What counter height works if you sit to cook?
Standard kitchen counters are 36 inches off the floor. That number was set for a person standing, and it's the number every cabinet maker builds to unless somebody says otherwise.
On a bad day I don't stand to cook. I sit. So when I started planning my own kitchen, the first thing I looked up was what height a counter has to be to work at from a chair, and the second thing I learned was that it's a decision made on the cabinet order, and almost impossible to change after.
The numbers
The published standard for a work surface you use seated puts the counter between 28 and 34 inches off the floor (STD). Where you land in that range depends on you: the height of the chair you'll use, whether your arms are the problem or your legs are, and what you're doing at the counter.
Under that surface you need somewhere for your knees. The standard asks for a clear space at least 27 inches high, 30 inches wide and 19 inches deep under the counter (STD). In plain terms: no cabinet under that stretch. A chair pulls in, your legs go under, and the work is in front of you instead of off to the side.
I'd measure your own kitchen table. If you can cook at it in a chair comfortably, that height, usually 29 or 30 inches, is a good starting number (PRACTICE).
You don't lower the whole kitchen
This is the part that puts people off, and it shouldn't. Nobody is suggesting a kitchen where every counter is at knee height for the people who stand.
One stretch of counter at seated height, about the width of a chair and a chopping board, with nothing under it. Put it between the sink and the stove if you can, so the seated person is in the middle of the work, not at the end of it. Everything else stays at 36 inches, and the kitchen looks like a kitchen with a desk in it, or a breakfast bar at table height, which is what it is.
If the sink can be in the lowered section, better again, because washing vegetables is the longest standing job in most kitchens. That needs the plumber to know: the drain and supply lines go to the back wall so there's knee space, and the pipes get covered so they don't burn a leg.
A table-height island does the same job if there's room for one. So does a pull-out board at seated height under a standard counter, which is the cheapest version and the one to ask for if the cabinets are already ordered.
When it closes
Cabinets are built to a height and ordered weeks before they arrive. Once the order goes in, the height is fixed. Once they're installed and the counter is on, lowering a section means new cabinets, a new counter, and, if the sink is involved, the plumber back.
On a drawing, the lowered section is a line and a note. On the cabinet order, it's one base cabinet left out and a shorter run of counter. That's the whole cost. It's one of the cheapest decisions in the kitchen and one of the most expensive to make a year later.
While you're at it
Three more things that close on the same cabinet order, all nearly free now:
Drawers instead of doors on the base cabinets. Everything comes to you. Nothing is at the back of a cupboard at floor level.
The oven at counter height, in a tall cabinet, not under the cooktop. Lifting a dish out of a low oven is a bend and a reach with something hot.
Space under the sink even if the sink isn't lowered. A cabinet with a removable front, or a curtain, so a chair can go there one day without touching the plumbing.
What to say
To the kitchen designer or the cabinet supplier, before the order:
"I want one section of counter at [your number] inches, about 36 wide, with no base cabinet under it, between the sink and the cooktop if the layout allows. Drawers on the other base cabinets. Oven in a tall cabinet."
If the sink is going in the lowered section, tell the plumber the same week, so the pipes go to the back wall.
The list this belongs to
Counter height is one of the decisions the free guide, The Decisions Your Renovation Makes Without You, works through, with a kitchen as the example. It's short and set in large print. Sign up and the download is yours.
