How do I measure my kitchen for new units and worktops?

Measuring at three heights because walls lean, recording services before they are hidden, and why the survey happens after strip-out rather than before.

Difficulty: beginner
Time: 1 hr 30 min
Read: 4 min

Short answer

Measure every wall at three heights — just above the floor, at worktop height and at wall unit height — and use the smallest figure. Record every window, door, radiator, socket, waste, stopcock and pipe with a dimension from a fixed corner. Do the real survey after strip-out, because that is the first time you can see the actual walls.

Kitchen suppliers will design from your measurements and will not usually take responsibility for them. A run that is 12mm shorter at worktop height than at skirting height is entirely normal in an older house, and if the design was drawn to the larger figure the last unit does not go in. Measuring at three heights costs nothing and catches almost all of it.

What you'll need

Tape measure, and a laser measure if you have one
Squared paper and a pencil
Spirit level, or a long straight edge
Camera or a phone

Step by step

Draw the room in plan first, roughly and large.Not to scale — big enough to write on. Mark every wall, door, window, and the direction each door opens. Numbers go onto a drawing, never into a list on their own.
Measure each wall at three heights.Just above the floor, at worktop height around 900mm, and at wall unit height. Walls lean, bow and thicken. Record all three and design to the smallest, because that is the dimension that has to accept the units.
Measure corner to corner as well.Diagonals across the room tell you whether it is square. A room that is 30mm out of square across a corner will show up as a growing gap behind a run of units, and it needs planning for rather than discovering.
Record every window and door with three figures.Width, height, and the distance from a fixed corner to the near edge. Also record the sill height for a window over a sink, and the reveal depth, because a window reveal affects whether a wall unit or an upstand can pass it.
Record every service, with a dimension from a corner and a height from the floor.Sockets, switches, waste pipe, water supplies, stopcock, gas point, boiler, radiator, extractor duct, soil pipe. These are what a kitchen design has to work around and they are the things people forget.
Note the ceiling height, and check it in more than one place.It decides whether tall units and cornice fit. Older houses vary by 20mm or more across a room, and a tall unit designed to the highest reading will not stand up under the lowest.
Check floor level along the run.Put a long level on the floor at several points and note where it is highest. That point sets the height of every unit, because the legs cannot go below their minimum.
Photograph everything, systematically.Each wall, each corner, each service, plus wide shots. A photograph answers a question a month later that a dimension does not, and it costs nothing to take fifty.
Do the definitive survey after strip-out.The measurements you take with the old kitchen in place are for planning and budgeting. The measurements you order from are taken after the old units are out and you can see plaster, because tiles, boxing and old carcasses all hide 20mm here and there.
Have the supplier check before manufacture.Most kitchen suppliers offer or require a survey visit before the order is released. Take it. It transfers a measurable amount of risk and it costs you an hour.

Tips

Write every dimension in millimetres. Mixing millimetres, centimetres and inches on one drawing is how a 60mm error becomes a 600mm one.
Measure into corners rather than from them where you can. Tapes bend into a corner and read long, and a hooked-back reading against a batten is more reliable.
A laser measure is genuinely worth borrowing for this. Wall-to-wall readings across a kitchen at three heights take five minutes with one and half an hour with a tape and a helper.
Note which way every door swings, and check it will still swing when the units are in. A door opening onto a run of base units is a very common and very late discovery.

Common mistakes

Measuring only at worktop height — The wall may be tighter near the floor, where the plinth and the units sit. Design to the smallest of the three readings or the last unit will not fit.
Ordering from measurements taken with the old kitchen still in — Tiles, boxing, old plaster and old carcasses hide the real wall. Every one of them changes a dimension, and the changes add up in the wrong direction.
Not recording the waste pipe position — It is the single least movable service in a kitchen, and it decides where the sink can go. Moving a waste run is building control's business and is not a minor change.

Questions people ask

How do I measure a kitchen for new units?

Draw the room in plan, then measure each wall at three heights — near the floor, at worktop height and at wall unit height — and design to the smallest reading. Record every window, door and service with a dimension from a fixed corner and a height from the floor.

When should I measure my kitchen?

Twice. Once with the old kitchen in place for planning and budget, and definitively after strip-out, because that is the first time the actual walls are visible. Order from the second set.

Do I need a kitchen designer to measure?

Not to plan, but most suppliers offer or require a survey before manufacture, and it is worth taking. It moves responsibility for the dimensions and it catches the things a householder measuring their own kitchen tends not to look for.