Knowing how to design a kitchen comes down to getting the layout right before you fall in love with a finish: where the sink, hob and fridge sit relative to one another, how people move through the room, where the light falls and how the space is ventilated. The kitchen is the hardest-working room in the house and usually the most expensive to get wrong, so the planning matters more than the door colour. This guide walks through designing a kitchen that is genuinely good to cook in and calm to be in, whether it is a galley in a flat or a broken-plan room at the back of a London terrace.
The kitchen is the project we are asked about most, and the same thinking we bring to a living room applies here: start with how you actually live, not with a showroom display. Spend time noticing your real routine before you commit. Do you cook from scratch daily or reheat and graze? Do two of you cook together? Is this the room where everyone gathers, or a working galley off a separate dining space? These patterns decide the layout, the amount of worktop and storage you need, and whether an island earns its place.
1. Plan the Layout and the Work Triangle
Every kitchen that works is built around the work triangle: the sink, the hob and the fridge arranged so you can move between the three in a few easy steps, without crossing a walkway or doubling back. Get this right and cooking feels effortless; get it wrong and you feel the friction at every meal. Keep the three points reasonably close, and never let a thoroughfare or an island cut straight through the middle of the triangle.
Walk the room and note what competes for space: the door swing, the window, any chimney breast, the radiator, and where you would want to stand to chop, cook and wash up. Think about clearances too. Leave at least 100cm to 120cm of clear floor in front of runs of units so two people can pass and so oven and dishwasher doors open fully without blocking the room.
Measure before you commit to anything. Standard base units are around 60cm deep and worktops sit at about 90cm high, though it is worth setting the height to suit whoever cooks most. Plan generous, unbroken stretches of worktop beside the hob and the sink, since those are where the work actually happens.
2. Choose a Layout that Suits the Space
Kitchens fall into a few shapes, and each suits a different room.
A galley or single run is the most space-efficient layout and the natural answer to a narrow London kitchen, keeping the work triangle tight along one or two facing walls. Build storage upward to make up for the limited footprint.
An L-shape wraps two walls and frees a corner for a small table, working well in a square room or a side-return extension where you want to keep one side open.
A U-shape wraps three walls for maximum storage and worktop, best in a dedicated kitchen with the room to spare; just keep the open side wide enough to move freely.
An island or peninsula suits a broken-plan or open-plan room, adding worktop, storage and a place to gather, but only if you can keep at least 100cm clear all around it. If the room cannot give that, a peninsula delivers much of the benefit without choking the circulation. Our guides to designing a living room and a home office cover zoning an open-plan space in more depth, which matters when the kitchen shares a room with living or working areas.
3. Plan Cabinetry and Storage to the Centimetre
Storage is where a kitchen is won or lost, and it pays to design it to what you actually own rather than to a generic plan. Count your pans, your dry goods, your appliances and your bins, then build storage to match.
Deep drawers beat low cupboards for pans and crockery, because you can see and reach everything without crouching. A tall larder keeps food in one accessible place, and pull-out units rescue awkward corners that would otherwise be dead space.
Fitted joinery uses awkward height and depth efficiently and absorbs the quirks of an older house, giving the cleanest result and the most storage per square metre. Freestanding pieces, such as a dresser or a butcher's block, can soften a fitted scheme and are easier to change later. Plan the bin, the recycling and the cleaning store in from the start, since these are the things people forget and then miss daily.
4. Choose Worktops and Materials that Earn Their Keep
The worktop takes more punishment than any surface in the house, so match the material to how hard you cook. Quartz and granite are the most durable, shrugging off scratches and heat; porcelain is tough, heat-resistant and increasingly popular; solid timber is warm and repairable but needs oiling and care near the sink; and laminate is the budget-friendly choice that has improved a great deal. Whatever you pick, splashbacks behind the hob and sink protect the wall and are worth choosing for easy cleaning as much as for looks.
Think about the whole material palette together: cabinet fronts, worktop, splashback, handles and flooring should be chosen as a set rather than one at a time, so the room reads as a considered whole. A few well-matched materials almost always look calmer than many competing ones.
5. Light the Kitchen in Three Layers
A single ceiling light leaves you chopping in your own shadow. A kitchen needs three layers, the same approach we use across the house.
Task light is the essential layer: lighting under the wall units throws light directly onto the worktop, and the hob and sink should be lit so you can see what you are doing. Ambient light, from downlights or a run of pendants over an island, lights the room as a whole. Accent light, such as a glow inside a glazed cabinet or a low pendant over a table, adds the warmth that stops a kitchen feeling clinical in the evening.
Put the layers on separate switches and dimmers so the room can shift from bright and practical at breakfast to soft and relaxed at dinner. Daylight remains the best primary source, so plan the artificial layers to supplement it.
