In the course of a remodel, there are hundreds of decisions to be made. Anyone that has planned a remodeling project can tell you that there are many more decisions to be made than you would ever expect! 

Many of these decisions seem obvious, like choosing the flooring, wall color, or hardware finishes. What is surprising to many homeowners is that they need to decide where every single fixture or piece of hardware goes. Literally. Every single cabinet pull, towel bar, or ceiling light needs to have its placement specified.

Most of us assume that there is an industry standard that will dictate where all of these items go. There isn’t. There are industry guidelines, and most professional designers and contractors have preferences, but there are very few hard and fast rules that apply to fixture, accessory, and hardware placement.

Building code has requirements for a few things. For example, code specifies the minimum distance between outlets in a room. However, it doesn’t specify how far from the floor those outlets should be. That decision is left to the homeowner or their electrician.

There are a few dimensions that are pretty standard in the industry:

A kitchen countertop is generally around 36” off the floor. Factory-made cabinets are 34.5” tall, and countertops vary in thickness from around ¾” to 2”, making the average height of a countertop right around 36”.

Wall cabinets are generally set with the bottom of the cabinet approximately 18” above the countertop. Unless you specify otherwise, this is where your contractor will be placing them. 

Most electricians place their receptacles 12” above the floor, and their switches at 48”. Your electrician will likely be placing their boxes here unless you specifically tell them otherwise (or something in the wall prevents them from placing boxes at these dimensions).

The majority of the other items that go into a kitchen or bathroom are based on the owner’s preference. The industry guidelines that designers and contractors use to guide their clients’ decisions have a very wide range and leave a lot of room for an owner’s preferences. 

Below, I will give you a list of the recommendations we use to educate clients as they decide where they would like these items to be placed in their homes. All dimensions listed are from the finished floor to the bottom of the item, unless otherwise noted.

Electrical:

Outlets/switches in the kitchen backsplash: Appx 6” from countertop (42” from the finished floor)

Above mirror vanity light: appx. 75”- 80”

Sconces beside bathroom mirror: Appx 60”- 70”

Kitchen pendants: appx. 30” from the countertop (66” from the floor).

Tub/ shower:

Shower niche: 36”- 42”

Tub niche: 25”- 30”

Shower faucet: 40”- 50”

Tub faucet: 28”- 40”

Showerhead: 72”- 80”

Bathroom accessories:

Medicine cabinet: 64” to the center of the mirror

Grab bars: 32”- 40”

Towel bar: appx. 48”

Towel ring: 20”- 22” above the vanity top.

Toilet paper holder: appx. 26”

Robe hook: 55”- 70”

Trim:

Industry recommendations for wainscot or chair rail height are to make them ⅓ of the height of the room. This is approximately 32” for a standard 8’ wall. Our preference is to install chair rail and wainscot a bit higher, at around 36 - 42”. Of course, this is up to the owner’s personal preference as well.

In conclusion,

As you can see, most of the fixtures, accessories, and hardware items that go into a bathroom or kitchen are designed to be installed based on the owner’s preferences as opposed to an industry standard. The placement of these items will need to be decided before your contractor can install them, so it is wise to take some time to make these decisions prior to beginning a remodeling project.

It can be helpful to “mock-up” the placement of these items prior to drywall, as well. At our company, we like to put builder’s paper or cardboard on the walls and mark the placement of everything while we are still in the framing stage. This helps our clients visualize where everything will go as well as helping us assure that we have installed blocking everywhere it is needed. If anything needs to change, we can do it before the framing gets covered with drywall.