The complete kitchen renovation guide for homeowners

A kitchen renovation is usually high on the agenda of any homeowners who have recently taken on a property in need of renovation or modernisation. Rarely do renovation projects come complete with dream kitchens and yet this is a room that we spend a huge amount of time in these days.

When designing a kitchen, people want a room that can not only act as a practical space for carrying out food preparation and cooking, but also seek one that can accommodate a range of other activities, such as dining or entertaining. 

A kitchen is one of the most challenging spaces to tackle when renovating a house, especially when planning a multi-functional space that works as a living, socialising and dining space, as well as a place to prep food. It is also one area of the home where costs can really spiral if you don't get yourself properly prepared. 

This guide walks you through everything you need to know about renovating a kitchen, from planning a design to reconfiguring layouts, as well as heating, plumbing and electrics.

Developing a kitchen renovation brief

In order to get the kitchen of your dreams, you will need to come up with a concise brief, listing all your requirements — this is key to planning a kitchen that will work for you. This is the first thing you should do, starting with the basics. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Will you be using your kitchen only as a room in which to store, prepare and cook food, or would you like it to double up as a room in which you can sit and eat too?
• Will this also be an entertaining space?
• Would you be satisfied with a breakfast bar or island unit with stools, or would a full-size table for family gatherings be better?
• Every kitchen needs a cooker, fridge freezer and sink. What other features do you want in addition? 
• What do you want to retain from the existing space? For example, are there any interesting architectural details that could be incorporated into your new design, such as old beams or alcoves?
• How much kitchen equipment do you own and how do you like to shop and store your food? You will need your kitchen storage to take this into account.
• What is your total budget? 
• How much natural light does the room enjoy? This will help you choose windows as well as artificial light sources.

"Completely renovating your kitchen can be a daunting task," says James McCartney, business development director at Appliance City. "So, taking a step back and examining exactly what changes you’d like to make will help you to determine which are your must-have items. For example, if you want a new American Style Fridge Freezer, your budget should reflect this. If you spend the majority of your budget elsewhere, you may find that you don’t have enough for your dream fridge."

How to create a schedule of works for a kitchen renovation

For your kitchen ideas to become a reality in a smooth, organised way and to be completed in the timescale you hope, you will need a schedule of works — just as you would when renovating a house. That is a list of all the jobs that will need to be carried out, from start to finish, to complete your project.

A typical schedule of works for a kitchen renovation looks like this:

• Remove wall units
• Remove worktop and base units
• Disconnect power and waste
• Remove flooring
• First fix electrics
• Reroute plumbing
• Level floor
• Lay new flooring
• Plaster walls if necessary 
• Paint at least one initial coat on the walls and ceilings before units are fitted
• Install base units
• Install wall units
• Second fix electrics
• Fit worktop
• Fit sink and complete plumbing to taps, drains and appliances
• Install appliances
• Fit extractor fan
• Tile and decorate

Developing a kitchen design

There are several different routes when it comes to formulating a design for your new kitchen. Some people decide to go all out and hire an interior designer. Another route is to use a specialist kitchen designer to run the whole project. Others take a DIY approach — which is obviously the cheapest route.

In most cases, using a kitchen supplier will be the chosen route. By approaching a specialist kitchen company with your ideas, they will usually come up with several designs for you to look at, based on the dimensions of your space and your individual needs. There should be no obligation for you to buy your kitchen from them and there is rarely a charge for these designs. 

However, as part of an overall kitchen renovation, it's unlikely that a kitchen supplier will provide anything other than kitchen installation, such as any extensions, structural changes required and new glazing. However, you could ask your architect to come up with a kitchen design for you as part of the overall scheme. Alternatively, there are design and build companies, and interior designers, who would be able to do both jobs. 

Don't forget your new kitchen lighting ideas either — they should be developed at the same time as your overall kitchen design if you want to ensure the whole room works well. 

How to remove an old kitchen

Removing the old kitchen is the first step of fitting a kitchen, but before you begin ripping out the units, bear in mind that there may well be some items worth salvaging.

If you are remodelling your kitchen on a budget then it will be worth taking a look at what kind of condition your unit carcasses are in — whilst the unit doors may be in a bad state of repair or not to your taste, you might find that the carcasses can be reused by replacing kitchen doors.

"You may find that you don’t actually need to replace many things in your kitchen,"says James McCartney. "If your kitchen cabinetry is in good structural condition, simply updating them will be much more cost effective. Some examples of how you can update these include a lick of fresh paint, replacing doors and drawer fronts, buying new hardware, or installing some open shelving.

"Updating your kitchen whilst keeping most of the materials is always going to be a budget friendly alternative to full tear out and replacement projects."

Before you can get rid of the old kitchen you will need to have a plan of how you will dispose of it — ideally you will have ordered a skip. However, some people choose to save on the associated costs by making trips to and from their local tip.

James McCartney

 James McCartney is business development director at Appliance City. James is an appliance expert who has worked in the industry for over 30 years.

Installing new electrics in an old kitchen

Before your new kitchen is fitted, first fix electrical work needs to be carried out. Your electrician will need to check the existing system, as in many renovation projects complete rewiring is called for anyway.

"If you’ve bought a doer-upper or the property hasn't been renovated for more than 20 years, then you will have to accept that you are going to have to upgrade the existing electricity supply," says quantity surveyor Tim Phillips.

Give your electrician a plan showing the quantity and the position of all electrical switches and sockets. You will need sockets for all your appliances and even then it is best to have some extra.

