Planning a kitchen: the five points that decide whether it lasts

Part two · HDi answers

The straight answer

The five points, in order: one, the layout and the clearances; two, every appliance chosen before anything is drawn; three, a carcass and hardware built for a hot, humid kitchen, meaning moisture-resistant board with sealed edges, soft-close hinges and full-extension runners from a named maker; four, a worktop that suits Dubai sun and heat, which for most kitchens is porcelain or sintered stone; and five, ducted extraction, layered lighting and enough power. Get those five right and a bespoke kitchen from our factory runs from around AED 40,000 to around AED 140,000 for our premium ranges, and the door colour becomes the last and easiest decision, not the first.

Every fault in your current kitchen traces back to one of those five. The swollen doors and dropped hinges are point three. The yellow worktop is point four. The smell and the sockets are point five. The black-hole corner is point one. Here is each one in detail.

Point one: the layout and the clearances

Plan the room around where you stand and what you reach, in five zones, before you think about how it looks:

• Store: fridge, freezer and pantry, nearest the door the shopping comes through.
• Keep: everyday plates, glasses and cutlery, between the dishwasher and the table, so unloading is two steps.
• Wash: sink, dishwasher and bins together. The bin belongs under the sink run.
• Prep: the longest clear stretch of worktop in the room, ideally 900 to 1200 mm between sink and hob, with knives, boards and bowls in the drawers underneath.
• Cook: hob, ovens, extraction, pans, oils and utensils within one step.

Then the numbers the kitchen is actually built from:

Worktop height is the line to question in your house. 900 mm suits someone around 1.70 m. With a 1.60 m cook and a 1.90 m cook, a bespoke maker can set the main run around 900 to 920 mm and raise the island or one prep section towards 950 to 970 mm, so each of you has a place that does not hurt your back. It costs nothing to decide on the drawing and it cannot be changed after.

Your island

• Clearance first. 1000 mm clear on every side used, 1200 mm where someone sits with their back to a route, and more opposite an open dishwasher or oven door.
• Homework and cooking on one island needs about 3000 mm or more. On 2400 mm, one of the two jobs loses.
• Services decided before the floor is laid. Sockets at minimum. A sink means water and a drain in the slab. A hob means island extraction: a ceiling unit, a downdraft or a duct you have planned.
• The back of the island faces your family room. Panelled or in a contrasting finish, it reads as furniture rather than a run of cupboards.

The corner and the storage

Doors above, drawers below. A base cupboard with a shelf wastes its back half, and a drawer brings its contents to you. A deep pan drawer wants 250 to 300 mm of internal height, cutlery wants a shallow top drawer with a fitted insert, and tall units want internal drawers rather than fixed shelves. Your black-hole corner is fixed with a proper corner mechanism: a carousel, a pull-out that swings out of the corner, or simply a blind corner given to things you use twice a year. Opening the kitchen into the family room may even remove the corner altogether.

Opening the wall is an approvals question as well as a design one. In a villa community, removing a wall or moving the sink or hob needs the community NOC and an authority permit; our guide to renovation approvals in Dubai explains the order.

Point two: appliances first, all of them

Appliances set the cabinet sizes, the electrical load, the extraction and the plumbing, and all four are drawn before anything is made. Choosing them late is the commonest reason a kitchen gets redrawn.

Gas or induction

• Induction is faster, easier to clean, puts far less heat into the room, and keeps the cooking area cooler, which matters in Dubai, especially in an open-plan room. It needs its own dedicated circuit, typically 32 amp for a full-size hob, so the electrical layout must show it.
• Gas is the choice for people who cook with a wok and a flame. Supply depends on the property: central gas in many newer buildings, cylinders in many villas, and no gas at all in some towers. Dubai Civil Defence approval is required for new installations or major changes, so moving a gas hob into an island is a job for the licensed supplier, not just the kitchen fitter.
• Both: a common compromise is an induction hob with a single gas wok burner beside it, where the property has gas.

The rest of the list

• Ovens: single, double, or a tall stack with a combination microwave or warming drawer. This sets the whole tall run.
• Fridge: integrated or freestanding changes the housing and the look. An American-style fridge needs a water line and room to open its doors fully.
• Dishwasher: next to the sink, with a moisture barrier strip under the worktop above it.
• Sink and tap: undermounted into a stone or porcelain top, with the tap chosen now because the hole is cut in the factory.

We fit built-in ovens, combination microwaves and hobs from Bystro and Fulgor Milano, Bystro sinks and Nobili taps. Whichever brands you choose, what matters is that the model numbers are fixed before the shop drawings are.

Point three: a carcass and hardware built for a Dubai kitchen

This is the point nobody shows you in a showroom and the one your current kitchen failed. A kitchen is a set of boxes, and how the boxes are made decides whether it lasts eight years or twenty.

Why your doors swelled

Chipboard and MDF swell when water reaches an unsealed edge. Around a sink and a dishwasher, steam and splashes find every cut edge and every screw hole. The cure is in the specification:

• 18 mm board, moisture-resistant grade at least in the sink and dishwasher units, and ideally throughout.
• Every edge banded, not only the visible front edges, and every cut-out for a sink, tap or pipe sealed before fitting.
• A liner in the sink base that catches a slow leak before it reaches the board.
• A moisture barrier under the worktop above the dishwasher, so each cycle's steam does not hit raw board.
• Adjustable legs and a sealed plinth, so a mopped floor does not wick water into the base of every cabinet.

