A working kitchen is a services plan with cupboards on it

A same-footprint mid-range kitchen in an occupied house is often on site for about four to eight weeks after joinery is ready, plus several weeks of design and manufacturing before anyone demolishes. Custom stone templating adds days after cabinets are in. Layout changes, structural work, or a house that must keep a temporary kitchen can stretch the calendar into months. Lead times for cabinets and appliances are frequently longer than the install itself.

Bring a measured plan, photos, a list of what must be stored, who cooks at the same time, appliance models you will not change, and a planning-band budget with a contingency. Say whether the sink, cooktop, and fridge can move. Ask for a lighting and power plan in the same pack as the elevations. A brief that is only a Pinterest board produces a kitchen that looks styled and works poorly.

Enough that small appliances do not share a single overloaded point on the bench. Many contemporary Australian kitchens plan a bank at the main prep run, points at an island or peninsula if you have one, dedicated circuits for oven, cooktop, dishwasher and sometimes a fridge ice-maker, plus points for a coffee machine, kettle, toaster, air fryer, and chargers. Exact counts and circuits are an electrician’s design — we do not invent amps. Count the appliances you actually own, then add two.

Keep the footprint if the current walls still work: it is the largest cost and disruption control you have. Move the sink, cooktop, or fridge only when the existing diagram is genuinely unusable — that change is a small building project attached to a kitchen, not a styling tweak.