There is a moment, usually a year or so after a new kitchen goes in, when the worktops start to disappear. First the post pile, then the phone chargers, then the air fryer nobody quite found a home for. The room still looks good in photographs, but it no longer feels calm to stand in.
Storage is what separates a kitchen that works from one that quietly works against you. It is rarely the thing people get excited about at the design stage. It is almost always the thing they are most grateful for two years later.
Spend an hour on any renovation forum and the same worry comes up again and again. Have I thought of everything, or am I about to spend a lot of money getting it wrong? Here are the storage decisions that make the biggest difference.
Design for how you live, not what is fashionable
The best storage decisions come from how you actually move around the room, not from what looked good on Pinterest. Open shelving and glass-fronted cabinets photograph beautifully, but they also lose you valuable space, gather dust, and mean you cannot simply put things away and close the door.
Walk yourself through an ordinary morning before you sign anything. Where do you stand to make the coffee? Which way do you turn to unload the dishwasher? A good designer plans the kitchen around those answers, and will happily talk you out of a feature that looks clever but will not earn its place.
We go through exactly this at a first meeting, and our guide on How to Prepare for Your Waterfield Design Consultation covers what to bring.
Drawers, not cupboards
More than any other piece of advice, you will hear this one: put drawers under your worktops, not cupboards. Deep drawers take your pans, your crockery and your dry goods, and they bring everything out to you instead of making you kneel and reach into the dark.
What makes the difference is planning what goes where before anything is built. Cutlery beside the dishwasher, plates a step away, the everyday glasses above. Done well, you can stand at an open dishwasher and put almost everything away without moving your feet.
Small additions matter too. A tall, narrow pull-out beside the hob keeps your oils and spices to hand while you cook, and it is the detail people most often wish they had asked for. Our What Does a Bespoke Kitchen Actually Cost? An Honest Breakdown explains why cabinetry like this, and smart storage solutions, are often where it is worth investing.
The one thing everyone forgets
Ask someone who has just finished a kitchen what they would change, and you will often hear the same thing: plan where the bin is going to go. Recycling, general waste and a food caddy all need a home, and if you do not consider them until the end, they end up on show.
Here is the one that catches people out. A bin tucked under the sink, next to a warm boiler, becomes a little airing cupboard for your rubbish, and it will smell. Design it in properly, with the right pull-out near where you prep, and that never happens.
A larder cupboard, or a walk-in pantry?
This is a request we get a lot. A walk-in pantry sounds wonderful, but it eats up floor space, if you have it to spare, and has a habit of becoming a dumping ground for the things you never quite sort.
For most kitchens, a bespoke tall larder cupboard does the same job better. Drawers at the bottom for heavy items, a worktop inside for the kettle and toaster, spice racks on the doors and adjustable shelves at eye level. You shut two doors and the clutter is gone, without giving up a square metre of the room.
On a recent project near Canterbury, we made a larder with each drawer engraved to say what lived inside. The same thinking gives you a breakfast cupboard: a worktop-height cabinet that hides the toaster, the coffee machine and the cereal behind doors, so your best worktop stays clear.
Understand what you have
It is easy to underestimate how much you need to accommodate in a new kitchen. Our founder, Rebecca, suggests walking around your existing one and photographing the contents of every cupboard, drawer and work surface. Upload the photos to your AI tool of choice and ask it to produce an inventory grouped by use. This is also a good moment to be honest about what earns its place. Most kitchens carry things that never get used, from duplicate utensils to the appliance that has sat untouched for years, so note what you genuinely reach for and what could go.
It is worth thinking ahead too. If there is an appliance or gadget you have had your eye on, a coffee machine, a stand mixer, a SodaStream, flag it now so space can be planned in from the start rather than found later. Bring the edited inventory to your design consultation, and your designer can make sure you have enough storage for what matters and that the layout is planned around how you actually use the space.
Ready to get started?
None of this is about having more cupboards. It is about a kitchen thought through so well that everything has a place, and putting it away takes no thought at all. If you are at the early stages, our guide You’ve Got Planning Permission for Your Kitchen Extension. Now What? is a useful next read.
Book a consultation to talk through how your kitchen needs to work for you and your family.
