Kitchen Design in London

Bespoke kitchen design in London, built around how you cook, store and live. Winner of Ultimate Luxury Kitchen Design of the Year.

A kitchen is the most expensive room in the house per square metre, and the one where small mistakes are hardest to live with. A dishwasher that sticks out of the run. A drawer that will not take the weight of your pans. A pendant hanging over a beam rather than the island. We design kitchens in London homes as part of the whole house, from the layout and joinery drawings to the appliances, stone, lighting and the last handle, and we have been doing kitchen design in London for over 18 years.

In 2018 our work won Ultimate Luxury Kitchen Design of the Year at the Designer Kitchen & Bathroom Awards.

Our kitchen design services in London

  • Full bespoke kitchens, from layout to joinery elevations, worktops and appliances.
  • Kitchens in new extensions, coordinated with the structure, doors, flooring and lighting.
  • Relocated kitchens in flats, including drainage, extraction and building-management approval.
  • Pantries, larders, utility cupboards, banquettes and breakfast bars.
  • Refurbishments within the existing footprint, where the brief is better rather than bigger.
London kitchen design with bronze larder cabinets and a burr walnut island beside the dining table
Bronze hallway cupboards opening to walnut pull-out drawers
Bronze kitchen doors opening to a hidden walnut coffee station, part of a bespoke kitchen design in London
Bright kitchen with a blue range cooker
Galley kitchen design in a London extension with a roof lantern, blue units and an American fridge
Modern kitchen design with blue cabinets in a London home

How we design a kitchen

  1. A proper brief. Who cooks, how often, what you store, where the post and the vacuum cleaner currently live. The design team can only design from the information they have, so the more honest you are about how you use the room, the better it works.
  2. Layout and 3D. We present layout drawings and 3D views, then revise them with you. We often split proposals into essentials and optional extras so you can decide on the core design first.
  3. Joinery drawings and specification. Floor plan and elevations for every run, with appliances, sockets, lighting and extraction coordinated on the same drawings and shared with the electrician before first fix.
  4. Pricing and procurement. Cabinetry, worktops, appliances, finishes and installation are priced as separate elements, so you can see where the money goes.
  5. Installation. We sequence the kitchen with everything around it: plastering before templating, floor before units, units before stone. Then we snag it.

Advice we give clients (that you will not find in a showroom)

  • Design the depth around the appliance, not the catalogue. Deeper sink-run cabinets let a standard dishwasher sit flush. Check fridge and freezer depths early too, or they will stand proud of the run.
  • Think twice before cladding a dishwasher in the island. A heavy dishwasher door wears out its cladding. On one project we moved the dishwasher to a tall unit and put the bins in the island instead.
  • Check the integrated bin size against the cabinet before you fall in love with the layout.
  • Plan storage for the unglamorous things. A tall unit for the vacuum cleaner and cleaning products saves a lot of irritation.
  • Match the inside of the drawer to what goes in it. Peg boards for pans and plates in wide drawers under the hob, wooden inserts for cutlery, and runners rated for the load (we confirmed around 30kg per drawer on one project).
  • Island overhangs need support. Ask the stonemason what they need, then hide it. Discreet brackets usually look better than legs.
  • Confirm the extractor works with the ducting route before you choose it. Some hob and hood pairs switch on together, which is worth knowing.
  • Look at the tap and handles side by side. Two brass finishes from two suppliers rarely match.
  • Moving a kitchen in a flat is a building project. Drainage, extraction, structure and Building Control all need answering early. Our architectural services cover exactly this.
Colourful pendant light over a kitchen
Wooden fold-out step that tucks away into the kitchen cabinetry, beside a wine fridge
Notting Hill cottage kitchen with a boiling-water tap
Kitchen in a Hampstead house designed by Kia Designs
Sage green kitchen with a large island and open shelving in a Cornwall home designed by Kia Designs
Bespoke Kensington kitchen with handleless white cabinetry and open display shelving

Recent kitchen design projects in London

  • A house in Stoke Newington. A new kitchen and living area with an island, pantry, integrated storage, ceiling-mounted extractor and bespoke seating linking the kitchen to the dining space, with concealed structural steelwork above. More of our work in the area: the Stoke Newington extension.
  • A house in Islington. A like-for-like refurbishment within the existing footprint, with deeper sink-run cabinets so the dishwasher no longer projects into the room.
  • An apartment in Canary Wharf. A new layout with an island and stone finishes, designed around how the clients actually load and unload.
  • A flat in Bermondsey. Push-to-open cabinetry with a one-piece stone peninsula and breakfast bar.
  • A house in Kensington. A full rethink of the layout to keep a generous island and pantry-style storage while making the room look calmer.
  • A flat in Greenwich. A bespoke pantry built into an awkward services cupboard and painted to match the new cabinets.

When things go wrong on site

They do, and the measure of a designer is how quickly it gets sorted. A selected hob was discontinued mid-project, so we sent alternatives the same week. Kitchen doors for an extension arrived the wrong size, so they were fitted temporarily to secure the building while the correct ones were made. When a supplier could not give reliable dates, we priced an alternative cabinet maker and kept the appliances separate so nothing else stalled.

Read more

Knightsbridge kitchen design by Kia Designs, London

Questions we get asked

Do you only design the kitchen? We usually design kitchens as part of a wider project, because the kitchen depends on the rooms, structure and services around it. If a kitchen is the main focus, tell us and we will talk it through.

Do you work with a particular kitchen company? No. We design the kitchen, then source the right maker for the brief and budget.

How long does it take? Lead times vary by maker. On one recent project it was around seven weeks from signed-off drawings to delivery, with stone templated and fitted after the units went in.

What does it cost? See our pricing page for how our fees work.

Next step

If you are looking for kitchen design in London, the first conversation is free. Send us a few photos of the room, tell us what is not working, and we will tell you what we would do. Get in touch here.