AN ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO: Kitchen Design

AN ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO: Kitchen Design

From “who is it for?” to “what will they be doing?”, follow this indispensable blueprint to planning and building your cooking and eating space.

Kate Watson-Smyth

Oct 28, 2026

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Redoing your kitchen is expensive, messy, and disruptive. I remember when we did ours and had to set up a portable electric two-burner hob and mini-oven on my desk at the back of the sitting room, which we had only just finished decorating.

“Hurray, “ said my son. “I can fry an egg after I finish my shift at the pub tonight.”

I reminded him the room was newly painted, and that while he was welcome to scramble, poach or boil, there would be

no frying

. In fact it would be six long weeks before the three of us sat down to a symbolic celebratory supper of fried eggs on toast, the first meal we were able to eat in the finally completed kitchen.

The point of the story is that unless you can move out altogether, doing up a kitchen is always annoying, takes a long time, and costs too much. Which means you really need to get it right first time.

So in this post I’m going to focus mainly on function and layout, because if you can crack those fundamentals, any future changes are basically cosmetic - changing the colour of the cupboards, or swapping the handles, for example - rather than a full scale rip-out and re-do.

image courtesy of Smeg

Here then, is my guide to planning the perfect kitchen.

This post is brought to you by Smeg, the Italian company for high-end designer appliances. Made famous by the retro-style FAB fridge that comes in over 15 different shades. Smeg (an acronym for Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla (Guastalla is the town where it is based) also offers a complete range of appliances with sleek, modern styling - as well an an ever-expanding collection of small appliances, such as coffee machines, blenders and toasters.

Step one is

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE,

by which I mean ask yourself the first of the six key questions that any room design requires:

WHO is it for?

This is the one answer that will change over time, as the needs of a young child-free couple will be different from those of a young couple with a couple of toddlers, and may change when toddlers become teens, and again when they eventually leave home.

But if you get the basic layout right then all these changes become simply a question of reorganising cupboards. When my sons were young, I had a low cupboard with cereal, plastic bowls and beakers that they could access on weekend mornings. That later became a place for Tupperware and food storage. Later (had we not moved) it might have been removed to make way for a wine fridge, or used as storage for big serving platters and dishes that aren’t needed every day.

We lived in that house for 12 years and while we painted the cupboard doors (three times) the walls (twice) and changed the worktop (because we wanted the island to have a ledge for stools to slide under) we never had to alter the layout or the basic configuration of the space. It worked for us as a family with kids aged nine and seven to young men of 21 and 19.

The point being that if you understand who is actually using the space and what they are doing there, rather than just putting a cooker, sink and fridge in a vague triangle shape, you are more likely to create a working space that lasts.

My old kitchen

Next thing to consider:

WHAT are they doing in there

? Is this a kitchen for cooking or heating up ready-meals? Do you need storage for baking paraphernalia, or it is more about open shelves for displaying beautiful crockery?

Make a note of all of it and how much space each activity might ideally need - a marble slab for pastry, a permanent space on the worktop for a mixer or a coffee machine. It can be helpful to factor in at least 40cm of clear worktop by the fridge, so you can unpack the groceries, for example.

Of course, for most of us there will have to be compromises, but at least if you are clear about what you want in an ideal world, you can prioritise how much space you can actually afford give each activity.

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Once you have worked out the

WHO

and

WHAT

it’s time to focus on the

WHEN -

and this is another crucial part of the equation. In the first instance it’s about flow. Will there be four people by the toaster at 8am, or is breakfast staggered? If everyone is eating dinner together, is there a clear path to the dishwater with the dirty plates.

It can make sense to keep cutlery close to the dining table rather than closer to the prep area, as that way one person can lay the table while someone else is cooking.

my current kitchen

This question is also about lighting. Ideally you want to have a separate circuit for each functional zone, so you can light the dining and dim the washing up. It can start to point you in the direction of a colour scheme - dark or light, depending on the position of the room within the house.

The next question is

WHERE

- and for me that means

WHERE are you shopping

? Only when you know that can you start to plan your budget. Are you looking to install Ikea carcasses with custom worktops, or handmade cabinetry and a vintage table? We will come onto the appliances later but that’s also a key part of your budget planning.

Sticking with the practical, you must always ask yourself

WHY you are doing a particular room,

and that is because it is crucial to fully understand the things that don’t work so you can put them right. Often we get used to working with the idiosnycrasies of a space and forget to fully investigate our reasons for renovation. It’s not just about colour or taste: the chances are there are things that annoy you about your current set-up, and it’s important to note them down and design them out.

