Kitchen Design in Stoke-on-Trent

A kitchen planned from a brochure is planned for a room that does not exist. Ours starts in your house: we measure, check behind the walls and under the floor, and note where the water, waste and circuits run today. The layout is worked out around what we find, and the same team then supplies and installs the kitchen once you are happy with it.

The free design visit settles:

• Every wall, opening and floor level in the room, measured
• Where the sink, hob and fridge go, and the space to move between them
• The unit layout, tall storage and anything that has to be made to fit
• Door style, handles and worktop, chosen from samples in the room
• Sockets, appliance circuits and lighting
• Pipework and waste for a new sink or dishwasher position
• Flooring, splashback and any underfloor heating

On larger projects we also draw up the layout for you to look over before the quote is written. All of that goes onto one itemised written quote, so the price you agree covers the kitchen as it was designed, not a version of it.

The typical Stoke kitchen sits in the back addition of a terrace in Burslem, Tunstall, Longton or Fenton. It is long and narrow, with a back door part way along one side and a chimney breast on the other. The usual answer is a galley down both walls, or an L-shape that stops short of the door, with tall units at the far end so storage climbs instead of spreading.

The old work triangle between sink, hob and fridge is still a sensible check. In a narrow room it tends to flatten into a line, so it helps to think in zones: preparation space beside the sink, somewhere to put a hot pan down on both sides of the hob, and the fridge near the door where it can be reached without crossing the cooking area.

Walls here rarely meet at a true right angle and floors often fall along the room, so scribed end panels and levelled carcasses are allowed for in the design.

Solid brick walls leave nowhere to hide a pipe or a cable, so every move of the sink, hob or sockets is routed before a wall is chased. Older kitchen circuits sometimes predate RCD protection, which is far easier to correct when it is part of the plan.

On the newer estates at Trentham, Barlaston, Blurton and Bucknall the room is usually square and sound. There the brief is replacing a builder’s standard kitchen with one that works harder, with more storage, a better worktop and an island or peninsula where space allows. Where an island will not fit, a peninsula often does the same job: the navy kitchen at the top of this page, in Fenton, puts the hob on one and the sink under the window.

Burton’s hard water adds its own design choices: a brushed tap over polished chrome, a cupboard kept for a softener, a dishwasher plumbed to suit. Our kitchens in Burton upon Trent are planned with all of that settled at the survey. In the interwar semis around Westlands, kitchen fitting in Newcastle-under-Lyme often starts with whether the old pantry wall can come out.

What does a designed and fitted kitchen cost?

The survey and design are free. The ranges opposite are where most of our kitchens finish, supplied and fitted, wherever we work.

Where yours lands depends on the size of the room, the units and worktop, and how far the plan moves the sink, hob and sockets. Because the design is settled before you get the written quote, the price is itemised and fixed for the kitchen you have agreed.