Quick answer
A two-sided galley kitchen needs a room at least 2,400 mm wide: two 600 mm deep bench runs plus a 1,200 mm aisle between them. The aisle can drop to 1,000 mm at a squeeze, or 900 mm for a strictly one-cook kitchen. A single-sided galley works in a room 1,800 mm wide.
Key points
- The controlling number is the aisle: 1,200 mm is right, 1,000 mm is workable, 900 mm is a one-cook minimum.
- Benches are 600 mm deep, so a two-sided galley wants 600 + 1,200 + 600 = 2,400 mm of room width.
- A single-sided galley needs only 1,800 mm of room width, which is why it survives in apartments and sleepouts.
- Put the sink and cooker on opposite runs if you can; if they share a run, keep 600 mm or more of bench between them.
- A door at each end turns your aisle into a hallway, so count the through-traffic honestly before you commit.
- Cost-wise a small galley runs roughly $4.5–7k supply-only in Auckland, $6.5–9.5k installed, which is why rentals get galleys.
The room is 2,140 mm wall to wall. That is the actual measurement from a 1950s weatherboard rental in Sandringham we priced recently, and the owner wanted benches down both sides. Take 600 mm of cabinet off each wall and the space left in the middle is 940 mm, which is one person standing at the hob while the second person turns sideways and apologises. The kitchen would have been built, paid for and resented within a fortnight. He built one good run and a slim 450 mm deep pantry wall instead, and the kitchen works.
That is the whole discipline of galley kitchens in one story. The layout is the most efficient cooking shape there is, two parallel runs with everything a half-turn away, but it lives or dies on three numbers. Get the aisle right and a galley outcooks an L-shape twice its size. Shave 200 mm off it and you feel the loss daily, because a galley has no slack anywhere. This article gives you the numbers, where they bend, and where they genuinely do not.
How wide does a galley kitchen need to be?
Start from the fixed parts. A standard bench run is 600 mm deep. That is not a preference, it is the depth the whole industry builds to, because appliances are made for it: a dishwasher is 600 mm wide and sits flush under a 600 mm bench, an underbench oven is designed for the same cavity, and benchtop material comes sized for it. So the run depth is spoken for and the only number you are really choosing is the aisle.
For the aisle between two runs, 1,200 mm is the number to aim at. Two people pass each other without touching, a dishwasher door drops fully open with room to stand beside it, and an oven door plus a crouching person still leaves the aisle passable. At 1,000 mm the kitchen still works but it has become a one-person-at-a-time space whenever an appliance door is open. At 900 mm you are at the honest minimum for a single cook, and below 900 mm you no longer have a two-sided galley, you have a corridor with cabinets in it. These are the same clearance numbers we use around islands and walkways, and the full logic is set out in our guide to kitchen aisle clearances.
- Two-sided galley, comfortable: 600 + 1,200 + 600 = 2,400 mm room width. Aim here.
- Two-sided galley, workable: 600 + 1,000 + 600 = 2,200 mm. Fine for a couple who rarely cook together.
- Two-sided galley, one-cook minimum: 600 + 900 + 600 = 2,100 mm. Do not go below this.
- Single-sided galley: 600 mm run + 1,200 mm clear = 1,800 mm room width, and it feels fine.
- Single-sided with a slim second wall: one 600 mm run, a 1,000 mm aisle and 450 mm deep tall storage opposite needs 2,050 mm.
A two-sided galley in plan: two 600 mm runs and a 1,200 mm aisle need 2,400 mm of room width.
Sink and cooker: opposite runs or the same run
With two runs to play with, the classic split puts water on one side and heat on the other. Sink, dishwasher and bin on Run A; hob and oven on Run B; fridge at the end of whichever run has the spare width. The work triangle collapses into a half-turn, which is the thing cooks love about galleys, and wet mess never crosses the aisle carrying a dripping pot because the drainer is right there.
Putting sink and hob on the same run is sometimes forced on you, usually because the plumbing and the only external wall for extraction sit on the same side. It works, with one rule: keep at least 600 mm of clear bench between the sink bowl and the hob. That 600 mm is your main prep zone, and it is also the landing space for hot pans coming off the heat. Less than that and you are chopping on a board balanced across the sink by Thursday of week one. On a same-run layout the opposite side becomes storage and secondary bench, and the aisle can drop toward 1,000 mm with less pain because two people are rarely face to face at appliances.
Run length: what fits in 2,400, 3,000 and 3,600 mm
Width gets all the attention, but run length decides what the kitchen can actually hold. Cabinets come in modules from 150 mm up to 1,000 mm wide, with 600 mm as the default, so a run length is really a sum of modules plus appliances. Here is what the common lengths honestly fit, remembering a freestanding stove needs a 600 mm gap and a dishwasher takes another 600 mm slot.
| Run length | What fits | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| 2,400 mm | Sink cabinet, dishwasher, 600 hob module, one 600 base | Almost no drawer bank; prep space is tight |
| 3,000 mm | Sink run plus dishwasher plus 600 of drawers, or hob run with 900 of bench either side | A tall pantry has to live on the other run |
| 3,600 mm | Full wet run one side; hob, oven tower and pantry the other | Not much; this is the sweet spot for a family galley |
| 4,200 mm+ | Everything above plus a proper appliance bench | The ends start to feel far apart; stop before it becomes a corridor |
If your room offers less than about 2,100 mm of width, look hard at a single-sided layout with tall storage, and read how we design small kitchens to feel bigger before you fight the room; the compact-appliance tricks in small apartment kitchen design buy back length in the same way.
