Two kinds of kitchen, one suburb
Around the station and St George Hospital, the stock is heavily unit-based — everything from 1960s and 70s red-brick walk-ups to newer towers. Walk five minutes out and you are in interwar and post-war semis, duplexes and small brick cottages with a kitchen tucked in the back corner.
The two need completely different approaches.
If you are in an apartment
The building sets the rules before the design does: approval type, working hours, lift bookings, protection, waterproofing and whether a rangehood can be ducted outside at all. Older walk-ups are often more flexible about extraction than newer towers, which frequently allow no new penetrations. Everything on that list is covered in apartment and strata kitchens.
The layouts that work in these units are a single run with full-height joinery, or a short galley in the older blocks, with integrated appliances and a bench kept clear.
If you are in a semi or a cottage
The kitchen is almost always at the rear, often with a small window, a back door and an added-on laundry beyond it. Three moves change these houses:
- Open the kitchen to the dining room with a beam and keep a bench across the opening.
- Absorb the laundry into the kitchen footprint and relocate the washing machine, which usually gains a full run of cabinetry.
- Replace one bad window with something that actually lights the bench.
Party walls stay. Anything structural gets an engineer's design, and in pre-1990 homes the old sheeting and vinyl get tested before they are disturbed.
Rentals and quick turnarounds
Kogarah has a lot of investor-owned stock, and a fair share of enquiries are about the shortest sensible scope: same layout, new cabinetry, new benchtop and splashback, better lighting, done between tenants. That is a legitimate brief and it is priced the same honest way as anything else — see the 2026 cost guide.
Nearby
Penshurst, Beverly Hills, plus Carlton, Allawah and Bexley.
Call 02 4404 0245 or send your kitchen details through.
Nearby suburbs
Questions people ask before they commit
Which council covers Kogarah?
Kogarah sits in Georges River Council. The boundary with Bayside Council runs close by, and parts of the wider Kogarah area fall on the Bayside side, so it is worth confirming which council applies to your street before you rely on any council-specific requirement.
I'm in a unit near the station. What do I need before starting?
Your building's by-laws, then the right owners corporation approval for the scope. Minor renovations generally need an ordinary resolution; anything touching common property or waterproofing needs a by-law. Start that before you lock in selections, because meeting dates set the timeline.
Can the kitchen in a semi be opened into the dining room?
Usually some of it can. In interwar and post-war semis the dividing wall to the neighbour is off limits, but the internal wall between the kitchen and dining room is often non-structural or can be opened with a beam. That is checked before it is promised.