Kitchen alley width

[ProDave]

6 minutes ago, torre said:

One possible approach would've been to tile through, not fix down the island and see how you live with it but I think that ship's sailed.

That is what we did with ours to arrive at the 1200mm gap.  Not on wheels but take all the drawers out and empty the cupboards, and 4 strong blokes could slide the whole thing as one unit.

[Spinny]

The fitter tells me it is not normally screwed to the floor at all, so potentially adjustable until the worktops go on, but not useable without worktops. Also difficult to visualise the aesthetic effect of adding the worktops on the surrounding spaces.

 

Outstanding fitter by the way, well practiced in tool feng shui. 

[Super_Paulie]

mine isnt attached to the floor at all. The only thing tethering it to its location is the ducting for the hob and a few cables. 

Edited Friday at 09:09 by Super_Paulie

[Spinny]

Thing really is what is workable for the dining table. 

i think the table has to be 900 wide, going narrower becomes cramped for xmas etc.

 

Anyone with a dining table adjacent to a wall care to comment on minimum space between the two ?

[G and J]

In the rental we're shortly to move out of we have our dining room table 650mm from wall......far to tight for comfort, feels "mean" and if you have 3 people down that side the middlee person can't get out behind those remaining seated.

[Spinny]

On 22/05/2026 at 16:33, G and J said:

feels "mean" and if you have 3 people down that side the middle person can't get out behind those remaining seated.

Well for the middle person to get out past others that are seated, then I imagine you would need at least 900mm.

 

In all honesty I have been to dinner at people's houses where you would need other(s) to move in order to get out. Ditto restaurants. The problem is (1) most uk houses are of limited size, so talking ideals is great if you are a multi-millionaire, live in the country, or somewhere where housing is cheap, but I rather think it very difficult to achieve for most people in the UK, and (2) the use case of people for dinner is occasional and rarely more than 6 or so people for us. Most of the time the table is serving no more than 4, so everyone can get out at 650. Is the use case of fat uncle albert sat in the middle needing the toilet that critical ? On the other side of the table is a walkway down the room, so permanently limiting that because fat uncle albert comes to dinner twice a year seems unjustified. The table can be moved to-and-fro of course but the lighting will be fixed.

 

Wall gap 900 + table 900 + seated person on other side 500 is 2300 which then leaves a walkway of only 600, or 900 with no-one seated.

 

Every trade robs space - the brickie stole 25mm, the plasterer 15mm, the kitchen fitter 15mm