L-Shaped Kitchen Layout, With or Without an Island: 4 Plans With Every Cabinet Priced

An L-shaped kitchen layout puts cabinets on two walls that meet at one corner, which leaves the rest of the floor open for a table or an island. It takes about 10 by 10 feet to fit a dishwasher, a 30-inch range and a 36-inch refrigerator, with the range and refrigerator sharing one landing, and about 12 by 14 feet before an island with seating fits. Below are four plans at real room sizes, with every cabinet code, filler and panel added up to the wall length. In Fabuwood Allure Galaxy Frost they run from $6,401.20 for a 10×10 to $12,771.20 for a 12×16 with a 7-foot island, cabinets and trim only.

Most guides to L-shaped kitchen layouts stop at a sketch and a list of pros and cons, which doesn't tell you whether the last cabinet fits. These plans are drawn the way a quote is built, so you can check them with a tape measure and price your changes. If your walls differ, our designers will draw them for free. If you're still choosing a shape, start with our guide to the five kitchen layouts.

Table of Contents

• L-Shaped Kitchen Design: The Numbers Every Plan Must Meet
• L-Shaped Kitchen With Island: Test Both Directions
• The Corner Cabinet Decision
• How to Read These L-Shaped Kitchen Plans and Prices
• Plan 1: 10×10 With No Island
• Plan 2: 10×12 With a Pantry
• Plan 3: 12×14 With a 5-Foot Island
• Plan 4: 12×16 With a 7-Foot Sink Island
• What the Four Plans Cost, Side by Side
• Changing a Plan to Fit Your Room
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Get Your Own Walls Drawn

L-Shaped Kitchen Design: The Numbers Every Plan Must Meet

We checked each plan against the National Kitchen & Bath Association's Kitchen Planning Guidelines. They are recommendations, not building code, but they keep a small L from feeling cramped:

The aisle reasoning and seating rules are in our kitchen island clearance guide. Plans 1 and 2 miss Guideline 24, and we say where.

L-Shaped Kitchen With Island: Test Both Directions

An L-shaped kitchen with an island has to pass the aisle math in both directions, because the second leg also has a counter and an aisle. Run the same subtraction each way:

• Largest top, across: short room dimension − 25½" counter − 42" aisle − 36" far side.
• Largest top, along: long room dimension − the same three, measured from the other leg.

The 12-foot rows are the minimum for L-shaped kitchen designs with island seating: 36½ inches behind the stools lets someone edge past but won't carry the main route through the room, which needs 44. That's why we call 13 feet the comfortable width. In an L-shaped kitchen with an island open to a living room, measure to the sofa or dining chairs instead of a wall and keep at least a 36-inch walkway. Which boxes go inside each length, and their cost, is in our kitchen island cabinets guide.

The Corner Cabinet Decision

Use a lazy Susan unless a leg can't spare 33 inches: a blind base looks $416 cheaper, but saves only about $160 once you fill the wall it frees. NKBA Guideline 29 asks for a functional storage device in at least one corner cabinet, and an L has only one corner. Our guides to lazy Susan sizes and alternatives and blind corner cabinets compare the hardware. Here is the wall each choice uses:

Here's Plan 1 with a blind base and the range staying put. The blind box takes 36 inches of the sink wall, so nothing moves there. On the range wall the run starts at 24 inches plus the required 3-inch filler, leaving 10½ inches to fill before the range:

• Removed: LSB33, its BF3 and the BF6 = $1,099.80.
• Added: BLB36/39, its required BF3, a 9-inch B09FD door base ($273.00) and a second BF3 cut to 1½" = $939.25.
• Saving: $160.55, for a corner you reach by kneeling. The gap won't take drawers: the narrowest drawer base is the 12-inch DB12.

So all four plans use a lazy Susan. Choose a blind base when a door or window sits too close to the corner. Above the counter, each plan uses a WDC2430 diagonal corner wall cabinet ($455.00), which takes 24 inches of each wall. Lazy Susan doors can't be reversed once assembled, so state left or right when you order.