Why your doors dropped and your drawers stick

Hinges and runners are the moving parts of a kitchen, and cheap ones wear in a few years. Specify:

• Soft-close, adjustable hinges from a named maker, in the right number for the door. As a guide, two hinges up to about 900 mm of door height, three up to about 1600 mm, more on tall doors.
• Full-extension drawer runners with a stated load rating, and a heavier rating on wide pan drawers. A 1000 mm pan drawer full of cast iron is a serious load.
• A corner mechanism rated for what goes in it.

Our cabinets are fitted inside with Blum and Kesseböhmer hardware. Whoever builds your kitchen, ask which hinges and runners are being used and see them written into the quotation. A quotation that does not name them has not chosen them yet.

Point four: a worktop that suits Dubai light and heat

Your yellowed worktop is a common story. Engineered quartz is crushed stone bound with resin, and the resin can discolour in strong direct sun and mark under a hot pan. It is a good material indoors, away from a sunny window. Your window run is exactly where it fails.

The chunky edge you see on porcelain is not the slab. Porcelain is commonly 12 mm thick, with a mitred front edge bonded on to give a finished edge of around 40 or 44 mm, or deeper on an island. The edge thickness is a look you choose, priced by the finished girth, not a strength. Ask where the joins will fall, and consider running the same slab up the wall as the splashback behind the hob, with the pattern continuing from the worktop.

Point five: extraction, lighting and power

Extraction

Your smell problem is a recirculating hood. It filters grease and some odour, but puts the heat and moisture straight back into the room. In an open-plan villa kitchen, duct it outside.

• Size it to the room. A working rule is ten air changes an hour. An open kitchen and family room of 6 by 5 metres with a 3 metre ceiling holds 90 cubic metres, so look for an extractor rated around 900 cubic metres an hour at a speed you can live with.
• Keep the duct short and smooth, rigid rather than flexible where possible, at the diameter the hood is designed for.
• Mount it at the height the hood maker states for your hob, usually 650 to 750 mm above a gas hob.
• Plan the outlet early. In a villa, a duct to an outside wall goes on the drawings. In an apartment, check what the building allows before you design around one.

Lighting

Three layers, on separate circuits: task light under the wall units and over the prep zone, so you are not working in your own shadow; general ceiling light, dimmable; and accent light, such as pendants over the island and strip lighting in glazed cabinets. Keep every fitting at the same colour temperature, around 3000 K, because mixed white light is the commonest fault in a finished kitchen.

Power

A dedicated circuit for every major appliance, and worktop sockets wherever you will use a small appliance: by the coffee corner, either side of the prep zone and on the island. Draw where the kettle, toaster and coffee machine will live and put the sockets there. Three on a whole worktop is the reason you are reading this.

What it costs, and how long it takes

A bespoke kitchen from our factory starts at around AED 40,000, and our premium ranges run to around AED 140,000. Every project is priced individually after the site measure. The spread comes from:

• The front. Melamine, painted, veneer and solid timber are four different builds.
• Drawers. More hardware and more assembly than doors, and a much better kitchen for it.
• The worktop. Material, edge depth and a full-height slab splashback.
• Size and internal fittings, such as corner mechanisms, pull-out larders and internal drawers.

For comparison, a 2025 Dubai market guide puts custom cabinetry at AED 20,000 to over AED 60,000, worktops at AED 3,000 to 15,000 and appliances at AED 5,000 to 30,000, with a kitchen renovation typically taking three to eight weeks. When two quotations look far apart, check first whether appliances, worktops and site works are inside or outside each price.

On time: the decisions take longest. Once the drawings are signed, your schedule from our portal shows design, samples, strip-out, factory production, installation and handover, with the dates and when each payment falls due, and the joinery is made in the factory while the site is prepared.

Your questions, answered one by one

Gas or induction?

For a family open-plan kitchen in Dubai, induction, with a single gas wok burner beside it if your husband cooks with flame.

Which worktop?

Porcelain or sintered stone, at least along the window. It will not yellow, it takes a hot pan, and it needs no sealing.

How big can the island be?

Measure the room, take 1000 to 1200 mm off every working side, and what is left is the island. For homework and cooking together you want about 3000 mm or more.

Can we keep anything?

Sometimes appliances, if they are recent and their sizes suit the new plan. Swollen carcasses and tired hinges are not worth keeping.

How HDi plans a kitchen

It starts with a design consultation at our Dubai Production City offices or at your home, with real doors, finishes and worktops on the table. The initial design consultation is AED 5,000, credited in full against your project when you approve it. We survey your kitchen, then present the design in 3D so you can walk round the island, open the drawers and change the door range before anything is cut. You can also plan your kitchen in 3D on our planner before you meet us.

Every kitchen starts with one of our sixteen signature door ranges, in sixty-eight standard finishes or any RAL colour on painted doors. It is built to the millimetre in our own factory, so a 740 mm gap becomes a 740 mm cabinet rather than a 600 and a filler. Our own installers fit it. Our handmade cabinetry carries three to five years' warranty depending on the finishes chosen, and the manufacturers' warranties on appliances, worktops and hardware are handled by us.

Ready to plan a kitchen that lasts? Book a consultation or call 050 578 1086, and we will measure the room, answer the gas-or-induction question for your house and show you your kitchen in 3D before anything is made.