By echoing the room's perimeter shape, you can keep walking aisles consistent, so that the room feels balanced and nothing seems forced or mismatched.

Galley Kitchen Once four small rooms with a staircase jutting through the center, this renovated kitchen/living space is currently spacious and airy. By laying out the kitchen prep and dining areas as a long efficient galley, designers Kathy Hoffman and Susan Fredman of the Susan Fredman Design Group made the space functional without repainting the living room.

Galley Kitchen "Creating visual impact and maintaining performance within this narrow area was my main challenge with this project," says Vita Buffa, CKD, CBD frameless glass bathtub enclosures . NCIDQ. To satisfy the challenge and give her client a stunning, green galley, Buffa moved a classic table that was beautiful but impeded traffic flow, and relocated the refrigerator and microwave into the opposite wall so as to create a more aesthetically pleasing view when sitting at the adjacent room.

Galley Kitchen This 8-foot-wide kitchen by Aimee Nemeckay and Terri Crittenden for your Susan Fredman Design Group hangs a twist into the adjacent dining room. To make it appear larger, the designers keep the horizontal lines down the extended kitchen equally from the kerf, or incised line, of their cabinets and the flooring. The cupboards reaching the ceiling draw the eye up as well.

Galley Kitchen By removing both half partitions between the dining and living space of the 1960s bungalow, designer Nathalie Tremblay was able to enlarge the kitchen, create an open texture and provide a better design and traffic flow of the kitchen, living and dining room. And many of the tricks she employed to optimize distance in this galley would work nicely for any little kitchen: She utilized 24-inch-deep refrigerator/freezer for space saving and better traffic flow, made a work "triangle" despite the corridor-like form of the actual space, and picked a simple, black-and-white palette to keep visual clutter to a minimum.

Galley Kitchen To keep this little galley kitchen looking as good as it works, Natalia Pierce, AKBD, chose a neutral, earthy palette and installed a cozy window seat. The flow of light from the adjacent dining room through the pass-through retains the kitchen linked to the rest of the home and puts hosts connected with guests. Art in the far end wall keeps the kitchen from looking as a dead-end.

U-Shaped Kitchen Pre-renovation this kitchen was tiny and cut away from the remainder of the house. Designer Linda Evans, CKD, CBD, CAPS, knocked down the wall between the kitchen and dining space, and flipped the former into a horseshoe which not only maximizes space but creates a delineation between the kitchen and dining areas.

U-Shaped Kitchen To add extra storage and prep space to this tiny kitchen, Natalia Pierce, AKBD, additional two peninsulas, developing a U-shaped kitchen. A raised bar was inserted on the sink to break up the website lines through the space.

U-Shaped Kitchen As a secondary kitchen on the top floor of a stunning art deco house, this distance doesn't need to be large but it did need to operate efficiently. Designer Myriem Drainer took the best components of U- shaped and L-shaped kitchens to make this one-of-a kind design. Clean lines and a marble backsplash which extends to the ceiling create an illusion of a wider and brighter space, and little as it is, the counter configuration supplies surprisingly ample dining and prep room.

L-Shaped Kitchen Designer Nathalie Tremblay opened and moved walls to make this L-shaped kitchen/dining place for customers who like to entertain. A L shape retains the hosts near their guests while cooking, and enables visitors to eat without feeling like they're on top of the stove.

L-Shaped Kitchen This kitchen's long, effective prep room looks like a galley layout but is just half of the L-shaped kitchen which turns out a corner for maximum preparation room and eat-in dining room. Design by Amy Alper.

L-Shaped Kitchen This kitchen, which won First Place in big kitchen group in NKBA Ontario Design Awards in 2013, uses an L-shaped floor plan and T-configured centre island to maximize space, and to create the sleek, masculine look designer Nathalie Tremblay's client requested.

Pentagonal Kitchen It's no secret that squeezing maximum efficiency from a five-sided kitchen with strange angles took a lot of imagination. Eric Lindroth of Remodel Works Bath and Kitchen transferred walls to expand the floor's footprint under the vaulted ceiling, removed soffits and building supports in the loft for the existing rafters, and extended the existing walls to the ceiling.

Curvilinear Kitchen When her client -- an engineer and metal sculptor -- told Rhonda Knoche, CMKBD, he loathed symmetry and direct lines, which he wanted a kitchen that could make him grin, she listened. The main prep area widens to accommodate kitchen actions -- and, sometimes, dance. The long wall is a bit bowed to meet the deeper front of the stove, tapering back at either end into the standard 24" deep cabinets. Along with the kitchen island is an ice-cream-cone form. "The partition appearing toward the entry could've been a direct wall," states Knoche, "but when I threw this client a curve, he had been in the plate."

Wedge-Shaped Kitchen To make the most of this wedge-shaped kitchen, Eric Lindroth of Remodel Works Kitchen and Bath replaced the current rectangular island with a wedge-shaped one. By echoing the room's perimeter shape, you can keep walking aisles consistent, so that the room feels balanced and nothing seems forced or mismatched. With its broader end, the island fits all of the homeowner's baking needs, and offers close proximity to the stove.

Wedge-Shaped Kitchen There is no optical illusion: This kitchen with Ines Hanl of The Sky's The Limit Style is shaped like a wedge. Rather than fight the odd form, Hanl she played it, and made an acutely angled island and banquette, then decorated the area with a funky '50s vibe. Lesson learned: In an area that flows strangely, it is sometimes best to just go with the flow.