Room Guide
Kitchen
Where life happens — design principles for a kitchen that works beautifully every day.
The kitchen is the hardest room in the house to get right. It has to be functional enough to cook in every day, durable enough to survive years of use, and beautiful enough that you actually want to spend time in it. The best kitchens do all three — and they do it by getting the fundamentals right before worrying about the finishes.
Four principles for a kitchen that lasts
Respect the Work Triangle
The relationship between your sink, hob, and refrigerator determines how your kitchen feels to cook in every single day. These three points should form a triangle with no leg longer than 9 feet and no leg shorter than 4 feet. If a door, island, or cabinet interrupts any leg, the kitchen becomes tiring to use. Before you think about finishes or hardware, map your work triangle and make sure it flows.
Go Deeper on Storage
Every kitchen designer will tell you the same thing: clients always wish they'd added more storage. The solution isn't just more cabinets — it's smarter ones. Deep drawers instead of base cabinets let you see everything at once. Pull-out shelves in corner units eliminate the dead zone. A tall larder cabinet holds more than three standard wall cabinets combined. Think about where every category of item lives before you finalise the layout.
Choose Warm Materials
The all-white, high-gloss kitchen has given way to something warmer and more human. Natural wood, unlacquered brass, matte finishes, stone with visible veining — these materials age beautifully, hide daily use, and make the kitchen feel like a room you want to be in. Cabinet colours drawn from the earth (warm sage, dusty clay, deep navy) outlast trend-driven choices and look better with age.
Layer the Lighting
Kitchen lighting is almost always an afterthought — and it shows. A single ceiling fitting leaves the worktops in shadow precisely where you need to see. Layer three types: under-cabinet task lighting for the worktop, pendants over an island or table for atmosphere, and ambient downlights on a dimmer for the overall room. Get the lighting right and the kitchen feels completely different in the evening.
"The kitchen you'll love in ten years is the one you designed for how you actually cook — not for how you imagine you might."