The final, and perhaps the most important question of all is

HOW do you want to feel

in the new space? This is where we look at colour and materials. Do you want a sunny farmhouse kitchen with patterned tiles and a marble worktop, or are you leaning to plaster pink with terracotta floor tiles and a stainless steel counter for lots of food prep?

You need to understand if a yellow kitchen will make you greet each morning with joy, or if it will feel just too damn chatty for an early start. Ask yourself how you want to feel and what colours promote that mood. Decorate accordingly.

Once you have dealt with those questions, you should have a sense of what your kitchen needs and how it is going to look - and you are ready to plan the

LAYOUT

.

For many of us there aren’t 36 options on that. I still find that a pencil and a bit of graph paper are the best way to work things out. A standard cupboard or appliance is 600mm wide, so start by measuring the length of the room and calculating how many of those standard units you can fit in. A sink, dishwasher and standard oven will take 600mm each, so that’s three slots gone in a run before you look at storage. But installing deep, wide drawers of 120mm can make it easier to access pans and platters, and you might prefer a free-standing fridge, or an under-counter freezer.

Do you want a large range cooker, or will an eye-level oven be both less back-breaking and stay out of reach of tiny, sticky hands? Again, understanding who will be in there and what they will be doing will help you answer many of these questions.

A kitchen I styled for Smeg

You are now ready to start placing orders, and so we get to the fun bit - aka the appliances. Do you want a boiling water tap or a sexy kettle? How do you like your coffee (bean-to-cup in my case)? And what about the big three: dishwasher, fridge and oven?

Let’s talk about

THE APPLIANCES

.

The reason this post is sponsored by Smeg is that I have always used their appliances. My husband and I bought our first flat in 1998 (yes we are that old) and we had a Smeg range cooker. Fast forward through four more London houses to our current place. Plus the house in Italy, which has a Smeg range cooker, dishwasher and fridge, as well as a four-slice long slot toaster and bean-to-cup coffee machine.

my long slot smeg toaster and bean to cup coffee machine

When we did the kitchen in Italy, our architect advised us (narrator: she insisted) on an induction hob, as we would be leaving the house empty for extended periods of time and it was safer than having gas. We were initially reluctant, but she can be forthright and we conceded. And we loved the

Victoria range cooker

which had the retro vibes we wanted, combined with the safety of a large induction top.

my induction range cooker from Smeg

And let me tell you, it was a game-changer. It took a little while to get used to cooking with induction - but man, it’s fast, and also it’s so easy to clean. With a gas hob you have to take off all the burners and grilles to wipe and wash them and then reassemble the whole thing. It’s a faff. With induction you can just wipe it all clean in seconds and even can use it as extra worktop space if you’re dishing up a big meal and want to lay the plates out.

It was only a matter of time before we decided to swap to induction in London as well. We have a 75mm wide, four-burner induction hob and it’s fast, efficient and sits neatly in the worktop.

the Smeg Dolce Stil Novo oven

Having worked with Smeg on several styling assignments over the years I was also very taken with the latest oven from its

Dolce Stil Novo

collection, which works on a traditional fan-assisted basis but also allows you to tell it what you are cooking, so it can calculate the optimum time and temperature programme for you. And, as someone who always forgets to look at the clock when I open the oven and put something inside, the timer also runs automatically from the moment the door is closed.

You can also now choose the colour of the oven trim and as someone who has a copper worktop and bronze handles, I really wanted to find an oven that wasn’t in the traditional stainless steel finish. Titanium trim comes as standard but you can choose between copper or stainless steel for that extra tiny detail that makes all the difference to a considered design.

My new Smeg oven and induction hob

The oven also has a steam option, and can cook things on two different temperatures

AT THE SAME TIME

which is, you might think, niche, until you realise that you were cooking the beef on 200 and the Yorkshire puddings need to go in for 30 minutes at the end on 240 and that’s too long to rest the beef.

In London we also have a Smeg dishwasher, another (different) bean-to-cup coffee machine and toaster. When I was working on the hotel in Mallorca with my client recently, we opted for Smeg appliances in all 12 rooms there as well. Somehow a Smeg toaster just makes the best toast - I’ve no idea why.

Smeg toaster

Some years ago I interviewed the CEO of Smeg and asked who the company regarded as its competition in the world of kitchen appliances. Without missing a beat, he looked at me across his desk and said: “Jimmy Choo and Dolce & Gabbana.”

He enjoyed my confusion for a moment before explaining that Smeg regards itself as more than just kitchen equipment. It’s good-looking and high-end, and just because it’s for your home doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have the same cachet as an item of designer clothing.

Fair point. And I would argue further that you probably use your toaster or your oven more often than you wear your Jimmy Choos.

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