Beautiful Kitchens Better Homes And Gardens

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Designing a kitchen can seem a daunting task; there's so much to consider and as the hardest working room in the house, and one of the most permanent and expensive to decorate, getting your kitchen design right first time is worth doing. So what are the most important things to consider when designing a kitchen?

Start by working out how you use the kitchen, where you cook, when you cook and how often you shop to sort out how much storage you need and what layout to have. Our columnist Rita Konig says number one is the kitchen's layout. 'Think hard about how you will move around it. I make sure that the dishwasher and bin are on either side of the kitchen sink. I like the cutlery drawer to be away from the main action (the stove and the sink) and ideally close to the dining area, so it is easy to access for laying the kitchen table without anyone getting in the way of the cook or the person washing up. I also like separating the hob and the oven. My hob is on a stand-alone counter with shelving underneath for the saucepans. I prefer to give an island a different treatment to the rest of the kitchen to save having acres of the same surface - mine is painted a different colour and has a stainless-steel kitchen worktop instead of Corian. You might also choose to have a kitchen island higher than your counters to make using it more comfortable.'

Jane Taylor, on the other hand, emphasises the personality of the kitchen. "It is a sense of place and personality that I aim for when designing someone else's kitchen. I often start the conversation in terms of how a client might like their kitchen to feel, rather than look. I'm very keen on hanging art in kitchens and cookbooks on display warm up a room. They are comforting, a record of one's life – the restaurants you love, the holidays you enjoyed." She also considers that the kitchen should be at the heart of the house. "In older houses, the kitchen tended to be in the basement, often miles away from rooms thought of as more important. I usually suggest they are moved into the middle of the general living space, so as to be part of the flow of the house."

How much is a new kitchen?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions about kitchen design, and one of the hardest to answer, as so much is dependent on size and spec. At the very affordable end of the spectrum, a small IKEA kitchen installed by your builder can easily come in at under £10,000. High street merchants like Magnet and Wickes are somewhat more expensive, especially if you use their installation services. Once you start looking at bespoke kitchens, you may be able to do it affordably with a local joiner, but many bespoke companies have a lower spending limit of around £25,000, and this can obviously go much higher for a large kitchen. If you're after a more affordable renovation, it's perfectly possible to spruce things up by replacing your kitchen cabinet doors, painting your kitchen cupboards, or installing new kitchen tiles and a new worktop.

The 39 best kitchen appliances and utensils

Below is an endlessly useful gallery, updated every week by our editors with fresh inspiration and pictures of favourite kitchen ideas from the House & Garden archive, designs executed by some of the world's most revered decorators and taste-makers. If you can't find what you're looking for here take a look at our other features on small kitchens, modern kitchens and find case studies and even shoppable kitchens designed from scratch on our kitchen hub page.

