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The Center Line in Kitchen Cabinet Design

When you are doing a layout of a kitchen, bathroom vanity or even laundry room, the center line of the sink, mirrors, windows, hood vents and lighting fixtures are very important. Cabinet alignments are crucial in the design process as they relate to many other products that get installed.

Hood Vents should always be centered in the cabinet because they are that way on the appliances that get installed in these areas.

Relation of Cabinets to Counter Sink Placements
As a general rule the sink always gets centered in the cabinet below. Kitchen sink cabinets always have two doors. The center line of the sink should be in line with where the doors meet in the middle of the cabinet.

Designing Kitchen Sink Cabinets in Window Areas
In kitchens it is common practice for architects to draw plans that have the sink centered in a window area. It’s OK to be slightly off by a half of an inch or so in this area but anymore than that and the aesthetics will look unbalanced.

Ceiling Lights Over Sinks
Three things need to be in center alignment, the window, the sink and the light above. If these are off by large margins it is going to be noticeable as a design flaw.

Can Lights in Kitchens
Before the electrician cuts out for the can lights, you must have an accurate layout of where the upper cabinets will be installed. Proper design of can lights in relation to upper cabinets is that the two should complement each other by the lights being centered either in the middle of a cupboard door or where two doors come together.

The Center Line in Bathroom Vanity Cabinet Design

Relation of Cabinets to Counter Sink Placements
Here again, the sink always gets centered in the cabinet below. Vanity sink cabinets can have two doors or one. The center line of the sink should be in line with where the two doors meet in the middle of the cabinet or in the middle of one door.

Small Mirrors in Bathrooms
These always look best if they are aligned over the sink areas.

Three Door Medicine Cabinets
If at all possible the door in the center should be lined up properly with the sink.

Light Fixtures in Bathroom Cabinet Areas
If there is just one light fixture over the cabinets it should be centered over the sink if this works with your particular design.

There are thousands of cabinet and countertop combinations. Where you decide to center your mirrors, lights, sinks and cabinets around windows is an important decision that needs to be considered. If things are not aligned correctly in bathrooms, laundry rooms and kitchens the appearance of the design can have a negative effect on people when they are looking at the room. If the hood vent is not position correctly it can be a difficult thing to correct depending upon the situation.

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