Kitchen Renovation London

A kitchen renovation in London is mostly a building job with a kitchen at the end of it. The units and the worktop are the visible part. In a London terrace or flat the cost and the risk sit elsewhere: in the wall that comes out, the waste that has to reach the stack, and the extraction that has to reach outside. This page covers that side of the work. It explains which layouts suit which London house types, how a kitchen-diner with a steel beam is built, where the services go in a rear addition, what the consents are and what moves the price. It also says when a showroom company is the better choice than a builder. GS Renovation has no showroom. We are a builder who does the structure, the services and the fit as one contract, and who will fit a kitchen you have already bought.

Across London, a kitchen renovation typically costs £18,000 to £60,000 or more from design to fitting (indicative ranges, MyBuilder and Checkatrade, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in London: we carry the strip-out, services and fit as one contract, with the electrics certified by a registered electrician.

Which kitchen layouts work in London terraces and flats?

The right kitchen layout in a London house follows the building, and the building is usually a terrace with the kitchen in the rear addition. That addition is narrow, single aspect and one room deep, so the working layout is a galley along one wall with the sink under the window. It suits two people and defeats a family. The options are to open the rear addition into the middle room for an L-shaped kitchen-diner, to infill the side return, or to do both and take the whole rear of the house. Which one is right depends on how the family uses the room and what the budget will carry. Each step adds structure. Opening into the middle room means a beam. Infilling the side return means an extension with its own foundations, roof and consents.

Flats set different limits. In a converted house the kitchen often sits in a former bedroom with a long waste run to the stack and a timber floor, so an island sink is hard to drain. Mansion flats tend to have the kitchen at the back over a solid floor with a stack close by. Newer flats may have no gas at all. Where you can open up, the question is how far. A fully open ground floor is bright and loud. A broken plan, with the beam in but a half wall or a run of tall units keeping the cooking side separate, is our usual recommendation for a family terrace, because it keeps the light and loses the noise.

How a kitchen-diner with a steel beam is built in London

A London kitchen-diner starts with the wall between the kitchen and the back room, which is nearly always load-bearing, so the job is structural first. After the survey and your written quotation, the structural engineer we appoint sizes the beam, the padstones and any post, and produces the calculations for building control. We strip out the old kitchen, prop the floor and wall above through to a firm bearing, cut the opening, set the steel and pack it tight to the brickwork. Building control inspects the bearings and the beam before it is cased in fire-rated board. Only then does first fix begin, with the wall open and the floor up, which is the cheapest moment to move every service.

You will be without a kitchen for the whole run, so we set up a temporary one before strip-out. That means a sink where a supply and a waste are easy to reach, a hob on a spare circuit and a fridge out of the dust. In a terrace with a narrow hall, the steel and every carcass come through the front door by hand, so floor protection goes down first. Skips need a permit from the council, and a parking suspension may be needed for deliveries. In a flat the managing agent sets the working hours, and the steel often comes up the stair in shorter lengths spliced on site to the engineer's detail.

Services, drainage and extraction in a London rear addition

Drainage decides where a London kitchen sink can go, because waste runs by gravity to the gully or stack outside the rear wall and needs a fall along the whole route. Against the rear wall that is simple. In the middle of the room it means a waste run between the joists with enough depth for the fall, or a channel cut into a solid floor. A pumped waste under an island works but is a moving part that fails, so we treat it as the last option. The incoming main and the consumer unit are checked on the survey, because an induction hob, an oven and a boiling tap can exceed what an old board will carry.

Extraction is the service most often done badly. A recirculating hood removes some grease and little else, and the steam ends up on the walls you have just had plastered. Ducting to the outside air is the aim, and in a rear addition there are usually three routes: straight through the rear wall behind the hood, up through a flat roof, or along a ceiling void to the side wall. Each has a limit on length and bends before the fan stops working, so the hood position is fixed at design stage, not on fitting day. Stone worktops are templated after the units are set and levelled, then cut off site, so the programme carries a wait with a temporary top.

What consents does a kitchen renovation in London need?