Kitchen Ideas

A strong colour scheme of terracotta, blue and white runs through the kitchen of this Singapore flat by Elizabeth Hay. The wall lights are from Schoolhouse in New York; the enamelware is from Bornn and Falcon.
A 19th-century former whaler's cottage in North Sydney has been transformed by Australian interior designer Lisa Burdus into a vibrant, comfortable home with a nod to classic English country style. The pink paint from the sitting room continues on the panelling and wall cupboards in the kitchen, part of the same open-plan space, while an island painted in Dulux's 'Green Gables' offers a striking contrast. Emac and Lawton's 'Chelsea' table lamp is paired with a pleated green silk shade from Samarkand Design.
We love the cane-fronted units in Octavia Dickinson's London house, designed by Octavia herself and made by Alfred Newall at The London Workshop. The units are painted in Little Greene's 'Stone-Mid-Warm'.
Interior designer Angelica Squire's Victorian terraced house in London is a youthful, exuberant space that combines smart artworks and fabrics with clever vintage finds and joyful colours. The walls in the kitchen are painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Setting Plaster', and the cabinets in 'Preference Red'. The blinds are in Guy Goodfellow's 'Pomegranate Print' fabric, while cafe blinds on the bottom half of the windows allow for privacy while still letting in the light.
In this 17th century house by Rose Uniacke, the rustic wooden table is complemented by rush-seated oak chairs designed by the Arts and Crafts furniture maker William Birch. Copper pans are suspended from a metal oval hanging rack overhead. Above the sink to the right of the Aga, a previously enclosed window has been restored.
For Sarah Peake of Studio Peake, her first ever solo project was an opportunity to test out her ingenuity by transforming a tiny Georgian cottage in London without stripping it out entirely. Sarah and her clients decided to restore the original cabinetry in the kitchen, mixing a Dulux paint for the units,but installed a new Carrara marble worktop and a stone floor from Artisans of Devizes.
Having previously been divided into flats, this 19th-century house in Hampstead has had a sense of harmony restored by Maria Speake of Retrouvius, with creative use of reclaimed materials and eclectic vintage pieces. Here, as throughout the house, the original features have been preserved, including the plaster cornices and limed-pine floorboards.
Units by Orwells Furniture are teamed with 'The Crillon Stools' from Soane, upholstered in 'Walnut Cowhide Leather' in this smart modern kitchen in a country house by Todhunter Earle.
The white kitchen of this Georgian townhouse in Ludlow has been decorated with a soft colour palette and elegant furnishings, creating a fresh country scheme. Large cabinets line the width of the space, complemented by a classic white Aga and blue tiling.
Maria Speake of Retrouvius salvaged this Victorian shelving from the Patent Office and has used it to house glassware and cookery books here in a client's Chiltern farmhouse. This proves than canny storage doesn't necessarily have to be made-to-measure to be fit for purpose. This double-sided unit is perfect with glassware as it does not block the light. In this kitchen, the stylishly utilitarian scheme is finished with an ecclectic mix of light fittings and a large butler sink.
In this London flat designed by Max Rollitt, there is an antique shelf above the kitchen sink. This holds a collection of pottery and glassware. The rich red cabinetry below is topped with pale carrera marble.
The owners of this London house have called upon the expertise of Maddux Creative's design duo not once, but twice - most recently to maximise space and light, and play up the distinctive period details. The kitchen has an island with a Statuario marble shell and a large pendant light from McEwen Lighting Studio in the US.
The designer Matilda Goad has spent the last two years turning a typical London house in to an imaginative, stylish home packed with clever and unexpected ideas. In the kitchen, the cupboard doors, painted in 'Sage Green' from Little Greene, are fitted with a mix of vintage brass handles, some from an old ship. The wall surrounding the cooker is picked out in red and white checkerboard tiles - 'simply buy the cheapest tiles you can and alternate the colours' - a homage to the Moroccan and southern European kitchens that were also the influence for the 'raw plaster' walls ('actually a wonderful lime wash paint from a company by Bauwerk').
In the warm, orange kitchen of Ben Pentreath's Georgian Parsonage the Aga dates back to the Sixties. Ben added the wooden floor, painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Hardwick White', and found the glazed wall cupboard in a junk shop. The kitchen floor needed replacing when he moved in. 'As there was a patch of old stone flagging, I had hoped there would be more beneath the linoleum,' Ben says. 'Of course, there wasn't, so we simply glued wooden boards on top of the existing floor and painted them dove grey'. If this seem likes your perfect kitchen, why not have a look at our gallery of country kitchen ideas?
The designer Jane Gowers discovered her London house by chance, but its restoration and decoration have been the result of good judgement and a sympathetic approach. The kitchen's traditional cream units were made by Woodstock Furniture, with doors giving access to the garden terrace. To our minds, this is one of the loveliest small kitchens out there, but you can also check out our gallery of galley kitchens if you want more inspiration.
The marble wall tiles in decorator Irene Gunter's kitchen were laid in a herringbone pattern to match the parquet floor. A line of base units runs the full length of the kitchen. Irene's decorator applied nine coats of blue paint to the cupboard doors by hand. The tiled extractor hood is finished with wooden beading in the same colour as the cabinets and a brass trim. The latter ties in with the taps and handles. Take a look at our gallery of modern kitchens for more ideas.
There is ample marble worktop space in the kitchen of this stone beauty in the Luberon. The owners felt the pièce de résistance should be the kitchen, which also houses the dining table and opens up onto the garden. Katie Fontana of Plain English oversaw the project and nothing was left to chance. 'We built every cupboard knowing what would be going in it,' explains the owner. If you like grey kitchens, take a look at our gallery of grey kitchen ideas.
Designed by Tara Craig with Marcus Ayshford Sanford of Archidrum, the interior designer's own kitchen is painted in a bespoke apricot shade by Paints and Papers. The worktops are crafted from Bianco Carrara marble. Copper accents in the appliances, utensils and finishes complement the colour scheme. For more ideas, take a look at our galleries of kitchen worktops and kitchen cabinets.
The cabinets in this kitchen, painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Card Room Green', were designed by Amanda Hornby. The green tone of the cupboards adds a fresh feel to the room, complimented by the green tones in the artwork on the gallery wall. If you like these cabinets, why not take a look at our guide to how to paint your kitchen cupboards?

