A new kitchen: the 3D plan, the lead times, the traps

Measure the walls, not the plan on file

In an old building, walls are never square and never parallel. A difference of three centimetres over a three-metre run is enough to make a worktop impossible to fit without a visible filler. The plan is drawn from the site, not from the estate agent’s document.

The same visit checks what is behind the wall: the position of the water supply, the waste, the electrical circuits, and whether the extractor can be ducted outside.

Three weeks, two days

Once the plan is validated and the order placed, delivery typically takes three weeks. Fitting a standard kitchen takes two working days: one for the units, one for the worktop, the sink, the hob and the connections.

What stretches the schedule is never the kitchen itself. It is the electrical work that was not planned, the tile that has to be redone behind the units, or the extractor that cannot go where the plan said.

• Validate the plan on site, with the real measurements
• Decide the appliances before the units are ordered
• Plan the electrical circuits and the extraction at the same time
• Keep access clear for a three-week delivery window
• Remove the old kitchen before the new one arrives, not after

The filler panel is not a detail

The visible difference between a fitted kitchen and an assembled one is in the ends: the filler panels, the plinth, the alignment of the doors, the joint between the worktop and the wall. It is also the part that takes the time, and the part that disappears from a quote when the price has to go down.

Ask what happens at the ends, at the corners, and around the window. The answer tells you more about the firm than the brand of the units.