Design Plus Kitchens

Wood or aluminium kitchen: how to choose

The honest differences between a wooden kitchen and an aluminium one in a UAE home, and which rooms suit which.

27 October 2026

This is the first question most people ask, and the answer is not that one is better. They behave differently, and the right choice depends on which room you are fitting out and how it is used.

What wood does well

Wood gives the widest range of looks and the warmest one. It takes colour and texture in ways metal does not, it is quieter in use — doors and drawers close with less noise — and it is easier to adjust on site when a wall turns out not to be straight, which in a real building it rarely is.

What aluminium does well

Aluminium is the better answer where water is constant: an outdoor kitchen, a laundry, a preparation room that gets washed down. It also allows very slim frames around glass, which is why glass-fronted upper units are usually aluminium. And it does not mind heat the way some materials do.

The combination most homes end up with

In practice many villas use both: wood through the main kitchen where the family cooks and sits, and aluminium in the wet kitchen or the outdoor run. That is not a compromise — it is each material doing the job it is good at, and it usually costs less than doing the whole house in the dearer of the two.

Four questions that settle it

• Does this room ever get washed with water, or only wiped?
• Is it open to the living area, where it has to sit with the furniture?
• Will heavy frying happen here, or in a separate preparation kitchen?
• Do you want glass fronts? That pushes the uppers towards aluminium.

Bring the answers to those four and the material decides itself in a few minutes. Design Plus makes both in the same factory in Ajman, so the recommendation does not depend on what we happen to stock.

A delivered kitchen in blue with integrated appliances