'Anyone can pick a paint colour, but getting the structure right is what makes a house,' says Amanda, who transformed this Cotswolds dovecote into a family home.

Brass taps and fixtures add elegance to the simply decorated space, which also features a classic butler sink.
Shunning our throwaway culture, interior designer Patrick Williams, of Berdoulat Design used salvaged finds and traditional techniques to imaginatively restore his Victorian flat in east London; the plaster walls in the kitchen are sealed with beeswax to make them water resistant. A lover of good design, Patrick even decants his washing-up liquid into an old-fashioned Fairy bottle. Check out our gallery of wooden kitchen ideas for more inspiration.
Open shelving and industrial tiling lend a thoroughly American feel to the kitchen of Jos and Annabel White's Manhattan home. The fittings were inspired by the decoration in their friends' New York restaurant The Fat Radish.
In Mimi Thorisson's kitchen in her home in the Médoc region of France, a collection of antique copper pans hangs above a dark wood chest which stores bottles of wine for entertaining. Chequerboard tiled floor adds to the rustic farmhouse feel.
The glossy black Aga contrasts with the olive green units and reclaimed chestnut floor in this north London artist's studio turned house by interior designer Caroline Holdaway.
A dresser by Plain English, painted in the company's 'Army Camp' green, holds a sink from Howe paired with brass taps from Barber Wilsons & Co in the kitchen-cum-dining room of Rita Konig's farmhouse. Rita's collection of antique glassware is displayed on the top shelf.
In this space by Ben Pentreath, a Lovell Purbeck Capstone floor offers a muted contrast with bespoke Bulthaup cabinets topped with quartzite. Traditional witjes tiles from Delft Tiles create a backdrop for a basket by Jenny Crisp and an Indonesian tray, which hang from a brass rail.
The custom blue colour scheme in this kitchen was decided on using the RAL colour-matching system. While RAL does not itself manufacture any paints, its colour notation system specifies and standardises colours for use by manufacturing companies. Designer John Minshaw thus asked his cabinetmaker to make up a dark blue for the kitchen cabinets.

The palette for John Minshaw's barn conversion is primarily neutral, but he has left areas of stonework exposed to provide texture. Elsewhere, solid blocks of deep colour add character - as shown in this space.
In her Somerset kitchen, Pearl Lowe worked with the bespoke cabinet company deVOL; together they designed the long island that looks out onto the rolling Somerset hills and the glass-fronted cabinets fitted either side of the chimney breast.
The tiles behind the Aga in this country kitchen, which are from Ann Sacks, make the alcove a lovely focus in the bright room. Tom Dixon pendant lights hang above the island, which stores wine, books and tableware.

