How to Measure a Kitchen Before Requesting a Quote

Kitchen quotations are rarely slow because a supplier is slow. They are slow because the measurements arrived incomplete, somebody had to ask a question, and the clock restarted. Half an hour spent measuring properly is worth a week of emails.

This is the routine we would use. It works for a single rental property and it works for forty plots — you simply repeat it per plot type.

What you need

• A steel tape, five metres or longer. A laser measure is faster over long walls but a tape is better in corners and around obstructions — carry both if you have them.
• A pencil and plain paper, or a clipboard. Not your phone's notes app: you will want to sketch.
• A spirit level, ideally 1.2m, to check whether floors and walls are anywhere near true.
• A torch, for looking under sinks and behind appliances at pipework.
• Your phone, for photographs at the end — not instead of the sketch.

Work in millimetres throughout. Cabinets, doors, worktops and appliance apertures are all specified in millimetres, and mixing units is where transcription errors come from. Write 2,340, not 2.34m and never 7 foot 8.

Step 1: sketch the room before you measure anything

Draw the room in plan, roughly to shape, on a landscape sheet. It does not need to be to scale and it does not need to be neat. Label the walls A, B, C and D clockwise from the door, and mark which way the door opens. Everything you measure from here on gets written onto that sketch.

Doing the sketch first forces you to notice the room's features before you are busy with the tape — the chimney breast, the odd return, the step down to the back door.

Step 2: measure wall by wall, at more than one height

Take each wall corner to corner as a single overall dimension, then take running dimensions along it. Never measure feature to feature and add up; small errors compound and you end up 30mm out over a four-metre run, which is exactly enough to stop a cabinet going in.

Then measure the same wall again at different heights. Walls are rarely parallel with themselves.

Record all three. If they differ, write down all three rather than averaging them — the smallest one is the number that governs, and a supplier needs to see the spread to advise you properly. A 20mm difference between skirting level and worktop level is common in older properties and entirely manageable if it is known about in advance.

Measure at skirting height with the skirting in place, and note whether the skirting will be removed. It changes the usable wall length.

Step 3: windows, doors and radiators

Every opening and obstruction needs two numbers: how far it is from a fixed corner, and how wide it is. Then add the height information.

• Windows. Distance from the corner to the reveal, width of the opening, height from floor to the underside of the sill, and the sill projection. The sill height decides whether a worktop can pass beneath it and whether an upstand will fit.
• Doors. Distance from the corner, width of the opening, and which way the door swings. Note the architrave — it eats wall length that looks available on a plan.
• Radiators. Distance from the corner, width, height, and the projection from the wall. Also note where the pipes come up, because a radiator that is being moved still leaves pipework behind.
• Chimney breasts, returns and boxings. Width and projection at every height you measured the wall.

Step 4: services

This is the section most people skip, and it is the one that decides whether a layout is possible or merely nice.

Waste and water

Find the soil stack or waste exit and measure its position from a fixed corner and its height from the floor. Waste is the least movable service in the room, and it is usually what pins down where the sink can go. Note the hot and cold isolation valves under the existing sink, and whether there is a washing machine waste and supply already in place.

Gas

Record the position of the gas point and the meter. If a gas hob is staying, moving it is a job for a registered engineer and needs planning into the programme, not discovering on the day.

Electrics

Mark every socket, switch, spur and cooker outlet with its distance from the corner and its height. Note the consumer unit position. If you are specifying an oven, an induction hob or an extractor, check what supply exists — an induction hob has different requirements from a gas one, and a recirculating cooker hood avoids a duct run that an extracting one needs.

Boiler and meters

Boilers, gas meters and electricity meters are the classic late surprise. Measure the boiler's width, height, depth and position, and note the flue. A wall-mounted combi can often be enclosed in a boiler unit, but only if the dimensions are known before the cabinets are specified. A meter cupboard usually cannot be built over at all.

Step 5: ceiling height, soffits and floors

Measure the ceiling height in at least two places, ideally in opposite corners. Then note anything that reduces it: a soffit above the existing wall units, a bulkhead concealing pipework, a sloping ceiling under a stair or in a loft conversion.

Ceiling height governs whether tall larder units will stand up into place, and whether wall units can run to the ceiling or need cornice below a soffit. Also put the level on the floor: a floor that falls 15mm across a run changes how the base cabinets are packed and where the worktop sits.

Rooms that are out of square

Very few kitchens are square, and pretending otherwise is how a run of cabinets ends up 25mm short. Check it: measure both diagonals of the room. If they differ, the room is out of square, and by roughly the amount of the difference.

You do not need to solve it — you need to record it. Write the diagonals on the sketch. On the plan, the practical response is usually to allow a scribe or filler at the ends of runs rather than assuming a wall-to-wall fit. A tolerance designed in at quotation stage costs nothing; one discovered at fit stage costs a day.

What to photograph

• Each wall, straight on, from as far back as you can get
• Each corner, so the junctions and any returns are visible
• Under the sink, with the torch on, showing waste and supply
• The boiler, meter and consumer unit, with the tape held against them for scale
• The existing appliances, including model plates where you can see them
• The ceiling, showing any soffit, bulkhead or slope
• Your finished sketch, so the numbers and the photographs travel together

Writing it up so a supplier can use it

Put everything on one page per room. Head it with the property address or plot reference, the date, and who measured it. Then, wall by wall: the overall length at three heights, the running dimensions to every feature, and the services. Add the ceiling height, the diagonals, and a line saying whether skirting, flooring and plaster are staying or going.

Send it in through send us your plan or the project submission form. There is a free kitchen planning and plan review service, so if you are unsure whether a layout works, say so and it will be checked before anything is quoted. Quotations are free and carry no obligation, and we aim to reply within one working day.

The mistakes we see most

Measuring only at worktop height. Measuring feature to feature and adding up. Recording the wall length but not the window sill height. Forgetting the boiler entirely. Assuming the room is square. Quoting a worktop as a single total rather than as separate runs — worktops are supplied as pre-finished lengths, so three 2.4m runs and one 7.2m run need different quantities of board. And, most expensively, sending measurements without saying which appliances are going in, because the appliance model determines the housing, the aperture and the worktop cut-out.

Frequently asked questions