RV Kitchens

Someone asked me what I thought was the best layout for a kitchen in an RV. First let me say most of this is based on owning a fifth wheel. Although I cant imagine why it would be any different in a trailer. Now my wife says that men who do not use them designed these kitchens and I must say she is probably correct.

Lets locate the kitchen in our RV. We have three options here.

1. Rear, here you usually have a U shaped kitchen which gives you more room. Problem is bounce…the rear of the fifth wheel tends to bounce this can cause havoc on your dishes. For my 2 cents stay away from rear kitchens.
2. Mid kitchens or kitchens in the middle of the RV. This is where ours is and I feel it is the best location. All the cabinets are mounted along the side and have never come open while traveling. There is minimum bounce here as you are basically over the wheels so the bounce is much less than the rear kitchen.
3. Front kitchen. Probably best for bounce and space. I have only seen a few with kitchens in this location. Worst thing here is the fact that every time you want to go into kitchen you must climb 3 to 4 stairs to get into the overhang part of the fifth wheel.

Kitchen in a slide or have a kitchen slide on either side

I don’t see a problem with having the kitchen in a slide IF the kitchen can be used while the slide is in.

If you have 2 slides in the kitchen they usually have an island in the middle of the RV. This means that you cannot get past the island with both slides in. Therefore boondocking is a pain, even if you don’t boondock you just might need to get to whatever is in the other side of the island.

Our kitchen is in the middle and is all on one side. To us it seems to make the most sense.

To pantry or no pantry?

To get a pantry you normally have to buy an extra two feet of trailer i.e. 32 feet no pantry 34 feet have pantry. This isn’t hard and fast but when we were looking it sure seemed that way. Point being your pantry is going to cost you a couple of grand extra.

Pantries in an RV are usually narrow but deep say 2 feet wide and 4 feet deep. Point here think about sliding shelves or a rack configuration to get to those cans that are in the back.

Convection microwave or oven?

I would take the convection oven and give up the gas oven to save weight and use the space for something else. Or you can do as we did when our microwave died we put in a convection oven to replace the one that was there. We bought the same brand hoping that it would use the same brackets but it didn’t. By the way we had a hard time finding an oven at local stores we finally opted to buy one from an online store. It was same price and no shipping….it pays to look around.

Cabnets lock or not to lock?

Cabinets that lock have a button that needs to be released each time that you open them. If you are moving a lot that is probably ok but if you are living stationary most then it gets to be a pain.

Cabinets that don’t lock are prone to open during travel. We opt to use a Velcro band thingy through adjoining handles. This seems to work quite well and are easily stored when we don’t use them.

Our kitchen has power outlets mounted up under the cabinets, which means you can’t mount things like a coffee pot or toaster under there. If the power was on the wall then you could use this space for mounting things and save your precious counter space. While I’m on power outlets it would be nice if there was a 12 volt outlet there as well there are a lot of appliances these days that you can get in a 12 volt version. These can be used while boondocking or at the rest stop to brew a quick pot of coffee.