This restored Georgian house in Somerset was an irresistible challenge for its owners, who put together a team including architect Ptolemy Dean for the painstaking restoration, which won a Georgian Group award in 2015.
Known for their restoration of historic buildings in Scotland, conservation architects Nick Groves-Raines and Kristin Hannesdottir relished the challenge of saving Lamb's House in Leith, where they now live and work.The wooden kitchen with original beams is decorated in the traditional country style.
You'd never guess that garden designer Butter Wakefield's home once had a kitchen 'so poky, you could barely open the oven.'

The kitchen is far from poky now, helped partly by the addition of an elegant conservatory 10 years ago. 'It is essential to have the garden as much inside as possible,' says Butter, hence the large sash window and the stable door.

'We couldn't afford to hang cupboards in the kitchen, so we covered the walls in black-framed prints and paintings. They are pieces that I've collected over the years - some are very good but others are virtually postcards,' Butter says. It is a clever trick that, teamed with the tongue-and-groove panelling, gives the space a cottage feel.
'I haven't used wall cupboards because I didn't want the kitchen to read like a traditional kitchen or look too boxy,' explains Beata Heuman, the interior desginer behind this vibrant home in London. The colour palette, which includes a Swedish green marble worktop and a bespoke copper cooker hood and island by Premier Building & Design, complements the garden beyond. It will acquire a greenish patina over time.
This Arts & Crafts house was given a new lease of life by Ben Pentreath. Ben designed the cabinets, which were made by Symm and painted in Farrow & Ball's 'Hague Blue'.
The traditional country kitchen at the Nyetimber manor house has an Aga and complementing units on either side, with the owners' collection of copper pans hanging along the length of the wall. The table was custom-made and is paired with chairs and a bench bought in Petworth by the owners. The effect, although welcoming and cosy, is minimal and fresh.
Resisting the idea of moving or expanding into the basement, the owners of this London house gave architect Maria Speake the go-ahead to make some structural changes to give their family and business the space needed. The Plain English kitchen, with its cream Aga, was installed 12 years ago. Maria had it repainted in an Emery & Cie green to refresh the room.
This jaunty kitchen decorating idea comes from Joanna Wood in a Cotswold house she worked on. Antique leaf plates are displayed on the tall chimneybreast above the Aga. The 'Vertigo' pendant light was designed by Constance Guisset for Petite Friture.
The designer Guy Goodfellow installed these beautiful partitioned oak shelves in the kitchen of this house in Dartmoor. Inspired by the potter Lucie Rie's studio, they are the perfect place to display the owners collection of English slipware ceramics.
An ultra-modern kitchen in an Edwardian villa extensively renovated by William Smalley. The custom 10-metre-long brushed steel worktop is made by Ottima.
This rustic kitchen from House & Garden's August 2017 issue by House & Garden's Ruth Sleightholme mixes the wicker designs of Atelier Vime with French textiles, antiques, twentieth-century pieces and rustic Provençal pottery, within the atmospheric setting of their eighteenth-century hôtel particulier.

WALLS Similar giltwood mirror, 'Regency Convex', £3,281, from English Georgian. FURNITURE 'Tulip' cast aluminium and laminate table, by Eero Saarinen, £1,584; 'Mesh' steel side chairs, by Harry Bertoia, £770 each; all from Knoll. 'La Châtelaine' cast-iron stove (noir), by Godin, from £6,700, from Lawton Imports. Similar eighteenth-century church cupboard, £496, from UK Architectural Antiques. ACCESSORIES 'Gabriel' wicker and rattan ceiling light, £950; wicker picnic basket, from £680; both from Atelier Vime. 'Albi' silver-plated soup tureen (on stove), £1,541, from Christofle. 'Vallauris' glazed earthenware pottery (on table and cupboard), by Foucard-Jourdan, from £115, from M Charpentier Antiques. Green glass decanter, £320; and tumblers, £40 each; amber glass tumblers, £30 each; all from Guinevere. Silver-plated jardiniere, £1,250 a pair, from Hilary Batstone.
White Kitchen, Glass-Fronted Cabinets | Kitchen Design Ideas

