Kitchen Units Buying Guide UK: How to Plan a Fitted Kitchen

A fitted kitchen is one of the biggest — and most rewarding — projects you can take on at home, and buying the units yourself can save you a small fortune over a showroom quote. But rows of base units, wall units and doors can feel daunting at first. This guide breaks the whole process down: how to plan your layout, understand the different units and sizes, measure up accurately, choose your doors and finishes, and put it all together — so you can build a kitchen that fits your space, your cooking and your budget with confidence.

1. Start with your layout

Before you choose a single cabinet, plan how the kitchen will work. The classic principle is the “work triangle” — keeping your sink, hob and fridge within easy reach of one another so cooking flows naturally. Most kitchens follow one of a few tried-and-tested layouts:

• Galley — two runs of units facing each other; efficient for narrow rooms.
• L-shape — units along two adjoining walls; a flexible, sociable choice for most homes.
• U-shape — three walls of units for maximum storage and worktop space.
• Island — a freestanding run added to any of the above, ideal in larger, open-plan spaces.

Sketch your room and mark the windows, doors, and where the water, waste and electrics already are — moving plumbing and sockets adds cost, so a layout that works with them is usually cheaper and easier.

2. The kitchen units explained

A fitted kitchen is built from a handful of cabinet types, which you combine to suit your space. Our kitchen cabinet range includes:

• Base units — floor-standing cabinets that carry your worktop and do most of the storage work.
• Wall units — mounted above the worktop for crockery, glasses and dry goods; shallower than base units.
• Tall & larder units — full-height cabinets for larder storage or housing built-in ovens.
• Drawer units — banks of drawers for pans, utensils and cutlery, often easier to use than a cupboard.
• Corner units — base and wall cabinets designed to use awkward corners rather than waste them.
• Sink base units — open-backed base cabinets built to sit beneath your sink and its plumbing.

You can buy each cabinet individually, so you only order exactly what your layout needs.

3. Kitchen unit sizes & dimensions

Kitchen units are described by their width, which is how you plan a run to fit your wall. Our base units come in a range of widths, with a standard height of 720mm and depth of 570mm:

Add the widths of your chosen units together to fill each wall, then use a slim filler panel to take up any small gap at the end of a run. Base units sit on adjustable legs and a plinth, which brings the finished worktop to the standard UK height of around 900mm.

4. How to measure your kitchen

Accurate measurements are the difference between a kitchen that slots together and one that fights you. Work methodically:

• Measure each wall’s length at worktop height, then again lower down — walls are rarely perfectly square.
• Note the height, width and position of windows, doors, radiators and sockets.
• Mark where your water supply, waste pipe and cooker point already are.
• Measure any appliances you’re keeping so you can leave the right gaps.

Draw it all on a simple plan with the measurements, then lay out your units on paper before you buy. It’s far cheaper to redraw a plan than to return cabinets.

5. Choosing doors & finishes

Your doors set the entire look of the kitchen, and you can fit the same carcasses with very different fronts. We offer several door ranges — including Buckingham, Fenton, Larissa and Vogue — in finishes from oak effect to white gloss, cashmere, graphite and green. For units, our cabinets come in three versatile finishes:

• Oak effect — warm and natural, suiting classic and Scandi-style kitchens.
• White — bright, clean and timeless, and the easiest to match.
• Grey linen — a soft, contemporary tone that pairs beautifully with wood and brass.

Pick a door style first, then coordinate the carcass finish, worktop and handles around it for a cohesive result.

6. Flat-pack kitchens explained

Our kitchen units are supplied flat-pack. That keeps delivery costs and prices down, makes the boxes far easier to carry through the house, and means you can build each unit in the room where it will stand. Each base cabinet comes supplied with a shelf and shelf pins as standard, and the panels are pre-drilled to go together with basic tools.

Flat-pack also gives you total flexibility: because you order individual units, you build exactly the kitchen your plan calls for, rather than a fixed package. If you’d rather not assemble them yourself, any competent fitter or handyperson can build and install them quickly.

7. Planning for appliances

Leave the right gaps for your appliances as you plan the run. Most built-in and freestanding appliances are designed around standard widths, which makes planning straightforward:

Leave a small tolerance around each appliance so it slides in and out easily, and remember to plan a gap beside the hob and sink for worktop prep space.

8. Budget, payment & delivery

Buying your units directly is one of the best ways to keep a new kitchen affordable — you pay for the cabinets you actually need, with no showroom mark-up. Because everything is priced per unit, it’s easy to see where your money goes and to phase the project if you’d like to.

You can spread the cost with Klarna “buy now, pay later” at checkout, alongside secure card and PayPal payment. We deliver kitchen units across England and Wales, with delivery costs and estimated timescales shown at checkout.

9. Buying with confidence

Take it step by step — settle your layout, measure carefully, list the units you need, then choose your doors and finish — and a self-bought fitted kitchen is a genuinely achievable project with a big payoff. When you’re ready, browse the full kitchens range to start building your plan.