Section
Kitchens
Layouts, benchtops, lighting and the order of decisions that makes a kitchen easy to use for decades.
A kitchen is the most planned room in most houses, and the one where small measurements matter most. An aisle that is a hand-span too narrow, a benchtop with no landing space beside the oven, a pendant hung where it throws your shadow across the chopping board: each is minor on paper and irritating every single day.
The guides in this section start with the bones (how the room is laid out, where water and power run, how much clear bench you actually need) and work outwards to surfaces, lighting and finishes. We write for people planning their own kitchen, whether they end up working with a designer, a cabinetmaker or doing much of the thinking themselves.
Articles
- Benchtop materials compared: what each one is really like to live withLaminate, timber, stainless steel, natural stone, compact surfaces and engineered stone compared on wear, care and heat, plus the silica question in NZ.
- Kitchen layouts that work: triangles, aisles and landing spaceGalley, L-shape, U-shape or island? How the work triangle, aisle widths and landing space decide whether a kitchen layout actually works day to day.
- What a kitchen design process looks like, step by stepFrom the first brief to the final install: the stages of working with a kitchen designer in New Zealand, and what to decide, check and sign off at each one.