Kitchens

Your countertops, particularly the work top where you are going to do most of you food preparation should be designed around the height of the primary user. The standard kitchen countertop is built at 90cm but this will not suit everyone.

Basically as a rule of thumb the work top should be a few centimetres below elbow height for the main kitchen user. Industry guidelines indicate that if you are 125cm tall, the ideal worktop height is 65cm, whereas if you are 200cm tall, you’d be most comfortable with a 120cm height. The rest of us, starting at the 65cm worktop height, should add around 3cm to the worktop for every 5cm of height over 125cm, rounding up or down to a standard height as necessary.
Bear in mind that there are a couple of issues with this:

1. If you are an extremly tall or short person a kitchen customised to your optimal height may effect the resale value of the house.
2. In a kitchen with several family users it may be difficult to find a worktop height that suits everyone.

It may be worth considering multiple work areas, using plinths of different heights in kitchens with mulitple users.