How to measure your kitchen

Every number we need, in the order we ask for it, and what each one decides.

1. 01

   Photograph the room from the doorway first

   Those numbers were read by a machine from an image. Until you have read them back they are a proposal, not a measurement, and we will not build from them.

   Stand in the doorway. One frame, whole room.

   Stand in the main doorway, back against the frame, and take one photograph of the whole room. Then one of each wall, square on, from as far back as you can get. Five photographs, thirty seconds.

   Take these before you measure anything. A photograph taken afterwards is a photograph of a room you have already made decisions about; this one is the room as it is.

   • Landscape, not portrait, except for a tall narrow wall.
   • Lights on, blinds open. A dark photograph hides the thing that turns out to matter.
   • Do not tidy up. We are looking at where the plumbing comes out of the wall, not at your counters.
   • No people in the frame. If you use the AI preview, a photograph with somebody in it is refused rather than sent.

2. 02

   Draw the room as a box and name the walls

   The two published lines price differently box by box. Without it there is no bill of materials to price.

   ABCDoorway

   One rectangle. You are not drawing your kitchen, you are making somewhere to write numbers. If the room is an L, draw the L.

   Now name the walls. Stand in the main doorway, and the wall to your left is A. Go clockwise: B, C, D. Write the letter on the drawing and say it out loud once, because every number after this hangs off it.

   Mark each doorway with a gap in the line and an arrow for the way the door swings.

   • Wall A is the one on your left as you stand in the main doorway. Always.
   • Nobody has ever been penalised here for bad drawing.
   • If there is an island or a peninsula, draw it and say so — it is not one of the four shapes the shelf prices, and it is a different conversation.

3. 03

   Measure each wall three times, at three heights

   We pack a run to the exact inch, so the narrowest of the three readings is the one your cabinets have to fit. A wall measured once hides the half inch that decides the filler.

   at the ceilingat 36″ — the counter lineat the floor

   Corner to corner, in inches, at the floor. Then again at 36 inches off the floor, which is counter height. Then again at the ceiling.

   Write down all three even when they agree. If they differ by more than half an inch, circle them: that wall is out of plumb, and the difference is what decides how much filler goes in.

   This is the step people skip and it is the one that costs money. A run is packed to the exact inch. A wall measured once at 144 inches that is really 142 and a half at the floor is a run that does not go in.

   • Inches only. Not feet and inches.
   • Measure to the finished surface. If tile or new drywall is going on after us, tell us the build-up — that is half an inch a wall we would not otherwise know about.
   • Hook the tape on the corner rather than holding it there. A thumb is a quarter of an inch.
   • Walls longer than 12 feet are priced from your measurements rather than from the published one-wall price. Measure them anyway.

4. 04

   Ceiling height, in four corners

   Under 92 inches rules out the 42-inch wall cabinets. Old houses settle, so the smallest of the four corners is what an upper cabinet actually has to clear.

   Four corners. Keep the smallest.

   Floor to ceiling, at each corner of the room. Four numbers, and they will not all be the same. Old houses settle: an inch and a half of difference across one room is not unusual.

   The smallest of the four is the one that matters, because it is the one an upper cabinet has to clear.

   • Under 92 inches rules out the 42-inch wall cabinets. Tell us early if you are close.
   • If there is a bulkhead or a dropped section over part of the room, that is a soffit and it goes in the next step, not here.
   • Measure to the ceiling surface, not to a light fitting.

5. 05

   Doors and windows, including the trim

   The distance from the corner to the trim is what decides whether a cabinet fits beside the window. It is the number people forget, and it is the one that sends a delivery back.

   corner to the outside of the trimwidth including the casingfloor to the bottom of the sill

   For every door and every window, on which wall, four numbers: width including the casing, height including the casing, the distance from the finished floor to the bottom of the sill, and the distance from the nearest corner of the wall to the edge of the trim.

   That last number is the one people forget, and it is the one that decides whether a cabinet fits beside the window. Take it from the corner to the outside edge of the trim, not to the glass.

   • Including the casing. The rough opening is not what a cabinet has to miss.
   • Sill height is floor to the bottom of the sill, and it is what says whether a counter runs under the window or into it.
   • Note which way each door swings. A door that opens into the room takes a cabinet's worth of wall with it.

6. 06

   Everything you cannot move

   Anything you cannot move changes the run. A radiator standing four inches off the wall is a base cabinet that does not close.

   how far it stands off the wallfrom the left corner

   Soffits, dropped bulkheads, beams, columns, chases, radiators, floor and wall vents. For each one: which wall, how far from the left corner, how wide, how tall, and how far it stands off the wall.

   That last measurement is the one that changes a cabinet. A radiator standing four inches proud of the wall is a base cabinet that does not close, and it is invisible in a photograph taken square on.

   • A soffit is measured down from the ceiling. A radiator is measured up from the floor. Say which.
   • If there is nothing on a wall, say so rather than leaving it blank. An empty list and an unanswered question look the same on our side.
   • Take a photograph of anything you are not sure how to describe. A photograph of an odd corner is worth a paragraph.

7. 07

   Plumbing, gas, vents and electrical

   The drain fixes the sink and the sink fixes the layout. Gas and plumbing are the two that most often force a change, so they come before the cabinet list, not after it.

   left corner to the centre of the drainheight off the floor

   Measure from the left corner of the wall to the centre of each one: the sink drain, the water supplies, the gas line, the range hood duct, the electrical panel, and any outlet that sits where a cabinet will go.

   Plumbing and gas are the two that most often force a layout change, so take those to the nearest quarter inch. The drain fixes the sink, and the sink fixes everything else.

   • Height off the floor as well as distance from the corner, for anything on the wall rather than in the floor.
   • If your range is gas, we need the gas line. If it is electric or induction, we need the circuit.
   • An electrical panel in a kitchen has clearance rules of its own. Tell us it is there even if you think it is out of the way.

8. 08

   The appliance list

   A thirty-inch range and a thirty-inch range are not the same thirty inches once you count the handle. A kept appliance needs its model number, because that is where the real depth is written.

   Photograph this

   For everything you are keeping: brand, model number, width, height and depth. The model number is on a sticker — inside the refrigerator door, behind the range, on the frame of the dishwasher opening. Photograph it.

   A 30-inch range and a 30-inch range are not the same 30 inches once you count the handle, and the depth on the spec sheet is not the depth with the door hinge. The model number is how we look up the real one.

   For anything you are buying new: the model you are leaning toward, or the width if you have not chosen. Say which of the two it is.

   • Refrigerator, range or cooktop, sink and dishwasher, every time. "No dishwasher" is an answer and we need it given.
   • Range hood and over-range microwave decide the upper cabinets above them. If there is one, it counts.
   • If you are keeping an appliance, we also need where it stands — the distance from the corner to its centre.