Worked room · 10 × 13 ft
Kitchen with the square footage but no working route
Ten by thirteen. Prep, pantry, landing, and the walk are all one strip.
A kitchen that measures generously and cooks badly. Everything that has to happen — chopping, unloading, setting down something hot, reaching the pantry, and walking through to the garden — happens on the same narrow field in front of one run of counter.
What Room Lab concluded
Buy nothing yet
moderateFunction 86Function is what is wrong. Clear the primary walk — no money yet.
- Why
- Function is the primary friction at 86. Function scores 86. Multi-job capacity, storage vs. use, work/rest zoning. Movement at 70 is real, but it is not the thing a body hits first. Working counter run narrows the primary walk to 14" — 22" under the minimum. Addresses congestion and storage pile with a measured cause behind it. It costs nothing, takes about 30 minutes, and is undone in a minute.
- Caveat
- Unnamed: whether the peninsula is fixed to the floor; which circuit the counter outlets share.
- Next
- Remove anything that is not furniture from the walk, then look hard at Working counter run, which is what narrows it. Bags, mail, laundry, the chair that became a hook. Measure: Tape the walk. It measures 14" now and must hold 36" with the door open.
This holds until: The “Clear the primary walk” step is complete and a second reading shows what changed.
Driven by Function score (86). Moderate — enough is scored to rank, and the top two are close or something is unnamed.
Free moves first
Clear the primary walk
Remove anything that is not furniture from the walk, then look hard at Working counter run, which is what narrows it. Bags, mail, laundry, the chair that became a hook.
How to tell it worked: A body walks it without turning the shoulders.
Empty the pile onto a table
One surface. Sort: leave the room / stay in the room / leave the house. Do not buy storage yet.
How to tell it worked: The walk does not grow a new pile in 48 hours.
Move one heavy thing across the room
Take the largest piece on the crowded side and put it on the empty one. Do not buy something for the empty side — that is the expensive version of the same fix and it adds footprint.
How to tell it worked: Both halves of the room hold something with weight.
Then one reversible test at a time
One reversible split
Place a folding screen, a tension curtain, or a planted trough on the line between the two jobs. Live with it for seven days. Do not also move the bed in the same week.
Measure: Can you do job A without seeing job B? Time the walk around the split — it must not pinch 36 inches.
Move the largest piece once
Shift the sofa, island, or bed off the crossing. Live with painter's tape marking the old footprint. Do not buy a new piece this week.
Measure: Primary path ≥ 36". Conversation or work still functions.
Not worth buying yet
- Another rug before the walk is clear. Rugs do not fix circulation. They hide it.
- Hardwired statement fixture. Electrical is a watch or professional review is required. Prove the path with plug-in light.
- Decorative storage cubes for the pile. A lid is not a sort. Empty the pile first.