper design phase on a kitchen, we draw four things before we order anything:
- A plan view with every appliance, every door swing, and every clear-floor zone
- An elevation of every wall with cabinet heights, outlet positions, and lighting locations
- A reflected ceiling plan with the range hood, can lights, and any pendant centred over the island
- A workflow study showing the path from fridge to prep to cooktop to plate-up
That last one is the one most contractors skip. It is also the one that catches every mistake on this page. If your hand has to cross your body to get from the prep zone to the cooktop, the layout is wrong.
If you have to walk more than three steps with a hot pan, the layout is wrong. If you have to set the pan down on the floor to open a drawer, the layout is very wrong.
What this looks like on a real Ottawa job
A kitchen we drew last fall in the Glebe was 11 feet by 16 feet. Original plan from the homeowner had the sink under the back window and the fridge on the far short wall, with 8 feet of empty walking space between them. That is two trips to make a sandwich.
We moved the sink to a 9-foot island, kept the view from the window, lined the perimeter with one continuous prep run, put the fridge with a 22-inch landing zone, and added a beverage drawer beside the dining table. The owner texted me three weeks after move-in: "I cannot believe how much faster I cook now."
That is the difference between a kitchen that looks expensive and a kitchen that works like it. If you want our team to draw your kitchen properly before any cabinet is ordered, our Ottawa kitchen renovation page walks through how the design phase fits into a fixed-price quote.
Or call 613-862-4555. We will tell you straight whether your current layout is salvageable or whether you need to start over on paper.
Frequently asked questions
Should the kitchen sink go under the window?
Putting the sink under the only window usually cuts the main prep counter in half, and the dishwasher beside it takes another 24 inches. A better plan puts the sink on the island facing the window, which keeps the view and leaves the perimeter run unbroken for prep.
In a galley kitchen with no island, shift the sink to the side of the window to recover at least 30 inches of counter.
How much counter space should be next to the fridge?
A fridge needs at least 15 inches of clear counter on the handle side, and 18 to 24 inches is better. The fridge gets opened about 30 times a day, and every tray, milk jug or sheet pan needs somewhere to land.
If you have to pivot and walk to set something down, fix it on paper before any cabinet is ordered, even if that means swapping an upper for a shelf.
Where should electrical outlets go in a new kitchen?
Kitchen outlets should follow the appliances the household actually uses, not just even spacing along the backsplash. Code sets the minimum: an outlet every 12 feet of counter run and one within four feet of any plug-in appliance. Beyond that, give the coffee station two dedicated outlets, put a 20-amp outlet at the stand mixer, and tuck a USB-C outlet inside a cubby for phone charging.
How do you stop a corner cabinet from blocking the drawers?
A corner cabinet blocks drawers when its door swings into the face of the drawer base next to it, so the drawer cannot open until the door closes. The fix is either a 6-inch filler between the corner and the next drawer base, or a corner-drawer system such as Blum LeMans or Hafele Magic Corner that needs no swinging door. Check every corner on every cabinet plan.
What drawings should a kitchen design include before ordering cabinets?
A proper kitchen design produces four drawings before anything is ordered: a plan view with every appliance, door swing and clear-floor zone; an elevation of every wall with cabinet heights, outlets and lighting; a reflected ceiling plan with the hood, lights and island pendants; and a workflow study from fridge to prep to cooktop to plate-up. Walking more than three steps with a hot pan means the layout is wrong.
Official references
- Who can do electrical work at my property?, Electrical Safety Authority