Checklists · Kitchen
Kitchen Planning Checklists
A kitchen project involves dozens of small decisions that are expensive to change once work has started. These checklists help you make and record those decisions in a sensible order, and separate what you can decide yourself from what needs a qualified professional.
Plumbing, electrical, gas, ventilation and any structural change are professional matters. Nothing here specifies, approves, prices or certifies work, and suitability always depends on the specific property.
33 checklists in this category
What this area covers
Planning topics in this category
Each checklist prepares one specific conversation or decision point. None of them determines compliance, suitability or cost.
- Layout and work-zone decisions
- Storage and appliance discussions
- Surface and finish decisions to record
- Questions for designers, suppliers and installers
Checklists in this category
Browse by project stage
Each checklist sits at the earliest point in a project where it becomes useful. Every checklist in this category appears in exactly one stage below.
Thinking it through (3)Early planning (19)Brief & professionals (4)Design & decisions (6)Before & during the work (1)
Thinking it through
Before anything is committed — working out whether the idea suits you at all.
Open-Plan Kitchen Questions →Questions to settle before a kitchen opens into living space: what the room has to do at once, how noise and smell travel, and what belongs with professionals.Kitchen Brief Preparation →Turning a vague wish for a new kitchen into a written brief a designer can respond to, covering how you cook, what must be kept and what you will not trade away.Cooking Habits Record →Write down how your household actually cooks, so that kitchen decisions rest on observed daily routine rather than on an imagined and rarely lived way of cooking.
Early planning
Gathering what you already know and shaping the project before drawings begin.
Kitchen Layout Decisions →A preparation checklist for recording how your kitchen room is really shaped and used, so layout conversations start from observed facts rather than guesswork.Kitchen Work Zone Planning →Prompts for observing how meals are really made in your household, so working zones, landing surface and the points where people collide can be described accurately.Kitchen Storage Requirements →A structured way to record everything the kitchen actually has to hold, so storage is planned around your real possessions rather than a general wish for more cupboards.Kitchen Ventilation Questions →Observations and questions to prepare before discussing kitchen extraction, covering how you cook, where air could go, how a hood would sit and why extractors stop being used.Cabinet Specification Questions →A preparation checklist for owners specifying kitchen cabinetry, covering carcass construction, doors, internal fittings and the details worth agreeing before an order is placed.Kitchen Flooring Decisions →Preparation prompts for choosing a kitchen floor, covering spills and dropped pans, whether the floor runs under the units, appliance access, junctions and cleaning.Small Kitchen Planning →Small kitchens fail in predictable places. This records where the room already runs out, the trade-offs to settle and the compact questions to raise before drawings.Services Relocation Questions →What to record before asking whether a sink, hob or appliance can move in a kitchen, and which questions belong with qualified and registered trades.Kitchen Supplier Conversation →Preparation prompts for meeting a kitchen supplier: what to take with you, how the design appointment runs, where their responsibility ends and what to have in writing.Kitchen Measuring Record →A record of what an owner can observe and note about the kitchen room before a designer or supplier carries out their own measured survey.Kitchen Island Discussion →A way to test whether an island earns its place in your kitchen, and to gather the questions worth asking before one is drawn into a layout.Kitchen Seating Decisions →A way to decide how people will actually sit and eat in the kitchen, and to record those decisions before seating is squeezed into whatever space is left.Larder and Pantry Planning →Larders are drawn from photographs and filled from real cupboards, so this list starts with the contents and moves on to doors, position and ventilation.Kitchen Waste Planning →A way to plan where waste and recycling really live in a kitchen, based on what your household throws away and how collection is arranged where you live.Small Appliance Planning →An owner-side record of which countertop appliances you own, where each one is genuinely used, and what to raise before kitchen cabinetry is drawn.Kitchen Safety Questions →A preparation checklist of household safety questions to raise with qualified professionals while a kitchen is still being planned, rather than after everything is fitted.Galley Kitchen Planning →Owner-side notes for a narrow two-run kitchen: the walking gap between the runs, where fronts collide across it, and what each end of the room is being asked to do.L-Shaped Kitchen Planning →A preparation checklist for a kitchen built on two adjoining walls, covering the internal corner, how the legs share the work, and the open floor everyone walks across.Kitchen Utility Relationship →Working out what a utility space genuinely takes off the kitchen, how the two rooms connect in daily use, and what the kitchen must absorb if there is no utility at all.
Brief & professionals
Writing the brief and preparing the conversations with qualified professionals.
Kitchen Appliance Discussion →Preparation prompts for the appliance conversation, covering what stays, what changes, the connections each item needs and the questions that belong with a qualified installer.Installation Sequence Questions →Preparation prompts for the order a kitchen installation runs in, covering strip out, who arrives when, templating, connections and the handovers that quietly go wrong.Drawer and Shelf Decisions →The inside of the cabinetry is settled once and used daily, so this list matches drawers, shelves and corners to what the household actually owns.Kitchen Socket Discussion →Gather what plugs in, what gets switched and what must stay reachable, so a kitchen electrical conversation starts from your own notes rather than from guesswork.
Design & decisions
The layout, material and finish decisions worth recording as the design develops.
Kitchen Worktop Decisions →Questions and observations to prepare before choosing a kitchen work surface, covering how it will be treated, where joints fall, what is cut into it and how it is looked after.Kitchen Lighting Discussion →Observations to make and questions to prepare before the kitchen lighting conversation, from where you stand and cast shadows to how switching and light colour should be handled.Kitchen Sink and Tap Decisions →Decisions to weigh and questions to raise before choosing a kitchen sink and tap, from how your household washes up to mounting, reach and what has to fit underneath.Kitchen Splashback Decisions →A way to decide what the wall behind the worktops and the hob has to survive, and which splashback questions belong with the supplier and the installer.Handle and Hardware Decisions →Handles are chosen from a photograph and gripped with wet hands, so this list weighs pulls, handleless fronts and mechanisms in use before cabinetry is ordered.Kitchen Upkeep Questions →A preparation checklist of upkeep questions to raise about kitchen surfaces, junctions and fittings, so cleaning effort is weighed before finishes are chosen.
Before & during the work
Site logistics, coordination and the questions that arise once work is under way.
Go deeper
Related Build Design Hub guides
Explanatory guidance behind the decisions these checklists prepare you for.