A kitchen renovation inside your London house does not need planning permission, but the building regulations apply to most of it. The beam and the opening come under Part A and need the engineer's calculations and building control inspections. New circuits, including a new cooker supply, are notifiable under Part P and are certified by a registered electrician or notified to building control. Extraction to outside falls under Part F, the new waste connection under Part H, and a new external door or rooflight under Part L. Part B matters more than people expect: in a house of three or more storeys, opening the kitchen onto the stair can break the protected escape route and needs a fire door or a different plan.

Planning comes in when the kitchen becomes an extension. A side return infill or a rear extension may fall under permitted development or need an application, and a conservation designation or an Article 4 direction narrows what is allowed. A listed house needs listed building consent even for internal work such as removing a wall. Gas work is done by a Gas Safe registered engineer, arranged within the programme. If you live in a flat, the lease will almost certainly require the freeholder's consent to alterations before a wall comes out, and the managing agent will ask for the engineer's drawings and proof of insurance. Where the beam bears into a wall shared with a neighbour, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies. You serve the notice as the building owner, and we build to the award.

What does a kitchen renovation cost in London?

A kitchen renovation in London costs £18,000 to £60,000+ from design to fitting, and opening up for a kitchen-diner adds £2,500 to £6,500 or more for the beam, the engineer and the making good. London kitchen fitters charge £300 to £450 a day, and our kitchen fitters page sets out how a fit runs day by day. Those are indicative London ranges from MyBuilder and Checkatrade for 2026, not a quotation. The bottom of the range keeps the layout, the services and the walls, and spends on units, a worktop and appliances. The top of it moves everything, opens the ground floor, runs new drainage, upgrades the electrical supply and pays for handmade cabinetry and stone. Most London kitchens land in the lower half of that spread.

Three things move the price more than the brand of the units. The first is whether the sink and the hob move, because each brings a plumber, an electrician and often a floor up with it. The second is the structure: a beam, its calculations, the propping and building control are a separate cost and should appear as one line. The third is what the strip-out finds in a period house: floors out of level, a rear wall never plastered, lead pipe, a consumer unit that cannot take the hob. Finishes come last and are the easiest to change. A quotation after a survey should show each as its own line, so you can see where you can trade.

Showroom company or builder for a London kitchen?

A showroom company is the right choice when the room stays as it is and the kitchen is the whole job. You see the units, the supply and the fit are one contract, and the fitter knows the range. It is the wrong choice when the wall is coming out, the drainage is moving or the electrics need a new board, because those are building works the showroom subcontracts or leaves to you. A builder is the right choice when the kitchen is the last stage of a structural or whole-room job, with the beam, the services and the fit under one contract. GS Renovation has no showroom. We plan the layout with you on the survey, supply through trade suppliers or fit a kitchen bought elsewhere, and carry the structure and services either way.

The mistakes we see come from the gap between those two routes. A showroom plan drawn from a customer's measurements that does not fit a wall that is out of square. A hood positioned where there is no route to outside. Units fitted before the floor is levelled, so the worktop runs out of true. A beam quoted separately by a builder the showroom has never met, so nobody owns the join. Whichever route you take, ask who is responsible for the structure, who certifies the electrics, whether the drainage has been checked against the stack, and who you ring on the day the worktop arrives wrong. One name for all of it is the point of using a builder.

• Quartz, granite and marble worktops templated and fitted
• Handleless, shaker and in-frame door styles fitted
• Pantry, larder and utility room integration

Plenty of London projects start with one job and grow, so it helps to see load-bearing wall removal in London, kitchen fitting in London, when a kitchen needs a building contractor and Kitchen Renovation Cost.

The GS Renovation Difference in London

London homeowners choose GS Renovation for a kitchen renovation because the structure, the services and the fit are one contract with one named point of contact. The beam, the drainage and the units are not three firms blaming each other. Founder and director Abdelaaziz Saaid brings over 30 years of hands-on experience. The structural engineer we appoint designs any opening and we build to it, with building control coordinated on every notifiable job. We fit kitchens you have already bought as readily as ones we supply. The trades are our own, the firm is fully insured, quotations are free after a survey, and it is rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder.

• Aftercare and snagging support once the job is finished
• The kitchen laid out on plan before a single unit is ordered
• Old kitchen stripped, disposed of and made good within the price

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254). Structural design is by the consulting engineer appointed to your project.