Kitchen designer in Papamoa.
Papamoa is not one kind of home. It is older places being renovated or rebuilt, new houses going up in the subdivisions, and rural sections out toward the hills. Whichever yours is, a kitchen is one of the larger decisions in it, and you want to get it right. I am a mobile kitchen designer working across Papamoa and the wider Bay of Plenty. I come to your home and design the kitchen and other interior cabinetry around your actual space and the way you live, rather than fitting you to a showroom range.
One designer, every kind of Papamoa home.
Papamoa has grown quickly, and its homes are a real mix: established houses near the beach, tighter new builds in the subdivisions, and lifestyle sections in the country at the back. Each is lived in differently, and that difference belongs in the design.
Most kitchen design starts with a product range and fits you to what is in stock. I work the other way, beginning with your home, its light and its layout, and how your household actually cooks and gathers, then designing the kitchen to that. Because I come to you and design from the actual space, the plan suits your home, whether it is a renovation, a rebuild or a new build.
Renovating, rebuilding, or starting fresh.
A lot of Papamoa is older homes now being reworked. Some are renovated, keeping what is good about the house and resolving what does not work. Others are taken back further, or torn down and rebuilt entirely. And a good number are new builds in the growing subdivisions. Each of those starts the kitchen in a different place.
On a renovation, the work is designing a kitchen that fits the bones of the existing home and how it will now be lived in. On a new build, it is designing to the plans early, so the kitchen is right before anything is framed rather than fitted around the build at the end. In both, resolving the layout and the materials before anything is ordered is what avoids the expensive changes and the compromises noticed a year later. If you are weighing whether to renovate or rebuild, that is worth talking through early, because it changes how the kitchen is best approached.
A Papamoa kitchen.
One of my Papamoa kitchens sits on a rural section toward the back of Papamoa, in an older home the owners chose to rework rather than replace. The house had good bones and a settled, established feel, and the brief was a kitchen that respected that while working for how the family lives now.
The layout was resolved first, around how the household cooks, gathers and moves between the kitchen and the rest of the home. Only then were the materials chosen, to sit with the character of the house rather than fight it. The result is a kitchen that belongs to the home it is in, and works the way the family actually lives on their patch of Papamoa. See the full project.
A 1990s Papamoa kitchen, opened up and made to be used.
This Papamoa kitchen is a 1990s home brought up to date, and it shows what a renovation can do. Kitchens from that era were often set inward, closed off from the living and dining, and this one came with the angled, faceted walls of the period, which are slow and complex to build around, because the cabinetry has to be layered in to follow every angle. I squared off one of those angles to give the kitchen a cleaner, more modern line, and removed a peninsula end that walled the space off, opening it into an island so the room reads as one.
What makes this kitchen special is that it was designed for wheelchair accessibility, where ergonomics is everything. The bench is split across two heights, and around an accessible pull-out seat I placed a pull-out pantry and a vertical pull-out for utensils, all within easy reach. That section is finished in stone with a waterfall end that doubles as a splashback, so the pull-out works as a prep station and, with a portable induction cooker, as a place to cook. The oven heights were set for safe reach from a seated position. The result is a kitchen that does not look like it was adapted; it simply works, for everyone who uses it.
A qualified designer who holds the whole project.
I am a Certified Kitchen Designer (CKDNZ), and I came to the work from a professional kitchen, a building site, and the study of how people live in a space. It is also why the approach holds whether you are renovating, rebuilding or building new: it always starts with the home in front of me. Because the studio is low-volume, I design every kitchen myself and hold the project from the first conversation to the final detail: designing it, procuring the cabinetry, surfaces and appliances through trade relationships, and coordinating with your builder so the kitchen lands cleanly inside the wider renovation or build. The full design process is set out on the services page.
Working across Papamoa.
I am a mobile designer, so I come to you and design from your actual home rather than asking you to visit a showroom. I work right across Papamoa, from the beach and the established streets through the new subdivisions like Golden Sands and Papamoa East, and out to the rural sections toward the hills. Wherever your home sits, the plan is shaped by it, not by a layout drawn somewhere else.
Kate Blakeborough, CKDNZ. The considered hand behind every Design Suite kitchen.
Common Questions.
Do you design coastal and beachfront homes?
Yes. A coastal kitchen has its own considerations: how it opens to the outdoors, how it handles a full house through summer, and materials that hold up to sun and salt. I design around all of that, because a kitchen by the water is lived in differently from one in town.
I have a bach at Pukehina I am turning into a permanent home. Do you design those?
Yes, and it is some of my favourite work. Making a bach into a year-round home is as much about how the kitchen connects to the rest of the house and the outdoors as it is about the kitchen itself. I design from your actual home, so the new kitchen suits how you will really live in it.
Do you work across Maketu and Paengaroa?
Yes. I am based at Pukehina, so Maketu and Paengaroa are close by. I come to you and design from your home across this part of the coast.
Do you design accessible and wheelchair-friendly kitchens?
Yes. Designing a kitchen to be used from a wheelchair, or to suit changing needs over time, draws on the same function-first thinking behind every kitchen I design: split-height benches, pull-out seating with the storage arranged around it, considered oven and appliance heights, and clear reach and movement, resolved so the kitchen works for the person using it.
Can a kitchen be made accessible without looking clinical?
Yes, and that is the point of designing it properly. An accessible kitchen should not look adapted or institutional; it should simply be a considered kitchen that happens to work for the person who uses it. Resolving the accessibility into the design from the start, rather than adding it on, is what keeps it looking like a kitchen and not equipment.
What does ergonomic kitchen design involve?
Ergonomics is designing the kitchen around how a body actually moves and works in it: where your hands go, how far you reach, the heights you work at, and how you move between the bench, the sink and the heat. It comes from my background in professional kitchens, where how a space performs under real use is everything.
How do I start?
The first step is a conversation, with no pressure in it. We talk through how you live, what is not working now, and whether a design-led approach is the right fit.
Begin a Design Conversation.
If you are planning a kitchen at Pukehina and want it designed around your home and the way you live and holiday by the coast, the first step is a conversation. We talk through how you live, what is not working now, and whether a design-led approach suits your project. There is no pressure in it.