Tips for Planning and Instaling a DIY Kitchen

The traditional heart of a house, a successful kitchen is efficient, attractive and comfortable, a place where you can enjoy working and relaxing.

You can save a great deal of money by installing your kitchen cabinets yourself, but be prepared for a lot of careful planning both before and during the work.

Most kitchen unit supplier sell rigid (pre-assemble) or flat-pack (self-assembly) units which you install yourself. It is sensible to have some professional help in planning the layout, but you can do a lot of the fitting yourself.

The main skill involved in installing a kitchen is woodworking, which is why many professional kitchen fitters were originally carpenter and joiners. For the electrical and plumbing requirements employ professional tradesmen to do those tasks.

The finished kitchen depends not only on the time and care you take in planning the work but in how thorough you are in carrying it out. In particular, this means making sure that you fit all units with their sides' vertical, not always easy on an uneven floor, and that worktops are truly horizontal, which is essential to make sure that a sink drains efficiently, for example.

Much of the detailed, fiddly work, and some of your mistakes, can be hidden away. Do, however, take special care when finishing off tasks: for example, sealing behind sinks and worktops, fitting end panels and installing lighting under wall cupboards.

If you take into consideration all these points and the ones to follow, you should be looking at an economical and a satisfying piece of work that lasts every bit as long and looks just as good as a kitchen installed by a full-time professional.

It is best to think of a new kitchen in metric units. The dimensions of all new kitchens units are described in millimeters and you do not want to spend hours converting them all.

Kitchen wall and base cabinets come in standard widths: 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 and 1000mm from side to side. Base units are usually 575mm deep (front to back) and 880mm high; wall units are about 32mm deep and either 600mm or 720mm high. Worktops come in 3m lengths; any run longer than 3m means you need a join. You have to join worktops where thy meet at a corner in any case.

The standard worktop height is 900mm, which suits most people, with a gap of about 500mm between the top of the worktop and the underside of the wall cupboards. Some manufacturers make spice racks or mid-range units to fit in this gap, but in most kitchens it is tiled, so it helps if the gap is the height of an exact number of tiles, say, three 150mm tiles or four 108mm tiles. If you have tall units, built-in over housings, for example, the gap is a fixed measurement.

Because of the fixed sizes of cabinets, you are usually left with some odd gaps to fill between base units. There may be space to fit a 150mm wide wine rack, but the normal solution is to create a tray space with an infill unit, cut down to the size of the gap, with a towel rail attached to the underside of the worktop above. You don't usually have these sorts of problems with wall units as walls are usually broken up by windows. If there is a gap, however, you can fill it with a matching filler panel.

With the advances in kitchen cabinet design, few people would even consider building their own kitchen units from scratch. Although the materials are fairly cheap and readily available, you cannot cut them as accurately or as cleanly as kitchen cabinet manufactures can on their CNC routers and beam saws. Home made units are also much more difficult to join together than ready made units.

The advantage of using pre-assembled rigid units is obvious: there is no need to worry about assembly. There are two main disadvantages however. Rigid units are generally more expensive than flat-packs, and they are more awkward to store before you fit them.

Most people opt for flat-pack units, which you assemble as you install them. All the screws and fittings are provided, and all the holes for screws and hinges are pre-drilled.

Flat-pack and rigid units vary in quality, depending largely on cost. It aids installation if adjustable legs are supplied with the units. These make the job easier if the floor is uneven, and they also protect the units from water damage. Adjustable brackets are available for wall units so that you can line up all the units once they are fitted.

Your supplier can help you with planning your kitchen, but there are several points to bear in mind:

• Do allow worktop space either side of the sink and hot-plate
• Do position tall units at the end of a run
• Do fit plenty of electric sockets, but not over or too close to a hot-plate or sink
• Don't put the hot-plate by a window, next to a door, in a corner or under a full-height wall unit
• Don't put a free-standing fridge and oven side by side
• Don't position oven doors so that they open out on to room doors
• Don't fit a sink or inset hot-plate over a worktop join.

If you are installing your own kitchen cabinets, make sure you have a clear plan of action, particularly if you are replacing and old one and need to continue cooking and washing up as normal while the work is in progress.

1. Before ripping out the old kitchen, install any new lighting and clean and repaint the ceiling.

2. Remove the old kitchen units. Work in sections if you have to continue using the kitchen. If you need to level the floor, however, everything has to come out at once.

3. Install electrical wiring for any new socket outlets, and alter the plumbing for the sinks and dishwasher.

4. Make walls sound. If they are in very bad condition, re-plaster them.

5. Repaint the walls in your chosen color.

6. Draw out the worktop height and the positions of all of the wall units to make a final check on your plan.

7. Fit base cabinets, making sure that they are exactly level. Adjust the feet or use packing pieces where necessary. Next, secure them firmly to the wall. Put the main appliances, such as the oven in place at the same time.

8. Cut and fit the worktops making any necessary cut-outs for sinks and hot-plates. Call in a gas fitter to connect the gas appliances. Seal all around the worktops with a waterproof sealant.

9. Fit the wall cupboards, ensuring they are all at equal height above the worktop.

10. Do all the tiling.

11. Fit your chosen floor covering, taking it under the units, before fitting plinth boards or kickers.

There are two ways of neatening or finishing the end of an open run of units. One is to fit a decorative panel to match the doors of the units. The other, if there is room, is to fit a 300mm wide display unit with open shelves. Both look better than a plain white end.

Along the tops of wall cupboards, you can fit wooden cornices. These come in lengths of three meters and provide a decorative finish which is more attractive than the plain white corner. Screw the cornice to the tops of the units, making sure you miter the corners first.

Fit matching pelmets along the bottom of the wall units in the same way, but this time secure them with brackets. Fit under-cupboard strip lighting behind the pelmets to illuminate worktops.

Maximize storage space by fitting extra shelves, carousels in corner units, sliding wire baskets, door-mounted storage baskets, waste bins, spice racks, mid-way shelves, and cutlery trays and so on. You can get all of these and other accessories from your kitchen supplier or big hardware stores.

Finish by pitting plinth boards underneath the base units. With floor units, nail the boards to the unit with panel pins. If the units have adjustable feet, clip the plinths on. It makes them easier to remove. With some types of floor covering you may need to cut the plinths to fit.