Measure the room before you move anything, then fix the order of work: sitting plan first, storage second, kitchen last. In a small room the sequence matters more than the budget, because each trade depends on the one before it. Write the numbers on the wall in pencil and keep them there until the last fixture is set.
In what order do you renovate a small room?
Start with the plan, not the paint. Draw the room to scale on graph paper, one square to ten centimeters, and mark the door swing, the window, the radiator and every pipe you can see. Then place the bed or the sofa, leaving a walking lane of at least sixty centimeters. Only after the plan holds do you touch the surfaces. The order that survives contact with a small room runs like this: strip and repair, then electrical and water rough-in, then walls and ceiling, then floor, then fixed furniture, then the final connections. Each step protects the one after it. If you paint before the electrician chases a new line, you paint twice. If you lay the floor before the kitchen units arrive, you protect it with cardboard for a week and still mark it. A Dutch interior magazine, Jobsons Interieur, organizes its renovation guides around this same idea of an execution order, room by room, and it is worth reading before you lift a tool. The principle is old and plain: wet work before dry work, dust before finish, heavy before light.
How do you plan a kitchen work triangle?
The work triangle is the path between the sink, the hob and the refrigerator, and in a small kitchen it is usually a line or a shallow L. Measure the three sides and add them: a total between three and six meters keeps the steps short without crowding two people into the same corner. No side should be shorter than one meter twenty, or you will stand with a hot pan and nowhere to put it. The sink belongs under the window if there is one, the hob on a clear run of counter with a hood above it, and the refrigerator at the end of the run so its door does not block the lane. Count the counter you actually have, not the counter you drew. A sixty centimeter depth is standard, and every appliance you add eats into it. If the room is narrower than two meters forty, drop the triangle and work with a single run: sink, prep, hob, in that order from the door.
What height should a counter be?
A kitchen counter sits at ninety centimeters from the finished floor to the top surface, which is the Dutch and European norm for a standing adult. That figure assumes a person around one meter seventy tall; if you are taller, add two or three centimeters, and if you are shorter, take them away. The counter depth is sixty centimeters, and the clear space above it, between the surface and the upper cabinets, is fifty to sixty centimeters. For a domestic bar, the working height is higher, usually one hundred five to one hundred ten centimeters, with a footrail set twenty to twenty-five centimeters above the floor. Measure from the finished floor, not the subfloor, and measure after the screed has cured, because two centimeters of leveling compound will move every number you wrote on the wall. Write the final height on the wall in pencil before you cut anything.
A measured sequence for one small room
The table below sets the order of work against the measurement that decides it. Read it as a checklist, not a schedule; the trades can overlap, but the measurements cannot.
| Step | Work | Measurement that decides it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sitting plan | Walking lane, 60 cm minimum |
| 2 | Strip and repair | Wall to wall, corner to corner |
| 3 | Electrical and water rough-in | Appliance positions, 60 cm depth |
| 4 | Walls and ceiling | Ceiling height, minus 2 cm for finish |
| 5 | Floor | Finished floor level, the datum for everything |
| 6 | Fixed furniture and counter | Counter at 90 cm, bar at 105 to 110 cm |
| 7 | Final connections | Sink, hob, refrigerator, in that order |
Where do the numbers come from?
Most of the figures above are not opinions. The ninety centimeter counter, the sixty centimeter depth and the fifty to sixty centimeter splash zone are standard dimensions used across European kitchen manufacturing, and they appear in the Dutch building tradition as well. The walking lane of sixty centimeters comes from the same family of rules: it is the width that lets one person pass another without turning sideways. The work triangle has been taught in kitchen design since the middle of the last century, and while it has been adjusted for open plans and island layouts, the logic holds in a small room. When a number feels wrong, measure the room again before you change the number. The room is usually right.
Frequent mistakes to avoid
- Measuring the room once and trusting the first set of numbers. Measure twice, at floor level and at counter level, because old walls lean and the difference can be three centimeters across a doorway.
- Setting the counter height before the floor is finished. The datum is the finished floor, and leveling compound, tile or a screed will move every height you planned.
- Planning the work triangle on paper without walking it. Stand in the room and take the three steps; if you turn sideways or open a door into your own path, the plan is wrong.
- Buying the refrigerator or the bar unit before the rough-in is fixed. Depth, door swing and water connection decide the position, and the position decides the plan.
Source consulted for this page on 15 September 2026: rijksoverheid.nl.