A good kitchen starts with the way you cook. In most Bangladeshi homes, cooking means rice, curry and a lot of washing up, so plan for a strong worktop, a deep sink and a hob with space on both sides. Kitchen planning is not about choosing a colour first. It is about making the daily work of cooking, cleaning and storing food easy, and then making the room look good around that work.
This guide walks through the choices that make the biggest difference in a Bangladeshi home: the layout of the sink, hob and fridge, the worktop space around them, storage that you can actually reach, surfaces that are easy to clean, and light and air. Get these right and the kitchen will feel calm even when three people are cooking at once.
Plan the work triangle
Follow the work triangle: sink, hob and fridge should be close enough to walk between, but not in the way of each other. You move between these three points for almost every meal, so their positions decide how tiring cooking feels. If the sink is far from the hob, you carry heavy pots of water across the room. If the fridge is behind a door or behind the hob, you cross the cooking area every time you need an ingredient.
Keep the path between the three points clear. Do not put a tall unit, a bin or a chair in the middle of that path. Keep spice jars, oil and daily utensils within arm’s reach of the hob, and store big pots low, where you can take them out without lifting them over your head. The things you use every day should be easy to reach. The things you use once a month can go higher up or further away.
Give the hob room on both sides
A hob with space on both sides makes cooking much safer and calmer. You need one side to place raw ingredients and one side to place hot pots, plates and serving dishes. Without that space, you end up putting hot pots on the floor or on a chair, or you stack plates in the sink area while you cook. Plan the worktop so the hob is not pushed into a corner with no landing space beside it.
The same idea applies to the sink. A deep sink helps with large pots, rice bowls and washing up, and a little worktop beside the sink gives you a place to drain and stack dishes. If two people cook together, a single long worktop is more useful than two small worktops separated by a tall unit or a doorway. Think about how your family actually cooks, not how a showroom kitchen looks, and plan the worktop around that.
Storage first, decoration last
Plan storage first, and decoration last. A kitchen that looks tidy on the first day can become hard to live in if there is nowhere to put the things you use every day. Pull out drawers mean you can reach things at the back without emptying the whole drawer. A tall unit beside the fridge works well for a pantry, because it keeps rice, lentils, oil and spices in one place that you can see at a glance.
A few open shelves are useful for the plates and cups you use every day, but too many open shelves collect dust and clutter, and they make a small kitchen look busy. Closed cabinets are better for the things you use less often, and for the packets and jars that do not look tidy on display. Before you buy cabinets, count what you own. Count the pots, the pans, the plates, the spice jars and the appliances that live on the worktop, and give each group a home. If a thing does not have a home, it will end up on the worktop.
Choose surfaces that are easy to clean
Choose easy to clean tiles and a plain worktop, because a kitchen in daily use will see oil, turmeric, onion and water every day. A plain worktop shows less staining and is easier to wipe than a busy pattern. Tiles on the wall behind the hob and the sink protect the wall and wipe clean in a few seconds. Avoid rough or textured surfaces near the hob, as oil and steam settle into them and are hard to clean.
Add light above the cooking area so you can see the colour of the food and the state of the pan. A light over the hob and a light over the sink are two of the most useful lights in a kitchen. If the kitchen has a window, keep the sink or the main worktop near it where you can, so daylight does the work during the day.
Light and air in the kitchen
A kitchen needs good light and good air. Cooking creates heat, steam and smoke, and a kitchen without a way to let them out will feel hot and smell of the last meal all day. If you have a window, keep it clear and use it. If you use a hood or an exhaust fan, plan the hob under it from the start, so the steam has somewhere to go. A hood that is far from the hob, or a fan that only moves air around the room, will not help much.
Keep the kitchen floor safe as well. Water and oil make smooth floors slippery, so choose a floor that is easy to clean but not too smooth when wet. A small mat near the sink can help, as long as it does not slide and as long as you can wash it often.
Kitchen planning in a small flat
Many kitchens in Dhaka are small, and a small kitchen needs the same thinking, just in less space. A single straight run of worktop, or an L shaped run in a corner, often works better than trying to fit a full U shape into a room that is too small for it. A small kitchen also needs strict storage. If you do not have a tall pantry unit, give one deep drawer to daily cooking, one shelf to spices and one cupboard to cleaning things. When every group has a place, a small kitchen stays usable.
If the whole flat is small, it helps to plan the kitchen together with the rest of the home, so the dining area, the living area and the kitchen do not fight for the same space. Read our guide to planning a small flat in Bangladesh for the same idea applied to the whole home: give each use its own clear place, and keep the paths between them open.
A simple kitchen planning checklist
- Sink, hob and fridge close enough to walk between, with a clear path
- Worktop space on both sides of the hob
- A deep sink, with worktop beside it for draining and stacking
- Spice jars, oil and daily utensils within arm’s reach of the hob
- Pull out drawers for pots and a tall unit for pantry food
- Easy to clean tiles and a plain worktop
- Light above the hob and above the sink
- A window, hood or exhaust fan that actually removes steam
- Closed cabinets for the things you use less often, and only a few open shelves
- A home for every group of items, counted before you buy cabinets
Work through this list while you are still planning, not after the cabinets are made. Changing a layout on paper costs nothing. Changing it after the worktop is fitted costs a lot of time and money. Take a pencil, draw the kitchen as you use it today, mark where you stand, where you wash, where you cook and where you reach, and then plan the new kitchen around those marks.
When to ask for help
If you are planning a kitchen as part of a larger home project, it is worth planning the kitchen, the dining area and the storage together, with a 3D design you can see before anything is built. That way you can check the work triangle, the light and the storage before you commit to them, and the team that designs the kitchen is the same team that builds it.
Weaver Interior is an interior design team in Dhaka, founded in 2023. We handle design and execution together, from 3D design to final handover, with 9 core team members and 20 people on design and site. We have served 34 clients across Bangladesh. See our interior design services and our recent projects, and try the cost estimator to plan your budget. To talk about your kitchen, contact us or call +880 1636-422225. Our studio is at D/155 Road 6, Mohanagar Project, Hatirjheel, Dhaka 1219.