Plan storage around what you keep

Most kitchens do not lack space, they lack the right space in the right place. Before choosing fronts and colours, decide what has to be stored and where it will be used.

List what you own: pans, plates, glasses, dry food, cleaning products, small appliances. Mark what you use daily, weekly and rarely. Daily items belong between hip and shoulder height, rarely used items can go high or low.

Deep drawers under the worktop show their contents at a glance, so pans and plates are easier to reach than behind a door. Keep doors for tall cabinets and for spaces where shelves make more sense.

Corners need a plan: a carousel, pull-out fittings or simply a door with easy access. Tall units next to the fridge make a useful pantry. If the room allows it, a separate pantry keeps food and appliances out of sight.

Coffee machine, toaster and blender take worktop space. Give them a fixed place with sockets nearby, or a tall cabinet with a retractable door, so the worktop stays free for cooking.

On Koh Samui the air stays humid for most of the year, and the rainy months from around October to December make it worse. Rice, flour, coffee, spices and crackers soften or clump within days in an open packet, and they attract ants. Plan the pantry around sealed containers rather than bags: measure shelf heights so tall jars stand upright, and allow drawers deep enough for square boxes that stack.

Keep food storage away from the oven, dishwasher and fridge vents, because warm air carries moisture into the cabinet. A tall pantry against an inside wall stays cooler and drier than one on a sun-facing exterior wall. Ask for a sealed plinth or a raised base so insects cannot walk in from the floor, and avoid cardboard and wicker inside cabinets, which hold damp and invite pests.

Many villas on Koh Samui are let to guests while the owners are abroad. If that is your plan, give the kitchen two kinds of storage. Guest storage holds a complete, matching set of plates, glasses, pans and utensils, kept in open drawers that anyone can understand at first glance. Owner storage is a lockable tall unit or a pair of wall cabinets for your own knives, good wine glasses, coffee and the things you do not want to replace after every booking.

A lock fitted at the factory looks neater and lasts longer than one added later, so decide this at the design stage. Inside guest drawers, fixed dividers or peg boards keep each item in its place, which makes it easy for housekeeping to see what is missing at checkout.

Villa kitchens often have high ceilings, and the space above standard wall cabinets ends up collecting dust and gecko droppings. Taking wall units up to the ceiling, or closing the gap with a fitted panel, removes that ledge and adds a row of storage for things you use a few times a year, such as party platters, a spare kettle or holiday decorations.

Keep the top row for light things you can reach from a small step. Lift-up doors on wall cabinets do not swing into your face, and a worktop of around 90 cm with wall units starting about 50 to 60 cm above it suits most people. At the other end, the plinth is free space too: shallow plinth drawers about 10 cm high hold trays, baking sheets and cleaning cloths. Ask for them to be sealed against water when the floor is mopped.

On Koh Samui a lot of cooking and eating happens outside, on a terrace, by the pool or at a barbecue. The indoor kitchen still does most of the storing, so plan a serving zone near the door you carry food through. A wide drawer for trays, outdoor plates and tongs, a shelf for drinks and a socket for an ice bucket or blender save trips back and forth across a wet floor.

Choose outdoor tableware that can live in that drawer all year, and keep glass away from the pool route. If there is a covered terrace, a closed cabinet there for charcoal, lighters and covers keeps the smell and the dust out of the house. Anything stored outside needs doors that close well against wind-driven rain and lizards, and hardware made for an outdoor setting.

Before the drawings are signed off, walk through a normal day on paper. Where do you unpack shopping, where do clean plates go from the dishwasher, where does the rubbish bin sit, and can two people pass when a drawer is open? Leave at least 100 to 120 cm between facing runs or between a run and an island, and check that no drawer hits a handle, a wall or an open dishwasher door in a corner.

It also helps to count drawers against your inventory list: if the pans do not fit on paper, they will not fit in the kitchen. When you are ready, send us the room measurements and a few photos of the space, and we will plan the kitchen storage around how you live.