The approval notice arrives, and it feels like the hard part is over. In many ways, it is. Planning permission for a kitchen extension is not a given, and getting it through deserves a moment of celebration. If that’s you, then congratulations!
But it is not the finish line. It is the beginning of a different set of decisions, ones most people have not made yet, in an order nobody has told them about. We hope this guide will help you navigate the next steps in achieving your dream kitchen.
And if you are not extending but redesigning an existing kitchen space, most of what follows still applies. The structural questions change, but the sequence of decisions, and the mistakes to avoid, are the same.
Start with the kitchen designer, not the builder
The instinct for most people at this point is to call a builder. That is understandable. You have a space to build, and a builder builds spaces.
The problem is that what goes inside the extension shapes how the extension is built. Where the kitchen runs sit, where the island goes, whether you need plumbing to the centre of the room: all of these affect where pipes run, where drainage goes, and how the structural work gets completed.
Go to a builder first, and you will get quotes for a build that may need to be redesigned once a kitchen company looks at it.
We recommend having conversations early with all parties to understand lead times and who you would like to work with, but when it comes to making decisions, don’t commit until you’ve spoken to your kitchen designer. Everything else falls into place around that conversation.
The same applies if you are working within an existing footprint. Even without an extension, the position of services, the layout of the room, and the relationship between cooking, eating and living all need designing before anyone picks up a tool.
Bring the designer in at the structural stage, not after
This is the most common and most expensive mistake in kitchen extension projects. People wait until the build is finished before they start thinking seriously about the kitchen. By then, certain decisions are already made.
Where the soil pipe exits the building affects where a sink can go. The position of the boiler affects how the room is laid out. Load-bearing walls that could have incorporated a pocket door or a breakfast bar are already plastered and painted.
None of these need to be problems. They can all be worked around at the design stage. However, the solutions aren’t always as simple once the build is complete.
A Waterfield designer works alongside the build process, not after it. Bringing us in once you’ve got planning permission, but haven’t completed your architectural or structural engineers’ drawings, is usually ideal. Bring us in after the foundations have gone in, and you may find yourself living with compromises you did not know you were making.
The real timeline
If you have planning permission in hand now, here is a realistic view of what the next twelve months look like.
Your Waterfield kitchen will be bespoke to you, and we will endeavour to work collaboratively with your timeline; however, timescales are affected by a variety of factors, such as how quickly you want and can make decisions and the size and complexity of your scheme.
To give you a guide, our designers will aim to call you within one working day of you submitting an enquiry to discuss your project and arrange a design consultation. The consultation is around 90 minutes long, in person in our workshop. Should you wish to proceed further, we offer a complementary home survey and concept design service for serious buyers, which lasts around two weeks. When your concept is ready, we will invite you back into our workshop to see your kitchen designed in 3D, with a recommended layout, elevations, renders, materials and a cost included.
If, after the design presentation, you decide The Waterfield Collection is right fit for you, and you’d like to move forward with your kitchen, it’s at this point you’ll be asked to place an order to commission a detailed technical design, refining every specification and finish until it is exactly right. Once the detailed design is signed off, manufacturing runs eight to twelve weeks. This is the time your kitchen is being made in our workshop in Kent, unit by unit, to the exact dimensions of your room.
Installation is again impacted by the size and complexity of your kitchen. It will add between one to three weeks depending on the scope.
Add each stage together and a kitchen you want to be living in by autumn needs conversations happening in Spring.
We will ask you about your budget
The kitchen is only part of the total cost of a kitchen extension. It is the part that gets the most attention, and it is not always the part that surprises people most.
While we can quote for a wider scope, typically structural work, electrics, plumbing, gas connection and decoration all sit outside the kitchen quote. So does the flooring. So does the cost of living without a working kitchen for several weeks during installation. If you have ever tried to cook a family dinner on a camping stove in the living room, you will understand why this is worth planning for.
None of this is intended to alarm. It is intended to make sure you are working with a realistic total when you sit down with your designer. A clear budget conversation at the start saves a difficult one halfway through. Refer to our pricing guide for an indication of the investment.
Six decisions to make before any drawings are produced
These are not aesthetic decisions. They come before aesthetics. They are the functional questions that determine how the room works, and they are the first things a good designer will ask you.
- Where do you stand most often in the room? Not where you think you will stand. Where your feet actually are at 7am, unloading the dishwasher with one eye on the toast. This shapes everything: which way the island faces, where the hob sits, whether the flow from fridge to prep to hob makes sense or fights against itself.
- Does the kitchen connect to the garden, and do you want it to? The relationship between the kitchen and the outside space is a design decision that cannot be retrofitted. Think about where you want to be standing when the doors are open in summer, your guests are in the garden, and you are trying to join in the conversation while you cook.
- Where do you want your sink, and does the island need plumbing? A sink in the island changes the build specification entirely. A sink on the perimeter with a prep-only island is a different project. Both are right answers. Knowing which one you want before the first meeting saves time and shapes the structural conversation early.
- How do you actually use the room? Cooking, homework, entertaining, all three at once. The answer changes the layout. A room where children sit at the island doing homework while someone cooks needs different sightlines and different dimensions than a room used only for cooking.
- Island or run? Both have strong cases. This is not a trend question, it is a how-you-live question. The answer should come from where you stand most, not from what you have seen on Instagram.
- What are the non-negotiables? Every project has them. A boiling water tap you cannot live without. Enough worktop for Sunday baking with the kids. A larder you can actually see into without a torch. Identifying them early means the design serves them from the first drawing, rather than being adjusted around them later.
These are the types of questions you can expect during your design consultation. We do not expect you to have all the answers and will help you navigate through the journey to bring your kitchen project to life.
Ready to get started?
Our process starts with that conversation and then a visit to our Workshop in Kent, for your design presentation, where you will see the cabinetry being made. Most people find that the visit changes how they think about the whole project.
