Renovating a condo kitchen: what your building will let you do

A condo kitchen is a smaller room with more rules. Knowing them before the design starts saves a redesign later.

Your kitchen sits on a structure you do not own. The plumbing stack, the exhaust duct, the electrical panel and the concrete slab all belong to the building or are shared with it. Good condo design starts by mapping those fixed points and designing around them.

The fixed points

The sink stays close to the stack. Most buildings will not let you core the slab, so a sink can move only as far as the drain can slope within the floor build-up. The range hood vents where the existing duct goes, usually straight to a shared shaft, and many buildings do not allow a more powerful fan than the original.

Electrical is the next limit. Older towers built in the 1980s often have a 60 amp suite panel. An induction cooktop, a wall oven and a combination washer-dryer on the same panel will not work without an upgrade, and the building has to approve it.

What you can change

Almost everything else. The layout within the fixed points, the cabinetry, the counter, the lighting and the flooring. I often gain 30 per cent more storage in a galley kitchen just by running uppers to the ceiling and replacing the corner lazy Susan with a blind corner pull-out.

Book the freight elevator early. In most downtown buildings you need to reserve it for every delivery and every debris removal, with protective padding and a deposit. A cabinet delivery that misses its elevator slot can push installation back a week.