Kitchen Design

Kitchen design is very important, but it is sometimes confused with kitchen planning. They are two different things.

Planning your kitchen in a new build is about carefully considering your current and future needs for this most important room in the home. Planning your kitchen in this situation involves identifying the relationship, linkage and location of other adjacent rooms such as the dining and living rooms. Planning involves thinking about the future as your family grows.

Design is correctly implementing the plans you have formulated into the allocated space.  There is no limit to the amount of kitchen designs you can have - only your imagination. Kitchen design is primarily about the effective use of the space you create.



Both planning and design are critical, and ignoring one while concentrating on the other can lead to both regret and cost in the future.

In an existing house or apartment you are obviously limited by what is already constructed.  When you plan a kitchen in this situation, you have to adjust your thinking to conform to what is already there.

Designing a kitchen that you want means putting in the research where you look at possibly hundreds of different designs and pick ideas from each, to finally put in place the jigsaw that was your jumbled thoughts at the outset.

Your research will undoubtedly take you across the vast cyberspace of the internet, into numerous showrooms and design centres.  Ireland is not really a big place so it pays to spend time doing a bit legwork to get the right combination. This is the most important room in the house, and one that you may be using for the rest of your life.

In our Kitchen Photo Gallery Section, you will find many colour photos of kitchens, large and small, expensive and affordable in different styles from contemporary to rustic. If you want cutting edge design, look at kitchen designs from European countries. These kitchen designers often produce stunning results in small spaces, especially German and Italian designers.

Design is not just about cabinets and worktops. Every surface in the kitchen is a design element. The backsplash space between the worktops, ceiling, doors, wall spaces above and around cabinets, etc. all should contribute to the overall design theme.
Unfortunately, lighting is often overlooked in many kitchen designs and it the single most important element. Natural light is your greatest companion, particularly in dreary Irish winters. You do not want to create a situation where artificial lighting in winter time is the only means of illuminating your kitchen during daylight hours.

If you are buying or building a house that is costing a lot of money, it may be well worth the money to invest in an independent designer. They can be sourced by word of mouth (the best way) or through professional listings such as Kitchens Ireland provide in their Find a Professional section.

Do not rely on kitchen manufacturers to design your kitchen as part of their quotation. This is the tail wagging the dog. Manufacturers will steer you in their direction from a convenience point of view (for them) and a maximizing of the cost (for you). Again, depending on budget, the independent advice of a designer can be saved many times over in cost and contentment from knowing that you have what you set out to achieve.

As with every room in your house, planning your Kitchen is the key.