After the size and the location of the kitchen have been determined, the placing of the openings is the next step to be considered. The subject of doors especially should be given the most deliberate attention, for the inconvenience of many kitchens can be traced back to the presence of too many or wrongly placed doors.

It is evident that a kitchen should have as few doors as possible in order to avoid breaking up the wall space and to avoid passage through the kitchen to different parts of the house. Ordinarily, five or six doors are needed in connection with the kitchen work: an outside door, a pantry door, a cellar door, a door to the dining-room, and perhaps one leading to a rear stairway or hall. Fortunately, all these doors need not be located in the kitchen proper. Different combinations can be arranged whereby one door can be made to serve two or three purposes. Thus, the cellar or the rear-stair door might open from a pantry or from an outside entry, which might also contain the outside door. Two or three doors of passage are all that are needed in a well-planned kitchen. These should, as nearly as possible, be arranged at one side, corner, or end, thus leaving a continuous wall space in an alcove form for the arrangement of equipment.