29/07/2026
5 questions worth answering before you start any kitchen or bathroom renovation...
Both rooms involve significant spend, sometimes long lead times, and decisions that are hard to reverse. Getting the brief right at the start saves a great deal of money and pain later.
Here's what I ask before anything else:
1. How do you actually use this room? Not how you'd like to use it. How you use it today. A kitchen designed for a keen cook is very different from one designed for a busy family that doesn’t have much time for cooking. A bathroom for one person's morning routine is different from one shared by four.
2. What do you need to store and where? Storage is not thought about enough. Map out everything – what is going where? Discovering you have nowhere for the stand mixer after installation is a miserable conversation. Realising you have to walk across the entire room to make a simple cup of tea is not a good use of space.
3. Do you have the time for maintenance? Some materials are beautiful and demanding. Others are forgiving and easier to live with. Neither is wrong — but matching the material to the household is essential.
4. What's the one thing the current room gets most wrong? The answer to this usually reveals the most important thing to get right. It's often not what people expect when they start browsing kitchens or bathrooms.
5. What does done feel like? Not look like — feel like. Calm, efficient, indulgent, sociable? The emotional brief is the one that holds everything else together. I often ask my clients – how do you want to feel when you enter the room?
Five questions. They're worth an hour of anyone's time before you make a start!