How to Read These L-Shaped Kitchen Plans and Prices

Each L-shaped kitchen cabinet layout below gives positions in inches from the inside corner, and each wall's widths add up to its exact length. Uppers are 30 inches tall, hung with the top at 84 inches. Doors and windows sit on the two open walls. Prices are our displayed Galaxy Frost (white shaker) prices, checked against product pages and the Galaxy Frost spec book in November 2026. Confirm them on a quote. Product pages add a GF prefix to each code, as in GF LSB36.

Totals cover cabinets and the trim listed, not crown, pulls, hood, countertop, appliances, delivery or installation. Toe-kick counts are estimated from run lengths. Per-foot figures use the convention in our kitchen cabinet cost per linear foot guide. Each plan includes two wall skins because the uppers beside the short W3015 show their sides.

Plan 1: 10×10 With No Island

The tightest full-size L. It uses the smaller lazy Susan because the range wall has no inches to spare.

What passes: the triangle legs are 4.9, 4.1 and 7.7 feet, 16.7 in total. The range has exactly 12 inches of counter on the corner side and 15 on the other. The W3015 leaves 33 inches above the 36-inch counter.

What gives: the DB15 is the landing for both range and refrigerator, short of the 27 inches Guideline 24 asks for. Only ¾ inch remains beside the fridge at the end wall, so check your model's installation guide for the side clearance its doors and drawers need to open fully. If it needs more, buy a narrower fridge. The W361224's underside sits at 72 inches, so in every plan check the fridge's height, hinge covers included, and in Plans 2–4 check its hinge side against the pantry. Cut the 96-inch REP2496 to your top line or run it to the ceiling.

Our 10x10 pricing guide works a different 12-cabinet version at $5,994.30 with trim, and our fixed Galaxy Frost 10×10 package is $4,400. This plan costs $406.90 more than the worked version, mainly in trim (a tall filler, a 6-inch filler and two wall skins), plus a second drawer base and an extra upper, and it moves the dishwasher off the corner. For smaller rooms, our small kitchen plans include an 8×10 L built around a 30-inch fridge.

Plan 2: 10×12 With a Pantry

Two more feet of wall is enough for a pantry, and it lets the corner grow to 36 inches. There's still no room for an island: 10 feet of width leaves only 16½ inches.

What passes: triangle legs of 4.9, 4.3 and 8.0 feet, 17.2 in total. The range has 13½ and 18 inches of counter, and the pantry's finished side faces the refrigerator.

What gives: the DB18 is still shared between range and fridge, 9 inches short of Guideline 24. Our pantry cabinet guide lists other sizes, and over-refrigerator cabinet sizes explains the 24-inch-deep W361224.

Plan 3: 12×14 With a 5-Foot Island

This is the smallest L-shaped kitchen layout with island seating we'd plan. It keeps Plan 2's range wall, the sink wall grows to 14 feet, and the island faces that wall.

What passes: triangle legs of 5.8, 4.3 and 8.6 feet, 18.7 in total, and none of them cross the island. The island across the aisle gives the refrigerator its Guideline 16 landing, which takes the load off the DB18.

What gives: 42 inches suits one cook, not two. The refrigerator faces the island's end, and that 42 inches is measured from the counter line. Any fridge standing proud of the counter takes that much off the aisle, so check your model's depth with its doors and handles. A 40-inch top leaves about 14 inches of knee room after the door, back panel and front overhang, an inch short of the 15 that Guideline 9 asks for at counter height, and a deeper top would take the space behind the stools below 36. Your fabricator specifies the overhang supports.

Plan 4: 12×16 With a 7-Foot Sink Island

Two more feet change the plan. Range and refrigerator share the long wall, the sink moves to the island, and the short leg becomes storage and serving counter.

