Kitchen & Bathroom Interior Design in London

A kitchen succeeds or fails on its plan, long before anyone chooses a door finish. We start with how the room is really used — how many people cook at once, where the food, the bins and the recycling go, how the kitchen relates to eating and to the rest of the home — and design the layout around that. The relationships between sink, hob, fridge and preparation space, the flow of movement, and the balance of worktop and storage are all resolved first. In a London home this often means designing around a chimney breast, a return wall, a side-return extension or an awkward proportion, so the plan works with the room rather than against it.

The pieces of a kitchen are usually chosen separately and it shows — cabinetry from one supplier, a worktop picked in a hurry, appliances that do not quite suit the layout. We specify them together so they agree: cabinetry proportioned to the room and to your storage needs, worktops chosen for how they look and how they will really be used, and appliances selected and positioned as part of the design rather than squeezed in afterwards. We coordinate the cabinetmakers and suppliers who fabricate and install the units, and align their work with the plumbing, electrics and ventilation, so the finished kitchen is integrated rather than assembled.

A kitchen needs light for two different jobs — bright, shadow-free task lighting where you prepare and cook, and softer, layered light for when the room becomes a place to eat and sit. We design a proper lighting scheme for both, set out before the ceiling and cabinetry are fixed. The finishes then give the room its character: the palette of cabinetry, worktop, splashback, flooring and metalwork, chosen to sit together and to relate to the adjoining spaces, since in most London homes the kitchen is now open to living and dining areas. Handled as one, these decisions make a kitchen feel considered rather than catalogue-bought.

Many London kitchens are created as part of a larger project — a rear or side-return extension, a knock-through, or a whole-house refurbishment — and the interior design works best when it is developed alongside that building work, not squeezed in at the end. Positioning the kitchen, planning its services and setting out its lighting all need to happen while the structure is still being designed, which is why this service coordinates closely with our kitchen extension architecture work. Where the kitchen also involves substantial built-in joinery beyond the cabinetry — a run of larder units, banquette seating or fitted storage into the wider room — that fitted layer is designed and detailed through our interior-architecture service, so everything is properly coordinated.

We design bathrooms, en-suites, shower rooms and wet rooms with the same discipline we bring to kitchens. The layout is resolved first — where the WC, basin, bath and shower sit within the space and its plumbing, how the door swings, and how a compact London en-suite can still feel generous — before a single tile is chosen. We then specify sanitaryware, brassware, tiling and surfaces, heating and ventilation, and a lighting scheme that works for both grooming and relaxing, coordinating the waterproofing, falls and drainage a wet room depends on. In period homes and leasehold flats we plan around existing soil stacks, limited ventilation routes and the consents that moving bathrooms or wet areas can trigger, so the finished room is watertight, comfortable and coherent with the rest of the home.

Kitchens fail when the island looks right in a render but the cook cannot turn, the bin is a mile from prep, or the dishwasher door blocks the room. We design work triangles, storage and seating first, then materials. Bathrooms fail when sanitaryware is chosen before falls, extract and door swings are fixed. Sequence prevents expensive reordering of trades.

When the room is part of an extension or reconfiguration, kitchen interior design sits with kitchen extension architecture so structure and joinery agree.

Extraction, drainage, power, lighting and underfloor heating must be designed with the cabinetry and tiling, not chased afterwards. Wet rooms need a clear waterproofing strategy and falls to waste. We coordinate these into the technical package so the installer is not inventing details on site.

Leasehold flats add freeholder rules for wet-room moves and noise. We flag those early rather than after tiles are ordered.

Many clients buy kitchens from specialist suppliers. We set the architectural envelope, service positions and appliance strategy so the kitchen company designs into a resolved room. For bathrooms, we schedule sanitaryware, brassware, tiles and accessories as one scheme so quotes compare like for like.

The goal is a room that performs on a Tuesday morning, not only on install day photographs.

A like-for-like replacement — new units and finishes in the same positions, existing services retained — usually needs no separate approval at all, which is one reason it is the cheapest kind of refit. The threshold arrives when things move. New or relocated drainage, a bathroom moved to a different part of the plan, a structural opening to enlarge the room, or an extract route taken through the fabric all bring the work within the Building Regulations, and compliance then needs to be demonstrated through a building control application rather than left to the installer's judgement. Electrical work in kitchens and bathrooms falls under Approved Document P and is often self-certified by the electrician through a competent person scheme, while ventilation is assessed against Approved Document F, which is where an undersized extract in an internal bathroom tends to be picked up. In a leasehold flat there is a second layer: moving wet areas, drainage or extraction commonly needs the freeholder's formal consent, recorded through a licence to alter, and work done without one has a way of surfacing when the flat is sold. We establish which of these apply before the design is developed, so approvals run alongside the specification rather than chasing it.

There is no single right way to buy a kitchen, and we are deliberately agnostic about the route. A good kitchen company offers factory-made carcasses, consistent finishes and a defined range at a known price, and for a regular room with standard ceiling heights that is often the sensible choice; the design task is then arranging the range well rather than fighting it. Bespoke cabinetmakers earn their premium where the room resists standard modules: a period room with out-of-square walls and a chimney breast, tall ceilings that leave standard wall units looking stranded, or joinery that must continue past the kitchen into shelving and seating. Lead times differ too, since a bespoke workshop's programme is usually longer and needs booking earlier in the project. There is also a middle route that suits many London homes: supplier carcasses carrying made-to-measure fronts, end panels and scribe pieces, which buys most of the fitted look for less than a fully bespoke kitchen. Because we sell none of these, the advice is only about which route suits the room, the budget and the programme; whichever you choose, the layout, services and lighting we design remain the fixed framework the cabinetry is built into.