The kitchen is the most popular room in any home, as it is often the stage for social gatherings, the centre of home entertaining and most often the most visible area in the home. This makes the kitchen an extremely important room when considering your ultimate intended look and feel.

So many design aspects are often overlooked that aren't noticed until the kitchen is built and comes into use, only then with the owner finding that the kitchen is not practical for the family's needs, such as where the garage is, how groceries are transported, to where, who uses what part of the kitchen and for what other purposes storage could be made and used. The list is long and tricky, and rectifying things that were missed and have become quickly frustrating can be incredibly expensive - sometimes more expensive than doing it from scratch the first time!

Beauty is the other vital ingredient and the goal is to make the owner feel at home and relaxed - however that may be for each person, whether having friends over for a day or night of entertaining or just being alone and recapturing the joy and total relaxation of cooking a nice meal at home, where a beautiful looking, organised kitchen seems to make the colours and fragrances of the food stand out even more.

If you are looking to have a kitchen built in a new home or to renovate your existing kitchen, your practical needs and your personal style should be reflected in the design and final product, and this can be assured by making sure your designer follows a definite process and keeps your needs in mind.

I'll explain that last point - Sometimes, kitchen builders are limited by their agreements with suppliers, so they can only provide certain materials or hardware brands. Unfortunately, these may not suit your style or are not of the quality you expect, so there are certain questions you can ask to help you determine if you really are getting the best value for your money or are simply being given what the kitchen builder is allowed, or prefers, to offer. Questions such as the six below are a great start - as well as looking at the general presentation of your quoter, you should be able to gain some good insight, although there are a few tradesmen whose work is stunning, yet pay no attention to their company's presentation, so you can never be sure!

Q. Do you provide a list of suppliers or a list of brands that you can use?

A. They should, because transparency is essential for you to be able to guage whether the "best" prices they have quoted to you are only the best out of a very small number of suppliers, when there are in fact multiple numbers of suppliers around offering much better prices for the same product or different products that you might like even more. Additionally, if you insist on buying Australian goods, you might like to ask where the materials come from as there are several companies that import everything!

Q. Are your cabinet carcasses made from Australian board?

A. They should be as the quality is higher and the fire and water resistance ratings are normally better. This is an important specific question because with the large amount of cabinetry a normal kitchen contains, you'll want to ensure your safety and the kitchen's longevity.

Q. How many kitchens do you build each week?

A. Depends on the company, but a massive number is not necessarily a good thing - the real question is how many happy customers do they have each week!! Also, the size and design of the kitchen always determines the lead time before completion so asking the normal type of kitchen being done and then how many might be the right question.

Q. What are your most common major products throughout your kitchens?

A. You might like to confirm whether your specific products are common or are you going to be a test case. Obviously the success of a test case may go either way, so if you choose that avenue you might like to prepare your family to compromise for the more likely scenario of errors and/or delays.

Q. What appliances can I get?

A. Appliances are a very important feature as they can add so much convenience and pleasure, but a troublesome or second-choice appliance can take all that away. The choice should be entirely yours, not the kitchen builder's, though you need to make sure that you know the available sizes of the appliances you want, particularly European appliances, and work your kitchen design in with that.

Q. Do you offer a written warranty?

A. They should warrant their workmanship, though it may be asking too much of any kitchen builder to warrant the materials, unless they're not being used for their normal purpose. Certainly, most stone benchtops are installed by the stone supplier so they have their own warranties, which they should supply after installation, or should provide to the kitchen builder to give to you.

Of course this is not an exhaustive list, as your instincts will also play an important role, based on your judgement of the quoter's knowledge of products and trends, their professionalism, the rapport you've built with them, and their general desire to provide you with what you want - because if there are any troubles during the process, a solution oriented, customer focused and friendly contact will make any variations or problems much, much less stressful.

Now, once you've ascertained the 'genuine-ness' of your quoter, you can really get stuck in and enjoy the process of creating the kitchen space just as you want. Most of the companies around will do most of the design, if not all, before organising a contract, though many are rightly concerned that some potential customers will take a design that the quoter has spent hours on and go to another builder who has quoted a lower price. Fortunately, this practice is rare so designs remain mostly free of charge.

You might also like to spend some time researching the wide range of materials, products and suppliers as well as the forever changing trends. And, of course, you need to acknowledge your intended term of ownership in the home after the kitchen's been built, for example if you are only renovating to sell. This way, you can ensure that your best interests, both short term and long term, are being met.