A start-to-finish guide for homeowners doing their own kitchen: how to measure a room that isn’t square, lay out a plan that works, choose materials that last, and install it all the way the trade does — without hiring out the whole job.
This is the guide we wished existed when we started: no fluff, no filler, and honest about which parts you should hand to a pro. Every step is written for a confident beginner and built around real, frameless European cabinets — so what you read here matches what shows up on your pallet.
Budget, layout types, the work triangle, and how much a DIY kitchen really costs.
The exact way to measure walls, appliances and clearances so you never order the wrong size.
Work zones, corner solutions, upper heights — then see the whole thing in 3D before you commit.
Frameless vs framed, door styles, painted vs thermofoil, countertops, and the hardware that actually matters.
The factory’s own sequence: reference line, corner-first base cabinets, and the one-person wall-cabinet hang.
Hinge tuning, handle templates, toe kicks, and the small details that separate DIY from “who did your kitchen?”
Every standard dimension in one place — and how to read B18, W3030 or SB36 so a quote stops being a foreign language.
Hood height, fridge openings and air gaps, a dishwasher into a stone counter, cooktop clearances — the numbers that are not negotiable.
A full tour of the free 3D planner — what each tool does, the ones that stay hidden until you look, every shortcut, and fifteen tricks.
Reveal, scribe, stile, blind corner, ledger board, high loop — 72 terms, one line each, with a live filter.
The suggestion that names your next cabinet is not a language model — it is the design engine run one step at a time, with your own cabinets locked.
The moments the software is the problem, not the kitchen — a click that draws a wall, a cabinet that snaps back, a Save that seems to do nothing.
There is an assistant in the corner of the planner’s canvas. These six pages are what she can see, what to say to her, every command that changes your design, a whole kitchen designed out loud, and what to do on the day she goes quiet.
What a voice assistant can actually see on your screen, the three questions it answers better than any help page, and what we deliberately never let it decide.
The sentences that work, why you point with the mouse and not with words, how to say measurements out loud, and a full worked call.
Every voice command that changes the design — how the numbering works, why there is no swap, and every refusal you will hear.
Nine real failure modes in the order they happen, how the free minutes work, and exactly what happens to what you say.
One kitchen designed out loud, start to finish — where the mouse still does the work, where a sentence is faster, and the four places the planner says no.
What changes when the plan is in your hands at the wall: a room drawn by voice, a wake word that only listens on screen, and what a browser still does better.
Longer, opinionated pieces on the decisions that happen before a single cabinet is ordered — written by the people who make the cabinets, and honest about where our own answer stops.
IKEA’s planner, Planner 5D, HomeByMe, SketchUp Free and ours — what each is best at, what the free tier really gives you, and where each one stops.
Quartz, granite, porcelain, solid surface, laminate and butcher block — how each one actually fails, and the six questions a fabricator will ask you on template day.
Four ways to buy the same kitchen, framed vs frameless, and the six specifications that decide whether a kitchen still closes properly in ten years.
The errors that look fine on a drawing and cost money on install day — fridge doors that will not open, dishwashers blocking the corner, the missing filler — each with the fix.
What AI does brilliantly, the five things it gets wrong while looking confident, how to spot a render that cannot be built, and the order to use it in.
Five different things get sold as “talk to AI and design your kitchen” — four of them cannot see your kitchen. What each one is for, and the five tests worth applying.
Five colour families and what each does to a room, undertones, two-tone rules, sheen, and why showroom light lies to you.
Sizing by drawer width, the exact placement rules for doors and drawers, and the template that stops you drilling the wrong hole.
Blind corner, diagonal, carousel, corner drawers or nothing at all — what each one costs you in access, and how to test it on the plan.
Whether the room can have one is arithmetic. Clearances, seating overhang, services, and the tape-on-the-floor test.
One-wall, galley or L, the numbers that decide, and the trades that turn a cramped room into a working one.
Undermount, drop-in or apron front, sizing the sink base, bowl depth, and everything decided before the counter is templated.
Under-cabinet strips at the front edge, colour temperature that matches across layers, pendant heights, and what must be decided before the cabinets are built.
Every step from demolition to the final touch-up, the reason each sits where it does, and the countertop wait in the middle of it all.
Doors that will not stay shut, screws that spin, a gap at the wall, a box that is out of level — every common cabinet problem, and the order to try the fixes in.
The 242 questions DIYers most search — measuring, corners, the right screws, hinge gaps, care — each answered and linked into the guide.
It matches real cabinets. Everything here is built around frameless (European) construction with full-overlay doors and three-rail backs — the way Flip cabinets are actually made — and the install chapter follows the manufacturer’s official sequence, not a generic one. Where installers legitimately disagree (base-first vs walls-first), we tell you both and explain the trade-off instead of pretending there’s one right answer.
Yes — the cabinet work (levelling, joining and hanging boxes, doors and hardware) is well within reach of a careful first-timer with a drill, a level and patience. The parts to hand off are the ones with real risk: gas, pressurized water, 240-volt wiring, and stone countertop templating.
Plan on roughly a day per run of cabinets for install once everything is on site, plus the planning, measuring and material-selection time up front. Rushing the level lines and the first corner cabinet is where days get lost later, so the slow start pays off.
Anything gas, water-under-pressure or 240 volts, and stone countertop fabrication. A permit and a licensed pro for those cost far less than fixing a leak or a fault behind brand-new cabinetry.
No exotic tools — a drill/driver, a good level (a laser helps), a stud finder, cabinet clamps, shims and a tape measure cover the whole install. The full list lives at the top of the install chapter.
Work through the chapters in order, or jump straight to the step you’re stuck on. Either way, the free 3D planner is the fastest way to turn “I think it fits” into an exact, cut-ready plan.
Open the 3D planner →