This seemed like an obvious place to start

Get all the boring-but-vital stuff figured out first. Decide where the sink must go, the boiler, the oven and the fridge. Once you have space allocated for the essentials, you’ll know what you have left for storage, surfaces and seating.

We inherited a pokey, L-shaped kitchen fitted with MDF units, a built-in oven, and a mock-granite worksurface. It only made use of one end of the room. The space was dissected by a chimney breast fitted with a gas stove. This seemed like an obvious place to start, so we opened the chimney breast to create room for a free-standing oven (our biggest investment). By placing the oven in the centre of the action, we could bring the opposing ends of the room together.

By placing the oven in the centre of the action, the opposing ends of an L-shaped room were