Designing a kitchen is essential for your home environment

There are so many practicalities when thinking about a kitchen layout that we almost balked at the idea of putting pen to paper (in a manner of speaking) when considering this section of easy home projects. However, the kitchen is still the heart of the home, whether you whip up a ready made meal for one, or cook pots and pots of pasta for the masses, and a kitchen layout needs to be functional and fun to use and live in, so that it does retain the heart's appeal.

Making your kitchen layout functional

It doesn't matter if you have a galley style kitchen or a wide sweeping L shaped room to work with, the layout still has to perform certain basic functions. There are classic rules for a kitchen layout which we will be exploring, particularly the relationship between the utility areas of the sink, refrigerator and preparation areas. These generally need to be easily reached from one another, if you've ever seen a nice looking kitchen but felt that something was amiss, it could well be that you had a short stroll from the fridge to the chopping board, and that is often a mistake - although there are exceptions to the rules of course.

We'll be looking at the relationship of the furniture and cupboards in your kitchen layout, whether it's open plan shaker style plate holders or handle free modern designs, we believe that a kitchen can be the room to die for in any home, and that's why we have this section of the site.

Kitchens need a lot of planning to get right

There are several high brand kitchen design companies around who will for a fee design your kitchen layout for you. However often you'll be tied or perhaps pressured into going with them for the final products, and when a single unit could cost as much as £500 it may be that you will want to consider designing your own kitchen. There's loads to think about especially if you will be starting from scratch, from cable layouts and lighting to water and waste, what to do with windows like shutters for kitchen windows, or waterproof blinds etc, and what type of access you have to any white goods like dishwashers and larders. Planning the kitchen, working with available space, these are essential for a successful kitchen project. Working right down to details like light fittings, granite worktops and even detailing and accessories.

It's a big project making a kitchen layout, but we're here for the duration so let us know if you get stuck and we'll do all we can to help you out.