Here's a question I get asked all the time, and one I absolutely love: "How many cabinets do I need?" It sounds straightforward, doesn't it? But in over a decade of designing kitchens, I can tell you that the answer is rarely about the number of cabinets at all. It's about something far more personal than that.
The truth is, poor kitchen storage planning is one of the biggest reasons people end up dissatisfied with a kitchen they spent good money on. You can have a beautifully designed space with great worktops, stunning cabinetry, and all the right finishes, and still find yourself frustrated six months in because nothing has a proper home. So before you start choosing door styles or worktop materials, I want you to take this planning test first.
Before I design a single unit, I ask every client to do one thing: go home and open every cupboard and drawer in their current kitchen. Not to tidy it, just to look. What's actually in there? How much of it do you use every day? How much of it hasn't seen daylight since you moved in?
This exercise is so revealing. Most people are storing things they don't need: duplicate gadgets, appliances they never use, saucepans that haven't seen a hob in years. Good kitchen storage planning starts with an honest audit of your life, not a wishlist.
This is where it gets interesting. I always ask clients: are you a daily from-scratch cook, or more of a weeknight assembler? Do you bake? Do you batch cook? Do you entertain regularly?
A keen baker needs deep drawers for trays and tins, a dedicated spot for a stand mixer, and easy access to dry ingredients. A family that mostly does quick weeknight meals needs a very different layout. There's no one-size-fits-all answer, and any designer who tells you otherwise isn't really listening to you.
As a general rule of thumb, most designers will allow for between 1.5 and 2.5 cubic metres of storage per person in the household. That's a helpful starting point, but I'd encourage you to go beyond it. Think about the stage of life you're in. A young couple might be perfectly happy with a sleeker, more minimal design now, but if children are on the horizon, storage needs tend to grow very quickly!
Here's something that surprises a lot of people during the kitchen storage planning process: drawers are almost always more practical than cupboards for base units. Modern kitchen design increasingly prioritises drawers over cupboards, as drawers avoid the wasted space at the back of cabinets, with many designers recommending a ratio of around 60 to 70% drawers to 30 to 40% cupboards. Think about how much time you've spent fishing around at the back of a deep base cabinet. A drawer solves that problem entirely.
Wall units, on the other hand, are brilliant for glassware, dry goods, and everyday crockery: items you want to see and reach easily. The key is balance.
One of the most common mistakes I see in kitchen storage planning is forgetting to account for appliances. In an average kitchen of around 12 units, as many as six of those positions can already be accounted for by the oven, hob, dishwasher, sink, extractor, and fridge-freezer, before storage has even been considered. That's a sobering thought, isn't it? Which is exactly why planning your appliances and your storage together, not separately, is so important.
A medium-sized kitchen will typically need somewhere in the region of 10 to 15 cabinets, but the exact number matters far less than how well-designed and accessible those units are. Clever internal storage such as pull-out larder units, deep pan drawers, and corner carousels can mean that fewer, better-placed cabinets outperform a kitchen packed wall-to-wall with units.
The goal of kitchen storage planning isn't to fill every available space. It's to make sure that everything you own has a logical, accessible home so your kitchen feels calm, clear, and genuinely easy to use every single day.
As a kitchen designer, I love creating a stunning space where life is easy and memories are made! If your kitchen needs upgrading, modernising or a complete renovation, let’s have a conversation and see what you could do with your space.
A new kitchen with a specialist design is more cost-effective than you may think – just get in touch with us today for a free in-store kitchen design consultation and we’ll show you how.
Emma Reed – Kitchen designer – 01792 712000
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