The problem with showroom kitchens
A kitchen that photographs well often fails at everyday Indian cooking. Shallow shelves cannot take a stack of steel dabbas. The masala box ends up on the counter because there is nowhere sensible for it. Chimney ducting gets improvised after the ceiling is already closed, so it either vents badly or runs somewhere ugly.
This kitchen was designed around the cooking first and the photographs second.
Layout decisions
The room could take a U, which is the most storage and counter you can get from a fixed footprint. We set the working triangle so two people can cook without colliding — a real requirement in this household, not a theoretical one.
- Deep drawers throughout the base units, sized for vessels rather than crockery
- Masala pull-out immediately beside the hob, within arm's reach
- Tall unit for the fridge and dry storage, keeping the working run clear
- A wet zone that keeps sink splash away from any carcass edge
- Chimney duct route agreed and marked before the false ceiling was closed
Materials, and why
BWP marine-grade plywood carcass, because ordinary commercial ply swells at the base within a few years in this climate. Laminate shutters rather than acrylic — this kitchen gets scrubbed daily, and laminate takes that far better than a high-gloss finish. Soft-close hardware on every drawer and door.
The counter is granite. Quartz resists staining slightly better, but granite handles direct heat without a trivet and costs less, and in a kitchen that cooks three meals a day that is the more useful property.
On the backsplash
Full-height tiling behind the hob rather than a glass panel. Glass looks cleaner in a photograph and is genuinely harder to keep clean behind a tadka pan.
Result
Manufactured in 17 days, installed in 5. The owners cooked in it the evening it was finished.
