Kitchen design in Batumi: layout, 3D and drawings for the units

Where kitchen design starts

We start kitchen design in Batumi with a short questionnaire, and choose the cabinet fronts and colours later. Who cooks most often, and how tall are they? How many people sit down at the table on weekdays, and how many at weekends? Which appliances have already been bought, and what do you keep in stock at home?

The answers turn into dimensions: the worktop height depends on the cook's height, the width of the dishwasher on how many people eat at home, the depth of the tall units on the fridge model. At the measured survey we record what can't be moved later: the riser, the ventilation shaft, the gas pipe if there is one, the window with its opening sash and the developer's outlets.

The work triangle and the shape of the kitchen

The fridge, the sink and the hob stand at the corners of a triangle that the cook walks around. We keep each side roughly within 1.2–2.7 m. With short sides two people are cramped at the hob, and with long ones you walk from the sink to the hob with wet hands and dripping dishes.

The zones along the worktop follow the order of work: take the food out, wash it, chop it, put it on the heat. So we leave the longest clear stretch, 60–90 cm, between the sink and the hob, and at least 30–40 cm on each side of the hob, so that a pan handle doesn't stick out over the edge. The dishwasher goes right next to the sink, but not tight in the corner: its open door blocks the drawers of the adjoining run.

An island or a peninsula makes sense where the kitchen opens into the room, and they are covered in detail on the page about open-plan kitchen-living room design.

Heights and walkways to suit your height

Catalogues are designed for people of average height, so we take the main heights at the measured survey.

Tall housing units with the fridge and oven go at the end of the run. A tall cabinet in the middle of the worktop cuts it into two short pieces, and neither has room for a chopping board and a bowl side by side.

Cooker hood, ventilation shaft and gas: what decides where the hob goes

The position of the hob is most often decided by the ventilation shaft. The further the hob is from it, the longer the duct, and a long duct with bends is noisier and extracts worse. So first we find the shaft, put the hob next to it and lay out the other units around it. We draw the duct route on the ceiling plan: the boxing to the shaft often runs right across the kitchen and decides where the downlights go and how high the cabinets can reach. How the duct is installed, and with what cross-section and valve, is covered on the page about renovating the kitchen itself.

We choose the type of hood together with the cabinet fronts. A hood built into a wall cabinet is almost invisible, an island hood needs fixing to the ceiling slab and a duct across the whole ceiling, and a downdraft hood in the worktop takes the place of the drawer under the hob. We estimate the extraction rate from the volume of the kitchen, and in our practice we allow a margin for 10–12 air changes an hour. We check the noise level at the speed the hood will run at most of the time.

If the apartment has gas, the cooker position is tied to the gas pipe. Only the gas supply company can move a gas point, and our crews don't touch the gas pipe. So we discuss moving it before the drawings and leave time in the renovation schedule for the gas company's visit.

Storage: what goes next to what

Before drawing the units, we sort everything the kitchen has to hold into zones. Pans and spices go in the drawers under the hob, plates by the dishwasher so you can unload it without taking a step, dry goods closer to the fridge, and the bin and cleaning products under the sink.

Ceilings in Batumi new builds are usually 2.7–3 m high, so a top run taken up to the ceiling comes out tall. We split it into two tiers: everyday crockery below, and above, behind lift-up doors, the things you take out once a season.

Lighting and sockets in a kitchen design

Work lighting is where mistakes happen most often. We move the general lighting towards the edge of the worktop: if the downlights are in the middle of the kitchen, the person at the hob has their back to them and chops in their own shadow. When there are no wall cabinets, there is nothing to fix the worktop lighting to, so a line of downlights or a track above the front edge takes its place. We choose the shade of white together with the fronts: warm light turns white enamel cream, and cool light pulls wood towards grey. How we calculate illuminance and lighting circuits for the whole apartment is explained on the page about lighting design.

We draw the sockets and outlets on the elevation of each wall, above the unit they belong to, with heights from the finished floor. The electrician works from the sheet, not from the furniture maker's sketch. So that the layout doesn't change at the last minute, it is best to choose the appliances early, together with appliances chosen to fit the recesses.

A kitchen for a family and a kitchen for rental

A family that cooks every day needs a full-size dishwasher, an oven in a tall unit and room for two at the hob. A guest staying a few nights makes coffee and breakfast, and a two- to four-zone induction hob, a slimline dishwasher and a microwave with an oven function are enough. If the apartment is let by the month in winter, we design the kitchen for a tenant who cooks at home: rebuilding the units when the rental mode changes costs more than allowing for the recesses from the start.

In a rental kitchen we make one cupboard lockable, for spare cleaning products and the owner's things. We count the crockery by the number of guests in the listing, and find room for the dish rack and the bin behind the doors.

What you get: the sheets of a kitchen design

The furniture maker, the electrician and plumber, and the tiler each work from different sheets. So the set includes a layout plan, a drawing of the units with the appliance models, wall elevations with the electrical and water points, a ceiling plan, a splashback elevation, 3D and a materials list.

From our drawing the furniture maker prepares detailed drawings for the workshop, and before they go into production we check them against the design: the widths of the units, the gaps to the walls, the cut-outs for the appliances. If you order the units from us, the made-to-measure kitchen is built from the same sheets.

How much kitchen design costs in Batumi

Designing an 8–12 m² kitchen costs from 2,040 ₾, usually up to 3,000 ₾. This is the price of the designer's work: placing the units and appliances, 3D, a drawing of the units for the furniture maker, the splashback elevation and a diagram of the sockets, water outlets and hood. The units and the renovation are paid for separately.

An L-shaped or U-shaped layout, an island, moving the sink or hob away from the riser and ventilation shaft, and tall units with built-in appliances move the price towards the top of the range. Without 3D, for example when the units have already been ordered, we price the drawings at the technical design project rate, from 78 ₾ per m². The final cost of the design is set after the measured survey and once the set of sheets is agreed, and it goes into the contract together with the timing of each stage.