Last updated on July 4th, 2022
What’s A Galley Style Kitchen?
Also known as a parallel kitchen, a galley kitchen has two parallel runs of cabinets and countertops opposite each other, with more lengths than width. Originally designed for kitchens in ships and aircraft, this simple layout maximizes safety and space usage and works extremely well in small spaces.
Let’s have a quick look at the pros and cons of this storage-efficient kitchen layout!
The Pros Of A Galley Kitchen
1. Galley kitchens are very compact. This can be perfect for small homes.
2. Open kitchens might be great for socializing, but they waste a lot of storage space. Galley kitchens are extremely efficient when it comes to storage, giving you two entire walls to work with.
3. In a galley kitchen, everything is almost a step away with a super-convenient work triangle, and all you need to do, to reach for something, is turn around!
4. Constant conversations while you’re cooking can sometimes get distracting. Galley kitchens are usually separated from the living areas, giving you all the privacy you need while cooking.
5. Being closed off from the living and dining areas of the house, a galley kitchen doesn’t need to have the same décor theme as the rest of the house. This gives you plenty of freedom to play with different décor elements and create something unique. You can even incorporate open shelves in a galley kitchen, in a bright color and display your crockery in style with some under-the-shelf lighting!
6. A galley kitchen has no corner base cabinets to be dealt with. Goodbye, Lazy Susans!
The Cons Of A Galley Kitchen
1. Galley-style kitchens may not be as well-lit as their open counterparts, because of their narrow layout.
2. A galley kitchen limits the amount of countertop space available.
3. When there’s more than one person cooking, the kitchen space can quickly feel crowded and can cause cross-traffic issues.
4. For a decent galley-style kitchen, you need a large width to accommodate two platforms running parallelly.
And The Verdict?
Galley kitchens have lost popularity in recent years with open-plan kitchens becoming the norm. While some feel that a galley kitchen layout feels a bit confining, others feel it is quite liberating to not have a kitchen in plain view of everyone. And sometimes, the configuration of space is such that its kitchen space can benefit a great deal from a galley-style kitchen.
So it all boils down to the kind of space you have, what your cooking style is and how efficiently you want to use your cooking space!
Hope this quick read helped you understand the possibilities that exist when you set out to design the kitchen space of your dreams. May you create and experience it soon!
Happy decorating!