The kitchen of this minimal Manhattan house designed by Rita Konig is by Patti Seidman of Mullman Seidman Architects. Glass-fronted cabinets reveal a display of glassware and the neutral palette fits with the rest of the modern home.
Industrial-Style Kitchen | Kitchen Design Ideas

Alastair Hendy was initially reluctant to view the Grade II listed 16^th century property. From the beginning, however, the house took a grip on Alastair and, although much had been obliterated, the bones of the house were all original and he was able to see its potential. He bought the house, not realising that it would be the start of a five-year restoration project. After taking a crash course in 16^th century building practices, salvaging materials and engaging local craftsmen, Alastair returned it to glory. A large professional oven presides over one wall of this kitchen. Elsewhere, cupboards and shelving house a vast collection of china and pottery.
With a characteristic respect for the fabric of this eighteenth-century house in Bath, designer Patrick Williams has carefully transformed it into a welcoming home and B&B.

Downstairs in the kitchen, an island made by Marcus Jacka serves as the hub of the room. To avoid touching the original panelling, the sink, an Everhot stove, a dishwasher and a drawer fridge have been housed in a large and handsome island, built by Patrick's friend Marcus Jacka. Its top is elm, aged using Van Dyck Crystals so it looks hundreds of years old. The floorboards are painted with only one coat of Fired Earth's 'Burnt Juniper' eggshell to ensure they gain patina quickly.
Inside the timber extension of this Christopher Howe-decorated townhouse in Bray, the floor is made from cheeseboards, which were found on a trip to the South of France. Fifties Italian bar stools contrast with the island, which was salvaged from a fishmonger's.
Farrow & Ball 'Setting Plaster' was used on the walls in the kitchen of this eighteenth-century house in Bath. Vintage wall lights from Felix Lighting Specialists are positioned above the Plain English kitchen units, which are painted in Pure & Original 'Summerset Mauve'; the island is in 'Post Modern Mauve'. Pendant light shades salvaged from a factory in Hungary hang over the island. They are sold by Skinflint, which finds, restores and repairs mid-century industrial and decorative lighting from all over Europe. The 'Eastern Bloc Factory Shade' measures 51 x 31cm diameter and costs £330.
The owners of this home were keen to use traditional materials wherever possible: the kitchen floor is salvaged Cornish slate. Asked to accommodate the house's existing Forties Aga, designer Guy Goodfellow had the idea of flanking it with partitioned oak shelves - inspired by an old photograph of the potter Lucie Rie's studio - to display the owners' collection of English slipware ceramics. The Aga is complimented by a Mouseman kitchen table and Twenties Heal's leather chairs, while a Devon potter, Douglas Fitch, was commissioned to make a set of slipware tiles that line the wall behind the modern stove, using a leaf-resist technique to depict impressions of leaves from the surrounding woods.
In the kitchen of this former artist's studio, there is a wall of cupboards centred by dresser shelving. Pendant lights from Hector Finch hang above the kitchen table.
Henri Fitzwilliam-Lay, the owner of this Victorian country house in Shropshire, has enhanced the interiors of this grand property with her signature mid-century aesthetic without compromising original features. In this blue and white kitchen, white subway tiles and marble herringbone flooring give the room an industrial edge, which works well below elegant cornicing.
Vermont pine was used for the cabinets in restauranteur Keith McNally's kitchen, for its rich warmth and depth. All were made in New York and shipped over; as were the reconditioned tiles, most of which are over 100 years old and come from demolished or refurbished factories. The ceiling was finished by a craftsman he always works with in the States, who carefully applied imperfect plaster; creating a texture that allowed a glaze of raw sienna and yellow ochre to collect in the grooves, which gives the walls an aged finish. French cafe chairs from Maison Gatti add colour, while copper worktops are chic but practical.
John Beavan made the bright blue kitchen units in Edward Bulmer's Herefordshire house to the Bulmers' design.
'I didn't want the design to be too modern, so I worked with Tom Bayley of Quartet Interiors to create an understated Shaker style,' says Flora Soames, the interior designer of this custom made London kitchen. 'The bespoke island unit is based on a vintage piece: the brushed stainless steel and carrara marble look elegant, so the island links well with the drawing room beyond.'

