Tips for designing the perfect bespoke kitchen

Most kitchens go wrong at the brief, not the build. The ten tips below are the ones we wish more clients knew before they sat down for their first design visit.

Not how a kitchen should be used in general. How yours is used at 7am, 6pm, and 9pm. The brief that begins "we want a Hampton-style kitchen" is rarely right. The brief that begins "we host every weekend, we have three small children, and the breakfast is the hard part" is always right.

A measure-up done in twenty minutes will produce a design that does not fit. A measure-up done in ninety minutes — every wall, every service, every level — will produce a design that does. We do ours in person, with two people, every time.

The cabinet layout should serve the lighting plan, not the other way around. Decide where you need task light, ambient light, accent light, and let the cabinets fall around it.

The island is the most-photographed part of every kitchen. Design it as a single piece of furniture: a different worktop, a different colour, sometimes a different material altogether. The contrast with the wall run gives the room a focal point.

A second oven is more useful than a wine fridge for most families. A drawer dishwasher is more useful than a second oven for others. Decide which two appliances will get used daily and budget them properly. Compromise on the rest.

Open every cupboard you currently own and write down what lives in it. The drawer for the tea towels. The shelf for the pasta. The deep drawer for the saucepans. The bespoke layout that follows this list is the one that works; the layout drawn from a catalogue picture is the one that doesn't.

Hand-painted finishes take knocks better and can be touched up forever. Sprayed finishes are cleaner but harder to repair. For a family kitchen, the hand-painted finish pays back in year three.

Marble for the family who never cooks. Quartz for the family who cooks every night. Sintered stone for the family who has three under-ten boys. Be honest about which family you are.

Hardware, taps, drawer runners. The pieces your hand meets every day. The bespoke kitchen with the most expensive worktop and the cheapest tap is the one that gets noticed wrong. Spend the budget where the fingers land.

A designer who hands the drawings to a separate workshop hopes for the best. A designer whose workshop is twenty metres from the drawing board will close the loop on every joint. The lead time is longer; the kitchen is better.

If you would like to put any of these to the test, book a free design visit and we will use the ten tips as the basis for the brief.