How to measure kitchen cabinets (drawings, tips).

It will not be news to anyone that the kitchen is an important, the most important element in the house. Building a house is not such a simple and cheap matter, and even more so, fast. Those people who build houses with their own efforts, do not have the opportunity to buy a ready-made house or order a turnkey construction, try to distribute the material economically, weigh all the pros and cons, are constantly in search of reasonable and acceptable solutions, in search of affordable and inexpensive building materials, workers who will not fleece you, will not deceive you, but will do the job efficiently and inexpensively. This article will tell you in detail how to find, prepare and process the material, take measurements of the room for the future kitchen, correctly draw up working documentation and install the kitchen with your own hands.

Selection of material

When building a house, a lot of different materials are required. They are purchased in the sizes required to perform certain types of work, and based on the calculations of the construction team (or your own). But it is not always possible to calculate the quantity with the minimum required volume of material perfectly. Also, if there is a defect in the work or the plan is revised downwards (depending on various circumstances), you have to buy the missing size of material or, on the contrary, store it for future plans.

In case of shortage, a problematic phenomenon arises, which manifests itself in the impossibility of selecting the same color or configuration, dimensions, etc. by color or batch number. Also, if there are leftovers, additional storage space will be required, which in the future can lead to clutter in the house and constant dragging of building materials from place to place.

The surplus will be useful for further construction. It is possible to use scraps of board, plywood, chipboard or fibreboard as a frame or back wall of cabinets. For the tabletop, you should take a thick sheet of laminated chipboard (more than 30 mm), specially impregnated with compounds to prevent moisture absorption. Wall cabinets can be made of chipboard, fine-grained board or solid wood. All of the listed materials are sold in many stores. For the side walls of the cabinets, you should purchase 16 mm laminated sheets (based on the number of cabinets). It is worth drawing a sketch in advance.

Sketch

To draw up a working project (sketch), take measurements of the kitchen area.

An approximate drawing of the kitchen elements in natural size, namely the placement of household appliances and a sink, must be made in advance in order to determine the location:

• sockets;
• gas supply pipes;
• water supply and sewerage pipes;
• hoods.

Also, before the final sketch, you should draw several working options with different sizes and types of kitchen furniture arrangement.

Basic types of kitchen furniture layouts

1. L-shaped arrangement of kitchen furniture (corner). The most common arrangement of elements in the kitchen. Combines versatility, compactness and functionality.

   

2. Placement along one wall. Economical option. Suitable for small rooms and includes the most necessary elements.

   

3. Circular or U-shaped arrangement of kitchen furniture.

   

4. Island arrangement of kitchen furniture. With one or more work areas removed from the main set. Suitable for large areas. The "island" part is ideally designed from several work areas separated from each other. This creates convenience and comfort, and also provides an opportunity to implement original design solutions.

   

5. Peninsula kitchen furniture arrangement. A variant of corner arrangement of the kitchen unit and bar with a counter at one end; it is convenient to organize a bar with a counter closer to the passage to the main room of the house. This creates additional comfort when receiving guests. People can stand behind the counter and not interfere with the work area.

   

After transferring the dimensions of the room with the points of connection to energy sources to a sheet of paper, proceed directly to the placement of all work areas and furniture. Recommended scale: 1:10.

Requirements for safety and convenience of furniture arrangement when planning a kitchen

There is an unwritten rule for the placement of the main kitchen work areas and furniture. The latter include:

• food storage area (refrigerator);
• main area (cooking stove with hood and area for mechanical or manual cutting of products);
• sanitary area (sink with drawers for storing clean dishes and a waste basket).

Together, this creates a triangle, the dimensions of the sides of which should ideally be equal. This is not an excerpt from the Pythagorean theorem, but a real situation. In order for the organization of work in the kitchen to be at an appropriate level, these zones are tried to be located at equal distances from each other.

There are standards established empirically regarding the safe placement of electrical appliances and gas stoves.

1. The gas stove should be located no closer than 0.5 meters from the refrigerator and 0.3 meters from windows, walls and sink.

   

2. Electrical outlets are located no closer than 0.5 meters from the sink, taking into account the convenient use of hand-held electrical appliances (to prevent the wire from coming into contact with water and other devices).

   

   Also, do not place the mechanical cutting area near windows to avoid the curtain getting caught in the cutting parts of the devices.

   

3. Special requirements apply to the installation of the oven and hob. In no case should you install pull-out drawers under the hob, as small children may be interested in what is happening on the stove and climb in with their hands. It is better to install the oven at chest level, that is, on the countertop at one end of the kitchen. This will also prevent unwanted contact of small children with hot surfaces.

   

Design of kitchen cabinets

The location of wall and base cabinets in kitchen furniture should be given primary attention, as they will be used several times a day, and an inconvenient location can lead to difficulty in cooking and a bad mood.

Pay attention to cabinet doors to avoid them intersecting with other doors, the refrigerator or drawers when opening. If the outermost kitchen cabinet is located near the wall, it is necessary to fence it off with a false panel (so that the door does not rest against the wall).

Designing a corner kitchen offers a number of advantages over other types, namely:

• allows you to increase the working space of the tabletop;
• corner cabinets have a large capacity, which makes it possible to place complex structures in them (carousel and pull-out types of shelves; large space under the sink allows you to put pots, cauldrons, etc. there, up to and including installing a dishwasher);
• It is possible to install a sink that is wider and deeper.

Kitchen unit dimensions

The height of the table top is 0.85-0.9 meters (depending on the user's height).

1. Accordingly, the height of the lower drawers will depend on the height of the tabletop minus 10 centimeters.
2. Width of lower and upper drawers: double drawer from 0.7 to 0.9 meters; single drawer - from 0.2 to 0.55 meters (depending on purpose).
3. The space from the top edge of the table top to the bottom edge of the wall cabinets is taken from 0.5 to 0.6 meters.
4. The height of wall boxes is from 0.5 to 1 meter.
5. The installation of the hood above the hob depends on the type of stove. For a gas stove – 0.85 meters; for an electric stove – 0.75 meters.
6. If there is a cabinet for a built-in oven, the distance from the edge of the hob to this cabinet should not be less than 35 centimeters.

These dimensions depend on the choice of the kitchen manufacturer, the correct cutting of the building material, the dimensions of the kitchen space and the choice of the type of kitchen design.

Video: Standard sizes of kitchen furniture