Planning a Bespoke Kitchen with Fitted Wooden Units

Start With the Room, Not the Brochure

It is tempting to begin a kitchen project by falling in love with a style of door or a particular shade of painted oak. But the most successful bespoke kitchens are always designed from the bones of the room outwards. Before you choose a single cabinet, you need to know exactly what you are working with.

Measure the room properly, and measure it more than once. Record the overall length and width, then note the position of every window, door, radiator, soil pipe and electrical socket. Check ceiling heights at several points, because older homes in particular are rarely square, and a run of fitted units that looks level on paper can end up with an awkward gap at one end. Note which walls are solid and which are stud partitions, since this affects how heavy wall cabinets can be hung and where you can safely fix them.

Pay attention to the things you cannot move easily. Boiler flues, waste pipes and the incoming water supply will all shape where the sink and appliances can reasonably go. Working around these early is far cheaper than discovering a problem after the carcasses have been delivered.

Think About How You Actually Cook and Live

A kitchen is rarely just a kitchen. In most homes it doubles as a dining space, a homework station, a place to fold laundry and somewhere to stand and chat over a mug of tea. Before deciding on layouts, spend a week noticing how your household really uses the room.

• How many people cook at once, and do they get in each other's way?
• Is the main priority speed on a weekday evening, or space for slow weekend baking?
• Do you need a clear walkway through the room, or is it a destination in itself?
• Where do people naturally dump bags, post and keys when they walk in?

The classic working triangle between sink, hob and fridge still holds good, but it should be adapted to your habits rather than followed slavishly. If you regularly cook with two people, allow generous landing space beside the hob and a clear stretch of worktop between the preparation area and the bin. If you bake, a lower, wider surface for rolling out pastry is worth more than an extra wall cabinet.

Storage: Plan the Inside as Carefully as the Outside

Fitted wooden units give you far more control over storage than standard sizes, and this is where bespoke work earns its keep. Rather than counting cupboards, think about the items each one has to hold.

Deep drawers beneath the worktop are usually a better use of space than base cupboards with half-depth shelves, because you can pull everything into the light. Reserve a tall unit for trays, baking sheets and chopping boards, and consider a narrow pull-out for oils, spices and cleaning bottles. Corner spaces are the traditional graveyard of kitchen storage, so plan a carousel or a clever folding mechanism if you want to reach into them easily.

Do not forget the vertical. A full-height larder unit can swallow a surprising amount of dry goods, small appliances and bulky pans, keeping the worktops clear. If the room has the ceiling height, taking units up to the cornice rather than stopping short with a dusty gap above is both neater and more practical.

Work Surfaces and the Space Between Things

Worktop is the part of the kitchen you touch most, so give it proper thought. Aim for at least 600mm of clear surface either side of the hob and a similar stretch beside the sink, and remember that a run of worktop with nothing on it is genuinely useful. If you are short of room, a slight overhang into a window reveal or a shallow depth return can add valuable preparation space without crowding the floor.

Height matters too. Most worktops sit around 900mm from the floor, but if you are tall, or if several people of different heights share the cooking, raising or lowering the surface by a few centimetres makes a real difference to comfort. Consider a solid timber surface in a warm tone for character, or a hard-wearing composite where you want low maintenance, and always allow for a decent upstand or splashback behind the hob.

Getting the Layout Right on Paper

Once you have your measurements and a clear idea of how you live, sketch the room to scale and try at least two or three layouts. Mark the walkways first and keep them clear; a gap of around 1000mm between opposing runs feels comfortable, while anything under 900mm quickly becomes a squeeze when the oven door is open or a drawer is pulled out.

Think about light as well. Wall cabinets on a window wall can block daylight and make the room feel smaller, so low units with a shelf above often work better there. Then consider the practical services: where will the extractor duct run, and can the plumbing be kept simple and accessible?

A bespoke kitchen rewards patience at the planning stage. Get the measurements, storage and workflow right before you fall for a finish, and the fitted wooden units will serve the house well for decades rather than merely looking the part on the day they are installed.