Quick answer: The first step in planning a new kitchen isn’t choosing a showroom or browsing brands; it’s spending two weeks auditing how you actually use your current kitchen. Note the bottlenecks, wasted steps and what you hide versus display. That two-week record becomes the design brief that shapes every good decision later.

Once you’ve completed that audit, the best next step is to visit the Suga Küchen showroom, where we can turn your findings into a clear, practical design tailored to how you actually live.

If you’ve started thinking about a new kitchen, your instinct is probably to book a showroom visit, scroll Schüller pages or pin Pinterest layouts. None of that is the first step. The first step is much quieter, and almost everyone skips it.

This guide walks through the two-week lifestyle audit that should sit at the front of every kitchen project: what to record, how it reshapes the brief you take to a designer, and why a planning-to-install ratio of around 4:1 tends to produce kitchens people still love five years on. We’ve built our whole process around it.

why most people skip the first step

Most homeowners begin a kitchen project the wrong way round. The natural opening move is to visit a showroom or browse brands online, that’s the part that feels productive. Quiet observation of your current kitchen feels like the opposite. Yet the homeowners who slow down here always end up with better kitchens.

The reason is simple. A designer can only design from the brief you give them. If your brief is built around showroom imagery rather than how your household actually cooks, eats and moves, the designer is solving the wrong problem. Pretty kitchens that don’t fit family life usually trace back to that error.
If you’d like to turn your brief into a kitchen that truly works for your home, book a design call with one of our designers and we’ll guide you through the next steps.

Skipping this step isn’t laziness; it’s that nobody at the showroom stage tells you to do it. Brochures, YouTube videos and influencer content all push toward selection, not observation. The whole industry is geared to move you from inspiration to specification as quickly as possible.

Slowing down feels counter-cultural, but it’s the single biggest predictor of whether you’ll still be happy in the kitchen five years from now.

the two-week kitchen audit, what to record

For two weeks, treat your current kitchen as a research subject. The audit isn’t a deep technical exercise, it’s a notebook on the worktop, and the discipline of writing things down as they happen. Record these six things daily, even briefly:

Cooking patterns: what you actually cooked, how long it took, where you got stuck (waiting on the oven, no worktop near the hob, fridge too far from prep).

Traffic flow: who else was in the kitchen, where collisions happened, where the dog, the kids or your partner blocked you.

Frustrations: every minor annoyance worth muttering over: the drawer that sticks, the dim corner, no socket near the kettle.

Hidden vs displayed: what lives on the worktop because it has nowhere else to go, and what you’d rather keep hidden.

Storage failures: what you couldn’t find, what fell out, what was empty space wasted.

Habits that aren’t cooking: homework, work calls, post-school snacks, end-of-day wine. Most modern kitchens fail because they ignore the non-cooking life that happens in them.

After two weeks you’ll have 30 to 40 small entries. They tell you more about your kitchen than any pin board ever will, because they’re evidence rather than aspiration.

from audit to design brief, how the data shapes decisions

The audit’s value is in turning instinct into evidence. Instead of saying “I’d like more storage”, you can tell a designer: “Tall units near the door, because shopping always lands on the floor and I want it within arm’s reach of the fridge.” That’s a brief a designer can build from.

A few patterns we see again and again at the Timperley showroom:

Households who said they wanted an island often discover, post-audit, they actually want a peninsula, the audit shows two cooks colliding, not a need to seat eight.

“More counter space” usually means prep space next to the hob, not extra total worktop run.

“Better storage” translates, around 80% of the time, to deeper drawers and pull-outs rather than additional cupboards.

“Open-plan feel” often resolves into clearer sightlines rather than knocking through a wall.

Your audit translates wishlist language into specification language. That single shift saves weeks of back-and-forth at the design stage and prevents the most expensive type of change, the one made after install, when cabinets are already on the wall.

the right order: audit, brief, designer, builder

The sequence matters as much as the steps. The order that consistently produces the best outcomes runs like this:

Stage	Timeframe	What you do	Why first
1. Lifestyle audit	2 weeks	Daily notes on how you use your current kitchen	Gives you evidence, not aspiration
2. Brief	~1 week	Three loves, three hates, three must-haves, rough budget	Compresses the audit into a designer-ready document
3. Designer	4–8 weeks	Concept and detailed design with a single trusted designer	Locks specification before trades quote
4. Builder / architect	Concurrent with stage 3	Costed quotes against a real specification	Avoids vague pricing on an unfinished design
5. Order	After sign-off	Cabinets, worktops and appliances confirmed	Lead times start from a stable spec

The most common reversal, speaking to a builder before a designer, almost always leads to a kitchen built around what was easy to fit, not what fits the household. A good designer briefs the builder, not the other way round.

what “guidance without pressure” actually looks like

Most kitchen showrooms are sales environments. Ours is structured differently. Guidance without pressure means we’d rather you take three months and choose well than three weeks and regret it.