6. Get the Services and Ventilation Right
The unglamorous decisions are the ones you live with. Plan the position of the sink and any plumbed appliances around the existing pipework where you can, and route power for every appliance and a generous number of worktop sockets before the units go in. Ventilation is the one people regret skimping on: a good extractor removes steam, grease and smells and helps prevent damp, which matters most in an open-plan room where cooking smells carry into living space. An externally ducted extractor outperforms a recirculating one, so plan the duct route early, and choose energy-efficient appliances, since the kitchen is the biggest energy user in most homes. The Energy Saving Trust's guidance on home appliances is a useful, authoritative reference for comparing running costs.
7. Designing a Kitchen in a Period Property
London and South East homes often put the kitchen inside a Victorian, Edwardian or converted building, and working with the architecture gives a better room than fighting it.
Side-return and rear extensions are the classic London kitchen project: plan the layout around the light from roof glazing and glazed doors, and position the island or table where the daylight lands.
Chimney breasts and alcoves can house a range cooker in the old fireplace opening, with tall units filling the alcoves either side, turning a constraint into a feature.
Out-of-square walls and uneven floors are normal in older houses, so bespoke joinery scribed to fit avoids the tapering gaps that flat-pack units leave, and it is worth budgeting for that fitting work.
Listed status or a conservation area may restrict what you can alter, so check with the conservation officer early, and choose a style and materials in keeping with the age of the house.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- A broken work triangle. A walkway or island cutting between sink, hob and fridge makes every meal harder.
- Too little worktop. Skimping on the runs beside the hob and sink leaves nowhere to actually prepare food.
- An island that crowds the room. Without 100cm clear all around, it slows the whole kitchen down.
- One ceiling light. Without task lighting you work in shadow on the worktop.
- Weak ventilation. A recirculating extractor in an open-plan room lets smells and damp linger.
- Too few sockets. Worktop appliances multiply, and there are never enough power points.
- Choosing finishes before the layout. The plan should drive the look, not the other way round.
Before You Commit
Test the room before anything is ordered. Tape the units, the island and the appliance doors onto the floor, then stand where you would chop, cook and wash up and walk the route between them. Open imaginary oven and dishwasher doors to check the clearances, and look at where the daylight falls at the times you actually cook. You will feel a cramped triangle or a tight walkway straight away, long before it would show up on a plan.
Because a kitchen involves joinery, plumbing, electrics, ventilation and often building work, and frequently sensitive work in a period or listed home, it is the project that most rewards bringing in a designer early. We work with homeowners across London and the South East to design kitchens that are a pleasure to cook in and built to last; our services page sets out how that works, and you can see the full range of what we do on the Vertigo Interiors homepage. For how project costs are structured, our guide to interior designer costs in London is a useful starting point.
A kitchen designed this way does more than photograph well. It supports the way you actually cook and gather, day after day, which is the only test that matters for the busiest room in the house.
Frequently asked questions
How do you plan a kitchen layout?
Start with the work triangle: the sink, hob and fridge should sit in a loose triangle so you can move between them in a few easy steps without crossing a walkway. Map your real cooking routine, then choose a layout (galley, L-shape, U-shape or island) that fits the room's shape and keeps that triangle tight. Leave at least 100cm to 120cm of clear floor in front of runs of units so two people can pass and doors can open.
What is the best kitchen layout for a small London home?
A galley or single-run layout usually works best in a narrow London kitchen, keeping the work triangle compact and the floor clear. Build storage upward with tall units and shelving, choose a slim or integrated appliance set, and use a fold-down or pull-out surface for extra worktop. In a side-return extension, an L-shape with a small island or peninsula can open the room without crowding it.
How much space do you need around a kitchen island?
Allow at least 100cm of clear floor all around an island, and closer to 120cm on the side where you open the oven or dishwasher and need to stand back. An island that crowds the runs around it slows the whole kitchen down, so it is better to fit a smaller island, or a peninsula, than to force one in and lose the circulation space.
How should a kitchen be lit?
Use three layers. Task lighting under the wall units lights the worktop so you are not working in your own shadow, ambient lighting (downlights or a pendant run) lights the room, and accent lighting adds warmth in the evening. Put the layers on separate switches and dimmers, and light the hob and sink directly, since those are where you need to see clearly.
What is the most durable kitchen worktop?
Quartz (engineered stone) and natural granite are the most hard-wearing, resisting scratches and heat well, while porcelain is increasingly popular for being tough and heat-resistant. Solid timber is warm and repairable but needs oiling and care near water, and laminate is the budget-friendly option. Match the material to how hard you cook and how much upkeep you are willing to do.
How do you design a kitchen in a period property?
Work with the architecture. Many Victorian and Edwardian London kitchens sit in a side-return or rear extension, so plan the layout around the light from roof glazing and bi-fold doors. Use bespoke joinery to handle out-of-square walls, uneven floors and chimney breasts, choose a style in keeping with the house, and check listed or conservation-area rules before altering original fabric.
Do you need an extractor in a kitchen?
Yes. Good ventilation removes steam, grease and cooking smells and helps prevent damp, which matters especially in an open-plan or broken-plan kitchen where smells carry into living space. An externally ducted extractor is more effective than a recirculating one, so plan the duct route early, and size the extractor to the width of the hob below it.