Kitchen & Home Design Inspiration Gallery

Yes, but almost never exactly, and that is usually a good thing. Every project shown was designed around a specific room with specific dimensions, light and constraints. What we do is take the elements you have responded to, whether that is the cabinet colour, the worktop, the layout logic or the way the lighting works, and rebuild them around your room. Bringing us three photos you like is a far better starting point than trying to describe a style in words.

Look at the bones of the room in the photo rather than the finishes. Ceiling height, window position, how much natural light there is and which direction it comes from will change how a colour reads more than the colour itself does. A deep green that looks calm in a south-facing room with high ceilings can feel heavy in a north-facing room with low ones. This is the single most common mistake people make working from photographs, and it is why we ask to see your room before recommending anything.

They are photographed properly, which means tidied, lit and shot from the best angle, as any project photography is. What is real is the specification: the cabinetry, the worktops, the appliances and the flooring are all exactly what was installed. What is not real is the empty worktop. Every kitchen we photograph is lived in a week later with a kettle, a toaster and the post on the island.

The ones people usually miss. Where the lighting sits and whether it is layered rather than a single ceiling fitting. How the worktop meets the wall. Whether there is a run of uninterrupted surface next to the hob. Handle choice and how it changes the whole character of an otherwise plain door. Colour is what you notice first, but these details are what determine whether a room works to live in.

Save images as you go rather than trying to remember them, and save the ones you dislike too. Knowing that someone hates open shelving or handleless fronts narrows a design faster than a list of things they like. Note what you are responding to in each image if you can, because "I like this kitchen" and "I like the way that pantry opens" lead to very different designs.

The useful way to split it is by what is expensive to change later. Cabinetry, worktops and flooring are the things you live with for fifteen years, so those are worth keeping quieter and more considered. Handles, paint on the walls, splashbacks, seating and lighting are comparatively cheap to swap, so that is where a trend can live without becoming a regret. Most rooms that date badly are the ones where the trend went into the cabinetry.

The studio in Hockliffe is the practical answer. It has live working displays rather than static mock-ups, so you can open the drawers, test the runners and use the appliances, which no photograph will ever tell you. Where a past client is happy to be contacted about their project, we can sometimes arrange that too, but the studio is where most people make their decisions.

Usually yes, provided one thing carries through. That thread is often a repeated material, a consistent handle or metal finish, or a flooring run that continues between rooms. Without it, individually good rooms end up feeling like separate projects when you walk from one to the next. When we are designing more than one room, this is the thing we plan first and the reason a kitchen, a living space and a floor chosen together look better than the same three chosen separately.

No. Projects across the gallery range widely, from a single room refresh through to a full house. Two rooms can look similar in a photograph and differ substantially in cost depending on the cabinetry range, the worktop material and the appliance specification behind the doors. So if a project appeals to you, it is worth asking rather than assuming it is either out of reach or affordable.