In practice that translates to a first conversation focused on the audit, not the brand catalogue. We won’t put Schüller, Keller or next125 doors in front of you at the first meeting if your audit hasn’t yet told us whether you need handleless, what colour temperature your light has, or how tall your tallest user is. There’s no advantage to either side in starting with the doors.

If a showroom puts you in front of a quote on visit one, treat it as a signal. A 35-year reputation in Timperley wasn’t built that way; it was built by being the second showroom most of our customers visit, the one where the conversation slows down rather than speeds up.

when to start visiting showrooms

Showroom visits are most useful after the audit, not before. Walk in with a two-week notebook and a rough brief and the same hour gives you ten times the value: you stop reacting to door samples and start asking specification questions instead.

A reasonable timeline is two weeks of audit, around a week of brief-writing, and then your first showroom visits. Most homeowners visit two or three showrooms, that’s healthy and we encourage it. The KBSA recommends asking each showroom the same questions so you can compare answers, not just kitchens.

When you book a Suga Küchen visit, we’ll ask you to bring the audit, a rough floor plan and your loves/hates list. Those three artefacts make the difference between a 90-minute conversation that progresses your project and one that mostly looks at finishes.

what our designers would say

“In 14 years of designing kitchens, the homeowners who arrive with a two-week audit are the ones whose finished kitchens still feel right at year five. The audit changes the whole conversation. Instead of guessing about what they’ll do in the space, we’re working with evidence. It also gives us permission to push back on ideas that won’t survive daily life, the island that breaks the only walking line, the larder that’s beautiful but ten steps from the fridge. The audit gives the design teeth.” – Cassandra Wilkinson-Leonard, Senior Designer, Suga Küchen

common mistakes to avoid

• Booking showrooms before the audit. You end up reacting to finishes instead of asking the right specification questions.
• Letting Pinterest set the brief. Boards reflect aspiration, not your household’s actual cooking patterns or storage failures.
• Asking the builder for a quote before the design is locked. Pricing without a real specification almost always slips, often by 10–20%.
• Confusing “more storage” with “better storage”. Drawers, pull-outs and proper zoning solve more than additional cupboards.
• Skipping non-cooking observation. Work calls, homework and pre-dinner drinks shape modern kitchen layouts as much as cooking does.
• Auditing for three days instead of fourteen. Short audits miss weekend patterns, takeaway nights and the messier midweek reality.

frequently asked questions

How long should I plan a kitchen before buying?
Most homeowners benefit from three to six months of planning. The lifestyle audit accounts for the first two weeks, briefing and showroom visits the next four to six weeks, and detailed design another four to eight weeks after that. A roughly 4:1 ratio of planning time to install time tends to produce kitchens people still love five years on.

Should I get my own measurements?
A rough floor plan with approximate dimensions is helpful for the first conversation, but you don’t need precision. Any reputable designer will conduct a proper site survey before specification, checking floor levels, wall plumbness and service positions. Your job at the planning stage is to give the designer a starting picture, not an engineering drawing.

What’s the right order, design then builder, or builder then design?
Design first, then builder. A locked specification lets builders quote accurately; a vague brief invites variation costs later. If you’re combining a kitchen with an extension, bring the kitchen designer in at concept stage alongside the architect, so services, ceiling drops and floor levels are coordinated before drawings are submitted for building regulations.

When should I visit showrooms?
After the two-week audit and at least a draft of your brief. Walking into a showroom with a notebook of how you actually use your current kitchen turns a finish-led visit into a specification conversation. The KBSA recommends visiting two or three showrooms with the same questions, so answers, not just kitchens, can be compared.

Do I need an architect or just a designer?
It depends on the project. A standalone kitchen replacement needs a designer, not an architect. Extensions, knock-throughs or significant structural work need both, ideally working in parallel from day one. A kitchen designer brought in late on an extension is one of the most common causes of services in the wrong place and tall units that don’t fit.

How do I know my brief is good?
A good brief is specific, evidence-led and short. It names three loves and three hates from your current kitchen, lists three non-negotiables, gives a rough budget range and a target install window. If your brief reads like a Pinterest mood board rather than a description of your household’s daily life, it isn’t ready yet.

Should I tell the designer my budget?
Yes, and as early as possible. Without a budget range a designer is guessing, which wastes everyone’s time. Sharing it doesn’t mean the kitchen will magically cost the upper limit; it means the design can be built within the right material and appliance tier from the start. Withholding the budget is one of the most expensive habits in the planning stage.

talk to a designer when you’re ready

Every kitchen we design follows the Suga Küchen 6-Step Design Guarantee, our process for catching the issues most kitchens get wrong before they reach your home. If you’ve finished your audit, or you’re about to start one, we’ll meet you where you are. Guidance without pressure, grounded in 35 years of designing and fitting kitchens in and around Altrincham.

See the 6-Step Design Guarantee →

Written by Cassandra Wilkinson-Leonard, Senior Designer at Suga Küchen. Last updated 29 April 2026.