Kitchens have long been acknowledged as the “Heart of the Home”! Kitchens are one of the most important features when building or buying your home. The kitchen is not only the work space for food preparation, but also today’s entertaining areas. This is where people take the time out of a busy, hectic day to share a meal and spend time with family. You could say the kitchen is where memories are made! Remember those wonderful Sunday dinners at Grandma’s?! Kitchens also offer a great benefit for a home’s resale value. So when choosing your house plan, choose the design with the kitchen--that is right for you! The most efficient design for a kitchen is to create a work triangle between your sink, stove, and refrigerator. This will give you room for food preparation, cooking, clean up, and storage. Islands are a great functional feature (with all the counter space, possibly including a vegetable sink, and extra cabinetry for storage )that also makes a perfect space for entertaining! Consider the following kitchen layouts so you can decide which right for you: Galley style: The corridor approach of a galley kitchen lengthens your available space, making it ideal for a small kitchen. This style provides lots of counter space around the sink and the cooking areas and enables the work stations to be placed together, usually on parallel walls. The best work arrangement for a galley kitchen places the refrigerator and sink on one wall and the stove on the opposite wall. L-Shape: The 2 adjacent walls in an L-shape kitchen form a natural triangle for your work space. An L-shape layout works well in almost any size kitchen. It has diverse flexibility in the arrangement of your sink, stove, and refrigerator. U-Shape: The U is an efficient design since it provides three walls for counter and storage space. It also prevents household traffic from interfering in the work space. If you have a large kitchen, you may want to consider adding an island to your kitchen for even more work space. The U is great for this! HousePlanCentral.com offers thousands of varying styles of kitchens. Please visit us today to start your search for your perfect home plan!