The cheerful colour palate was influenced by a piece of art belonging to the owners. The kitchen units are painted in 'Down Pipe' by Farrow & Ball, with walls in shaded white by Farrow & Ball - 'for London houses this is the perfect base for bolder colours.' The Ashley Hicks Moroccan tiles are from Popham Design; Flora chose the geometric tile motif to allow the kitchen to 'own' its space with the open plan living room.
In this kitchen area, traditional and contemporary pieces work together and a mix of chairs around the dining table create an informal look. Carrara-marble-topped units are painted in 'Hague Blue' by Farrow & Ball, while a mustard blind from Susan Deliss brings warmth to the space. Open-plan living is made cosy with warm touches in this mews house in London owned by designer Caroline Riddell.
A modern extension was built to house the New England-style kitchen, which incorporates a Victorian skylight and tongue-and-groove panelling. Kitchen units are topped with light-reflecting, white Carrara marble - one of interior designer Diana Sieff's distinctive decorating touches done while renovating her home, a former chapel in Oxfordshire.
Many of the materials used in this house have an interesting provenance; for example, the kitchen splashback is made of marble from an old ship fitting, along with eighteenth-century, carved-stone roundels found in a stonemason's yard. This property was the work of Maria Speake, who along with husband Adam owns reclamation company Retrouvius. Adam sources the finds, while Maria redesigns clients' houses, like this family home in Notting Hill.
Jochen Zeitz is a businessman, entrepreneur and passionate advocate of conservation and sustainable tourism. Here at Segera, his eco retreat in Kenya, the kitchen in the Paddock House provides an elegant communal space for guests. Nothing here is wasted; water is recycled and used to irrigate the gardens, while the electricity and heating is supplied by Segera's solar farm.
Without any drastic aesthetic change - the old Delft tiles above the sink survived - this Oxfordshire cottage kitchen just works and looks better thanks to Colefax designer Emma Burns. Emma brought in joiner Chris Bell to create units an inch shallower than the existing ones - a tweak that makes a huge difference to the sense of the space. Elm was chosen for the worktops and the units are painted in 'Farrow's Cream' by Farrow & Ball.
Interior architect Paula Barnes has extended this nineteenth-century London rectory and made creative use of reclaimed materials and antique-fair finds to create a comfortable family house. In the kitchen she used Belgian bluestone that spans the kitchen floor and three different opaline lights from Drew Pritchard, which hang between beams above the island.
Charles Hurst, who often works with designer Caroline Holdaway, built this kitchen in Robin Muir's house. The island unit is painted in a matt green similar to 'Greengage' by Designers Guild, while the worktop is in English oak.
Our columnist Rita Konig's flat has a cheerful blue and white kitchen that strikes the perfect balance between modern and country. Tiled walls are complimented by white Corian-topped units - a great hard-wearing, inexpensive alternative to marble. Vintage accessories collected over the years are illuminted from above by four black pendant lights.
This country kitchen in Hampshire belonging to designer and antiques dealer Max Rollitt is furnished with a simple wooden island, terracotta tiled floors and grey wooden sink units, over which a pole is fixed to the walls for hanging pots and pans.
The kitchen of Susan Deliss's home in France is painted a warm orange. The wooden units were made by Planet Earth Kitchens in Essex and shipped out to France. Copper pans are displayed along a traditional shelf and rows of plates adorn the walls. A wooden farmhouse kitchen provides both a work surface and a casual dining spot.