What West London Homes Ask of a Kitchen
Most of the kitchens we work on are not in new houses. They are in Victorian and Edwardian terraces, in mansion-block flats and in period conversions - houses that were built before anyone expected a family to cook, eat, work and talk in the same room.
That has practical consequences, and they usually show up in the same places:
- Narrow side returns and long, thin rooms. The width you have often decides whether an island is possible at all, or whether a peninsula or a single long run will serve you better. It is worth resolving this early rather than designing around a wish.
- Flats above ground level.Floor build-up, joist runs and the route for waste and water can change what is realistic - particularly if you want a sink or hob away from the existing wall.
- Delivery and access. Kitchen deliveries into a terraced street or a mansion block are a planning job of their own: parking and loading restrictions, stair or lift access, and neighbours either side. A kitchen that fits the room but not the staircase is a genuine problem, and it is better identified at survey than on delivery day.
- Older walls and floors. Period walls are rarely square and period floors are rarely level. Tall units, tall appliances and stone worktops are unforgiving about both, so the survey matters more than it would in a new build.
None of this makes a good kitchen harder to achieve. It just means the measuring and the technical decisions have to come before the mood board.
What You Can Expect...
Two Ways to work with Us
Not everybody wants the same thing from a kitchen company, and it is worth being clear about which of these you are looking for before you visit anyone.
1. Design And supply, fitted by your own team
You work with our designers on the layout and the specification, buy the kitchen from Arch, and use your own builder or fitter for the installation. This suits homeowners who already have a trusted team on site, or whose kitchen forms part of a wider job someone else is running.
2. Complete kitchen renovation, managed by Arch
We take on the whole project: design, the products, the preparation work and the installation, coordinated by one team and quoted under Arch's name. This is the right route if you would rather not stand between a designer, a supplier and a fitter when something needs a decision.
Read more about our complete kitchen renovation service.
Arch does not do labour-only kitchen fitting, and does not take on extensions or loft conversions. If your project needs a structural change to the building before the kitchen goes in, that work has to be arranged separately.
Our kitchen ranges
The showroom is the fastest way to narrow this down, because door finishes and worktops look different in a real room than they do in a photograph. Broadly, our ranges fall into three families.
Modern & handleless
Flat, quiet frontages with no visible handles - either a routed grip rail or a push-to-open mechanism. They suit open-plan rooms where the kitchen sits in a living space and you would rather it read as furniture than as a kitchen.
See our handleless kitchen ranges.
Traditional & Shaker
Framed doors, deeper detailing, natural materials and painted finishes that sit comfortably in a period room, bringing in traditional craftsmanship and a sense of warmth without pretending the house is older than it is.
See our traditional kitchens.
German & Italian
Engineered cabinetry with tight tolerances, deep drawer boxes and a wide range of finishes. The appeal is usually the internal quality, precision and consistency of the build, alongside the styling.
See our German and Italian kitchens.
What a West London kitchen costs
There is no single answer, and any company that gives you one before seeing the room is guessing. The cost of a kitchen is driven by the size of the room, how much cabinetry it takes to fill it, the worktop, the appliances, and how much preparation work the room needs before anything is fitted.
What we can do is be transparent about the ranges and about what a proper quotation should itemise. Our guide to kitchen renovation costs in London sets out the drivers in detail, and our worktop guide covers the material that most often moves a budget.
From first visit to finished kitchen
- Come and see the kitchens. Bring photographs of your room, rough measurements and anything you have saved. Half an hour in front of real doors and worktops is worth a fortnight of browsing.
- Survey and design. We measure properly, then develop a layout around how the room needs to work rather than around a standard template.
- Specification and proposal. You get a written specification and price showing what is included and what is not, so you can compare it fairly against anyone else.
- Ordering and scheduling. Products are ordered and the installation is scheduled around lead times and access.
- Installation and handover. The kitchen is installed in the agreed sequence and checked with you at the end.
Recent kitchens across West London
The West London areas we serve
The showroom is on King Street in Hammersmith, which puts most of West London within a short drive. We work regularly across these areas, and each has its own page with local projects and detail:
Chiswick - our closest market, and the area most of our period-terrace work comes from.
Hammersmith - the showroom's own neighbourhood, from mansion flats to family houses.
Chelsea - period properties where the specification and the finish usually matter more than the footprint.
Fulham - terraced family houses, often combining the kitchen with a wider ground-floor rethink.
Kensington - larger period homes and apartments with demanding access.
Richmond, Twickenham and Wimbledon - further out, and worth the journey for the right project.
Visit Our Hammersmith kitchen showroom
A kitchen showroom in West London is worth using properly. Open the drawers. Feel the difference between a painted door and a foil-wrapped one. Put a worktop sample next to the door colour you think you want, in daylight, and see whether you still want it.
Arch KBB, 323-325 King Street, Hammersmith, London W6 9NH
020 8741 1589