Uppers, and the vertical numbers
The elevation matters in a galley because both walls carry cabinetry, so the vertical stack sets how enclosed the narrow room feels. The NZ standard stack is a 150 mm toe kick, a 720 mm base carcass and the benchtop landing you at 900 mm finished bench height, then a 600 mm splashback zone, then 720 mm tall upper cabinets, for an overall elevation of 2,220 mm. In a 2,400 mm wide room, uppers down both sides at full 2,220 mm height can feel like standing in a slot. Two honest fixes: run uppers on one side only and give the other run open wall or a single shelf, or hold the uppers to the wet run where you want the everyday crockery anyway. The bench height itself is not negotiable territory: 900 mm is the NZ standard for a reason, and a galley is the wrong place to experiment with it.
What a galley costs, and why rentals get them
Galleys are the cheapest good kitchen there is, because every dollar goes into cabinetry you use and none into corner solutions. In Auckland right now, a small galley lands at roughly $4.5–7k supply-only, or $6.5–9.5k installed. A standard straight or galley kitchen with longer runs sits at roughly $5.5–8.5k supply-only, $8–12k installed. Compare that with an L-shape at roughly $8.5–13k supply-only and you can see why the galley keeps its place. The full pricing picture across every layout is in what a kitchen costs in Auckland in 2026.
It is also why rental galleys refurbish so well. The runs are short, the shapes are simple rectangles, and there is usually no stone, no island and no corner carousel to inflate the bill. We build a lot of these from our East Tāmaki workshop for landlords: same footprint, new carcasses and fronts, laminate top, done. If the existing carcasses are sound, you may not even need us; new doors and a benchtop on old boxes is a legitimate refurbishment, and we will say so when we see the photos.
Where a galley is the wrong answer
A galley assumes the room is a rectangle with its services on the long walls. If your room is closer to square, an L-shape uses it better and gives you a corner instead of a dead end; the comparison maths is in our kitchen layouts guide. If the room is wide enough that your aisle would exceed about 1,500 mm, the two runs stop working as one kitchen, and you are usually better with a single run plus an island. And if the household genuinely has two cooks working at once most nights, a galley under 1,200 mm of aisle will generate more friction than any other layout, because there is exactly one lane and you are both in it.
Measure the room, then set the runs
The next step is thirty minutes with a tape. Measure the room width wall to wall at both ends, because old Auckland houses taper and the narrow end governs. Mark every door and window, note where the plumbing comes in, and decide which end could close. Then apply the arithmetic: 2,400 mm or more, two-sided galley; 2,100–2,400 mm, two-sided only if you accept a tight one-cook aisle; under 2,100 mm, single-sided and proud of it. If you want to test cabinet widths against your real measurements, the designer on our site lets you set every cabinet in millimetres and prices the runs as you go, and a site measure locks the final dimensions before anything is cut.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum width for a galley kitchen in NZ?
For a two-sided galley the practical minimum room width is 2,100 mm: two 600 mm deep runs with a 900 mm aisle, which suits one cook only. Comfortable is 2,400 mm, giving a 1,200 mm aisle. A single-sided galley needs about 1,800 mm of room width, being one 600 mm run and 1,200 mm of clear floor.
How wide should the aisle be between galley kitchen benches?
Aim for 1,200 mm between the two bench fronts. That lets two people pass and leaves standing room beside an open dishwasher door. 1,000 mm is workable for households that mostly cook one at a time, and 900 mm is the honest minimum for a strictly one-cook kitchen. Below 900 mm appliance doors and drawers start colliding and the layout stops functioning as a two-sided kitchen.
Should the sink and cooker be on the same side of a galley?
Opposite runs is the better split: water and dishwasher one side, hob and oven the other, so the work triangle becomes a half-turn. If plumbing or extraction forces them onto the same run, keep at least 600 mm of clear bench between the sink and the hob for prep and pan landing, and use the opposite run for storage and secondary bench.
How much does a galley kitchen cost in Auckland?
Roughly $4.5–7k supply-only for a small galley, or $6.5–9.5k installed. A standard-length galley runs about $5.5–8.5k supply-only and $8–12k installed. Exact numbers depend on run lengths, benchtop material and appliances, but galleys sit at the affordable end because they have no corner cabinets and usually no stone.
Can a galley kitchen work with a door at each end?
It can, but treat it as a corridor first and a kitchen second. Hold the aisle at 1,200 mm, keep the hob out of the direct traffic line so nobody passes behind a cook at the pans, and put the fridge near one end so snack traffic does not cross the working zone. If one doorway can be closed off, closing it gains you a full wall of bench and fixes the traffic problem outright.
How long should a galley kitchen run be?
3,000–3,600 mm per run is the sweet spot. At 3,000 mm you fit a full wet run of sink, dishwasher and a drawer bank; at 3,600 mm the other side carries hob, an oven tower and a pantry. Runs under 2,400 mm force compromises on drawers and prep space, and runs much past 4,200 mm start to feel like a corridor, with the zones too far apart.