Although a qualified electrician will carry out the majority of work, you can save money by doing some jobs yourself. Chasing out the walls for the new metal boxes and casing for sockets and wiring will cut down the amount of time an electrician will spend on the job.

The electrician should return to carry out second fix electrics, such as connections to plug sockets, before the worktops are fitted. When purchasing your sockets, bear in mind that some appliances, such as your cooker, will require a breaker switch which allows you to turn it off without having to pull it out and reach a socket.

Tim Phillip

Tim Phillips is an experienced senior quantity surveyor and estimator and has worked in the construction industry for over 35 years. He has worked on many varied projects in this time, for corporates, public bodies and private residential clients, managing multi-million budgets. 

For the past 13 years, Tim has worked on a freelance basis, whilst managing his rental property portfolio. He has extensive experience of undertaking his own full-scale house renovations. He is also a speaker and expert at the Homebuilding & Renovating Shows.

Rerouting and installing kitchen plumbing

The plumbing in your kitchen needs to perform two functions — providing a water supply and taking away waste.

You will need a hot and cold water supply and there needs to be a waste pump from the sink to outside and a hot and cold water supply feeding the kitchen tap.

If you have a washing machine in the kitchen, this will need to be either connected to the hot and cold water, or just to the cold water, whilst most dishwashers only require a cold water connection.

Ask a plumber to take a look at your pipework and decide whether it is worth saving it or starting again.

"If existing services such as plumbing, wiring and gas connections are in sound condition and don't require any major adjustments, you will definitely save money," says Tim Phillips . 

Your main consideration will need to be whether the existing arrangement of the pipes is going to get in the way of your planned kitchen layout ideas — unless you are putting everything back in the same place, you are likely to find that pipework will need to be rerouted.

Check old pipes for kinks and dents and inspect the joints, looking out for green marks, which indicate leaks.

Decide on how you will heat your new kitchen

Choosing a new heating system takes careful consideration and planning. Whilst some people choose to have no heating at all in their kitchen, feeling it unnecessary in a room that often becomes hot whilst cooking, those that use their kitchens for more than just cooking, have several options:

• Fit a radiator: The cheapest and simplest is to fit a radiator with a thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) so that it can be easily adjusted, but you will need sufficient wall space
• Plinth heaters: These fit neatly into the space between the bottom of the base units and the floor. Plinth heaters can be electrical fan convector heaters operated by a switch, or can be linked to the rest of the central heating system
• Heated towel rails: Choose a model with with pegs for hanging tea towels — there is a range of radiator companies providing designs that can make the most of the tightest of spaces
• Underfloor heating (UFH) is another popular choice for even and comfortable heat. Opting for an electric underfloor heating system as opposed to a water heated system means you can tackle the installation on a DIY basis, but it's more expensive to run. 

Laying new flooring in your kitchen

Now is the time to install your new flooring. Of course, being a renovation project, it might be that you already have an existing floor that simply needs restoring. Quarry tiles were popular in Victorian and some Edwardian houses. They may well need insulating and cleaning.

The best flooring for kitchens needs to be both practical and durable — as well as suiting the overall style of the kitchen you have opted for. It also needs to be able to withstand moisture and stains.

You might like to consider some of the following options:

• Natural stone, such as slate or limestone (both of which will require sealing)
• linoleum
• Vinyl
• Ceramic or porcelain tiles
• Engineered timber can be used, but it will need to be properly acclimatised before being laid and can be more prone to moisture damage that other hard flooring

Fitting your kitchen units

Now the kitchen can really start to come to life as it is time to fit the kitchen units. You will hopefully already have chosen and ordered these and will also have decided upon a lay out which means fitting should be fairly straightforward. 

This is a project sometimes undertaken on a DIY basis, although skilled kitchen fitters will generally make a quicker job of it. It is almost always best to leave the worktop installation to the pros as fiddly and very accurate cuts are usually required.

Bear in mind that before the units are fitted, you should make sure any walls that need repairing have been plastered. It is also a good idea to give the walls and ceiling at least one coat of paint.

Secure base units before the wall units, then doors, plinths and kickboards before installing worktops. 

Second fix plumbing for a kitchen

Once your kitchen is fitted, you can fit the sink and connect up taps and waste — as well as slotting those shiny new kitchen appliances into place. This is generally referred to as second fix plumbing. 

Don't forget good kitchen extraction either — this is also the time to fit your cooker hood (although the ducting should have been put into place at the same time as the electrics and first fix plumbing were being dealt with.

One thing we haven't mentioned in this guide is kitchen extensions. A kitchen renovation project will very often be carried out in conjunction with an extension to grow the space to suit a more modern lifestyle. 

In order to make a small space larger you'll need to undertake some structural changes to your property. This may include building an extension or knocking through to turn individual smaller spaces into a larger one. 

Depending on the type of extension and how complex the design is you're looking for, you'll have some choice in who designs and builds your extension. An architect is a popular choice for a more forward thinking design, while architectural technologists and design and build companies may offer simple but effective house extension ideas. 

It's worth remembering that even a small kitchen extension can be transformative to a space, allowing you to fit in a dining table or snug where the room was only a kitchen before. The likes of side return extensions are particularly popular for terraced and semi-detached houses. 

And, finally, remember that if you are extending, or even just knocking down internal walls, you will need to consult a structural engineer. They will calculate measurements for any steel inserts that might be used to support the weight of the floor above safely, subject to Building Regulations. Sign off will be required by a Building Control inspector.