by Janette Peel

Created on: August 17, 2008

The traditional heart of a house, a successful kitchen is efficient, attractive and comfortable, a place where you can enjoy working and relaxing.

You can save a great deal of money by installing your kitchen cabinets yourself, but be prepared for a lot of careful planning both before and during the work.

Most kitchen unit supplier sell rigid (pre-assemble) or flat-pack (self-assembly) units which you install yourself. It is sensible to have some professional help in planning the layout, but you can do a lot of the fitting yourself.

The main skill involved in installing a kitchen is woodworking, which is why many professional kitchen fitters were originally carpenter and joiners. For the electrical and plumbing requirements employ professional tradesmen to do those tasks.

The finished kitchen depends not only on the time and care you take in planning the work but in how thorough you are in carrying it out. In particular, this means making sure that you fit all units with their sides' vertical, not always easy on an uneven floor, and that worktops are truly horizontal, which is essential to make sure that a sink drains efficiently, for example.

Much of the detailed, fiddly work, and some of your mistakes, can be hidden away. Do, however, take special care when finishing off tasks: for example, sealing behind sinks and worktops, fitting end panels and installing lighting under wall cupboards.

If you take into consideration all these points and the ones to follow, you should be looking at an economical and a satisfying piece of work that lasts every bit as long and looks just as good as a kitchen installed by a full-time professional.

It is best to think of a new kitchen in metric units. The dimensions of all new kitchens units are described in millimeters and you do not want to spend hours converting them all.

Kitchen wall and base cabinets come in standard widths: 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 and 1000mm from side to side. Base units are usually 575mm deep (front to back) and 880mm high; wall units are about 32mm deep and either 600mm or 720mm high. Worktops come in 3m lengths; any run longer than 3m means you need a join. You have to join worktops where thy meet at a corner in any case.

The standard worktop height is 900mm, which suits most people, with a gap of about 500mm between the top of the worktop and the underside of the wall cupboards. Some manufacturers make spice racks or mid-range units to fit in this gap, but in most kitchens it is tiled, so it helps if the gap

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