What passes: measured from the sink's center-front on the island, the legs are 6.0 feet to the range and 4.7 to the refrigerator, with 7.8 between those two, 18.5 in total. The sink has at least 24 inches of counter on each side. The dishwasher faces drawers, not an appliance.

What gives: the island costs less than Plan 3's only because a dishwasher takes one cabinet's place and a sink base is cheaper than a door base. Plumbing and venting under it are extra, and its stools have the same knee-room and 36½-inch limits as Plan 3. To keep the island dry, don't simply move the sink to the short leg: that puts it about 11 feet from the refrigerator, past the 9-foot limit. Use Plan 3's arrangement instead.

What the Four Plans Cost, Side by Side

All four fall inside the Most Popular band on our cabinet cost estimator once its pantry and island options are ticked. Drawer bases are the first place to cut: a DB30 is $845.00 and a B30 is $555.75. Galaxy Dove and Nickel match Frost on every plan code we compared; Desert Oak and Natural Oak run higher, and Linen is priced on request. Stock Galaxy finishes typically ship in 2 weeks.

Changing a Plan to Fit Your Room

Your walls won't match these to the inch. Measure as our guide to measuring a kitchen for cabinets shows, then:

• A wall a little short or long: the end filler takes up the first inch or two, as our guide to end panels, scribe molding and fillers explains. Beyond that, change a cabinet by one 3-inch step and let the filler take the rest.
• A window over the sink: delete the W3630 above the SB36, which takes $422.50 off Plans 1–3.
• A door in a leg: the leg ends at the casing, so finish the last cabinet with an end panel or skin.
• A 36-inch range: it needs 6 more inches of wall, which Plan 1 doesn't have. In Plans 2 and 3 the DB18 drops to 12 inches, leaving 13½ and 12 beside the range, under Guideline 17's 15. Plan 4 has room to spare.
• No island: L-shaped kitchen designs without an island keep the table. Any plan here simply drops its island row.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which wall should the sink go on?

Usually the wall with the window or the existing plumbing, far enough from the corner to leave a drawer base between them. In a 10×10, a sink right beside the corner gives a sink-to-range leg of only about 3.5 feet.

What is the smallest L-shape kitchen with island seating?

About 12×14 feet, with two stools. A small L-shaped kitchen with island prep space and no seating can work at about 11×13, using a 48-inch run under a top about 27 by 52 inches.

How much do L-shaped kitchen cabinets cost?

In Galaxy Frost, these plans run $6,401.20 to $7,667.40 without an island and $11,259.30 to $12,771.20 with one, cabinets and trim only.

Can you have an L-shaped kitchen island?

Yes, in a big enough room. An island that is itself an L can use stock base cabinets, but every extra face needs its own aisle. Of the rooms in our table, only the 14×16 has the space, and only at minimum aisles: two 26-inch-deep legs with a 36-inch walkway inside the L need about 62 inches each way. A longer straight island is simpler to build and top.

How long should each leg of an L-shape kitchen layout be?

Long enough to hold what's on it plus the corner. A wall with a corner, range and 36-inch refrigerator needs at least 119¼ inches, and a wall with a corner, sink and dishwasher needs about 96 to 100.

Get Your Own Walls Drawn

Send us your two wall lengths, where the doors and windows are and the appliances you want. Our free 3D design service replies within one business day and usually returns renderings and an itemized quote within 24–48 hours of getting your measurements. You can also order a Fabuwood door sample before you commit to a finish.

We design, quote and ship cabinets to all 50 states; we do not install them. Your own contractor handles installation, and in New Jersey it is available through our sister company, Captivating Construction Group. Questions? Call 609-900-3358.

Sources: National Kitchen & Bath Association, Kitchen Planning Guidelines with Access Standards (Guidelines 3, 6–9, 11–13, 16–18, 24 and 29); Fabuwood Allure Galaxy Frost spec book, prices effective October 1, 2026; captivatingcabinets.com Galaxy Frost product pages, checked November 2026. Plan dimensions and arithmetic are our own.