How Kitchen Fitters Can Help Maximise Space in Your Kitchen

It starts with an accurate survey

Kitchen planners work in neat 300, 400, 500 and 600 mm units. Rooms do not. Walls lean, corners are rarely square and pipes, boilers and window reveals sit wherever the house put them. A fitter who measures properly before anything is ordered can plan the units to fill the room rather than leaving gaps to be covered with filler panels.

Every filler panel is space you cannot store anything in. Measuring at several heights and depths, and noting where the walls are out of true, lets the plan use wider units and tighter fillers, and means the units arrive the right size.

Using the full height of the room

Standard wall units stop well short of most ceilings, leaving a dust shelf on top. Taller wall units, or a second row of shallow cupboards above them, add storage for things you use a few times a year, and look neater too. Tall larder and appliance housings do the same at floor level, giving a full-height column of storage in a space no wider than a base unit.

Down at floor level, the plinth hides a void behind it on every run of base units. Plinth drawers turn it into shallow storage for trays, baking sheets and cleaning cloths.

Corners, ends and awkward spaces

• Corner units

  A blind corner wastes the back of the cupboard. Pull-out corner mechanisms, or a corner drawer unit, make the whole depth reachable.

• Pan drawers

  Deep drawers instead of cupboards bring everything to the front, so the back of the unit is used rather than forgotten.

• Narrow pull-outs

  A 150 or 200 mm gap beside the cooker or a wall can take a pull-out for bottles, oils or trays instead of a filler.

• End panels and shelves

  The end of a run can carry open shelves or a shallow cupboard instead of a plain panel.

• Chimney breasts

  The alcoves either side can take tall cupboards or a dresser, and the breast itself can house the cooker.

• Under the stairs

  Where a kitchen backs onto the stairs, the space underneath can become a larder or a home for the washing machine.

Moving pipes, boilers and appliances

Some of the biggest gains come from moving things that are in the way: boxing a boiler into a tall unit, re-routing pipes that run across a wall at worktop height, moving a radiator to free up a wall for units, or taking the washing machine out of the kitchen altogether. That work needs a plumber, an electrician and sometimes a Gas Safe engineer, which we arrange through Derbyshire Specialists Group so it is planned with the units rather than worked around.

Making more of the worktop

• Built-in housings for the oven and microwave keep those appliances off the worktop.
• A deeper worktop on one run, or a breakfast bar overhang, adds working space and somewhere to sit.
• An undermounted sink or a sink with a drainer grooved into the worktop gives more usable surface than a large inset bowl and drainer.
• A hob with a downdraft or slim extractor frees up the wall above for cupboards or open shelves.
• Accurate scribing to the wall means no gap at the back of the worktop for things to fall down.

Why the fitting matters as much as the plan

A good plan can still lose space if the fit is poor. Units that are not level push wall cupboards out of line, doors that are not adjusted foul each other in corners, and appliances that are not set to the right depth stick out past the doors. Taking the time to level, fix and adjust every unit is what lets the planned storage actually work.

If your kitchen is small, our small kitchen design guide goes further into layouts and storage for compact rooms.

Kitchen space questions