Almost every kitchen conversation starts with finishes and almost every kitchen regret is about layout. Nobody stands in a room three years later wishing they had chosen a different shade of grey. They stand there wishing the bin was not behind the dishwasher door.
Layout is also the one decision that is genuinely difficult to change afterwards, because it is tied to plumbing, gas and extraction. It is worth spending the time on it before anything is drawn.
The working triangle, and why it still matters here
The old idea of a triangle between sink, hob and fridge survives because the underlying point is true: those three are where you actually spend your time, and the distance between them is walked hundreds of times a week.
In a Pakistani kitchen there is a fourth point the European version leaves out — the preparation surface, which needs to be larger here because more of the cooking starts from raw ingredients. A layout that gives you a beautiful hob and nowhere to put three chopping boards has solved the wrong problem.
The L-shape: the default, and usually right
Two runs meeting in a corner. It suits the majority of apartment kitchens in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, it leaves one wall free for a tall bank or a dining table, and it keeps the working points close without trapping the cook in a dead end.
Its weak point is the corner itself, which is where storage goes to die. A carousel or a pull-out corner mechanism turns the least useful cubic foot in the kitchen into the most used cupboard in it — one of the few places where hardware genuinely changes the room.
The parallel or galley: the apartment workhorse
Two runs facing each other. It is the most efficient layout per square foot, which is why it appears in so many Karachi apartments, and it works beautifully as long as the gap between the runs is right and the kitchen is not a corridor to somewhere else.
Put the sink and hob on one side and the fridge and tall storage opposite, so that the cooking happens along a single line and the crossing traffic happens behind it. If the kitchen is also the route to a back door or a service area, a galley will fight you every day.
The U-shape: for a room that can afford it
Three walls of run. It gives the most worktop and the most storage of any layout, and it surrounds the cook, which is either wonderful or claustrophobic depending on the ceiling height and the light.
It needs a genuinely wide room. Squeezed into a narrow one, the two facing runs come too close and you cannot open opposing drawers. Where the room allows it, this is the most comfortable kitchen to cook in that we build.
The island: what it is actually for
An island is not a layout, it is an addition to one — usually to an L-shape in an open-plan room. It earns its place in three ways: it gives a second working surface facing into the room, it gives casual seating so people are with the cook rather than shouting from the sofa, and it hides the working run from the dining area.
The mistake is putting one in a room that cannot clear it on all four sides. An island that narrows the walkway makes a large kitchen behave like a cramped one, and no finish rescues that. If yours can take one, the visualiser lets you try seven island fronts on a real room before you commit to a material.
“A room either has space for an island or it does not, and wanting one very much is not the same as having the space.”
Extraction: the decision people regret most
If we could force one change in Pakistani kitchen specification it would be this. Extraction is chosen last, from a catalogue rated for European cooking, and undersized. A year later the ceiling above the hob has begun to yellow and nobody can work out why.
Size it generously, put it directly over the hob, and duct it out of the building if the structure permits. Recirculating hoods filter smell adequately and do very little about oil.
Storage: plan it around what you own
The useful question is not how many cupboards but what goes in each one. Deep drawers rather than base cupboards for pans, because you can see to the back of a drawer. A tall pull-out beside the fridge for dry goods. The bin inside the cabinet nearest the prep surface, not the one nearest the door.
This is the part of the design that pays you back every single day, and it takes one conversation. It is also why we survey and draw before quoting rather than after — the process is set out here.
Before you finalise a layout
- Walk the run between sink, hob and fridge on the drawing. If it crosses a doorway, change it.
- Check two people can pass while a drawer is open.
- Put the extraction on the drawing before the cabinetry, not after.
- Decide where the bin lives, in writing.
- Ask for a 3D walkthrough of your own room — an elevation is not a room.
We draw every kitchen as a 360° walkthrough before anything is cut. If you want yours drawn, send us the plans, or look at how we build kitchens first.
Common questions
- Which kitchen layout is best for a Pakistani home?
- For most apartments, an L-shape or a parallel galley. For larger DHA and Bahria houses, a U-shape or an island. The deciding factor is not the size of the room but whether the run between sink, hob and fridge stays short and uninterrupted.
- How much clearance do you need between two kitchen runs?
- Enough for a person to stand at an open drawer while another passes behind them. Too narrow and two people cannot work at once; too wide and you spend the day walking between the sink and the hob.
- Is a kitchen island a good idea in Pakistan?
- Only if the room can give it clearance on every side without squeezing the working run. An island that forces the walkway too tight makes a large kitchen behave like a small one. Where there is room, it is the best place to put seating and a second sink.
- Where should the extraction go?
- Directly over the hob, sized generously, and ducted out rather than recirculated wherever the building allows it. Pakistani cooking produces far more airborne oil than the European kitchens most catalogue hoods are rated for.
