The web offers a wealth of advice and practical assistance for people redesigning their kitchens.

It is important to access specialist advice because there are many elements to combine and safety is an issue too.

You can even use nifty interactive tools to play around with floor-plans and see where everything will fit in.

Visit a superstore from your armchair

The furniture chain MFI offers a new online kitchen planning service so you can see what the kitchen of your dreams (or should that be your budget) will look like.

Go to the 'plan and design' section - there is a link at the top of the page - and choose 'design online' to get going. You need to be familiar with the styles on sale at MFI and then choose which one you are interested in, and a door style and appliances.

Then you enter information on windows, doors and wall sizes, you will be led through everything using pictures and some nice graphics, before a final suggested design emerges.

Have fun and get used to the interface by designing a kitchen in the worst possible taste, then get to work on your real one!

To use this interactive system, you need a 'plug-in' for your web browser known as 'Shockwave'. The site does automatically install it if you haven't got it but it may take a little while, especially on a dial-up modem.

Getting the calculator out

DIY superstore B & Q has some further useful advice and assistance. Navigate through to the 'Kitchen' department, and click on 'Kitchen planner' to find a four-page print-out guide to kitchen design.

This is a PDF file covering basic layouts and how to plan them, plus a sheet of graph paper. Elsewhere the site offers other articles and advice, and you can find out why the firm is called B & Q as well - oh OK, it's named after founders Richard Block and David Quayle.