A kitchen ages through four things, and none of them is the cabinetry.

Let the silicone and the sealant cure

Silicone around a sink, a worktop joint or a splashback needs time to skin and then to cure properly, and a cold room needs longer than a warm one. Do not flood a new sink on the first evening and do not scrub a fresh joint. We will tell you when it is genuinely ready — rushing that fortnight is the commonest way a good job picks up its first flaw.

Hand-painted doors harden slowly

A hand-painted finish is touch-dry within hours but takes several weeks to reach full hardness. For the first month, wipe rather than scrub, keep tea towels off the door fronts and do not stick anything adhesive to them. After that they are as robust as any other finish and — unlike a foil or a laminate — they can be touched in later if a corner ever takes a knock.

Check every drawer and door before you forget

New hinges and runners settle in the first couple of weeks, and a door that is a millimetre out now will be two out by spring. Open and close everything, look along the row of fronts from one end, and tell us about any that are not in line. Adjustment while the job is fresh is a five-minute visit.

Let a solid timber worktop drink

Solid timber wants two or three extra coats of oil in the first fortnight, particularly around the sink cut-out and on the end grain. That is not a defect in the finish — it is what makes the difference between a worktop that shrugs off water for a decade and one that goes black around the tap in eighteen months.

Warm water and a soft cloth, almost always

Painted, high-gloss and laminate fronts all want the same thing: a damp microfibre cloth and, if needed, a drop of washing-up liquid. What ruins them is cream cleaner, anything with a scouring surface, and bleach-based sprays left to sit. High-gloss in particular will take a permanent swirl pattern from an abrasive pad, and it cannot be polished out.

Wipe the worktop joints, do not soak them

The vulnerable part of any worktop is the joint and the sink cut-out, whatever the material. Standing water sitting against a joint overnight is the one habit worth breaking. A wrung-out cloth along the front edge of the sink at the end of the evening will do more for the kitchen's tenth birthday than any product you can buy.

Hard water is the enemy of everything shiny

Water across Hertfordshire is hard, and limescale is the reason taps, glass splashbacks and shower screens go cloudy. The trick is not a stronger descaler but simply drying the surface: thirty seconds with a cloth after use takes the water away before it can evaporate and leave its minerals behind. You cannot scrub off what you did not leave behind.

The extractor filter, monthly

A grease filter that has not been washed in a year halves the extraction and is the usual reason a kitchen starts smelling of last week. Most metal filters go through a dishwasher on a hot cycle. Charcoal filters in a recirculating hood are consumable and want replacing roughly every six months — they are not washable, however hopeful the internet is about it.

Oil the timber, seal the stone

Solid timber worktops want re-oiling once or twice a year, more often around the sink. Granite and natural stone want an impregnating sealer annually — engineered quartz does not. Five minutes with the right product on a Sunday is the whole maintenance regime, and skipping it for three years is what turns a repairable surface into a replaceable one.

Hinges, runners and the door line

A drop of light oil on runners and a look along the door line once a year keeps everything shutting softly. Soft-close hinges do wear, and they are an inexpensive replaceable part rather than a reason to be unhappy with the kitchen — but a runner that has been grinding for two years takes the drawer box with it.

Check the silicone before it lets go

Silicone around the sink, behind the hob and where a splashback meets the worktop is a consumable. When it starts to lift at an edge or darken in a line, it is cheaper to replace the bead than to wait and replace what is underneath it. This is a half-hour job that protects the most expensive part of the room.

Look under the sink with a torch

The base unit under the sink is where every small leak announces itself first, and it is the one cupboard nobody empties. Once a year, take everything out, dry the floor of it and look at the trap, the isolators and the appliance hoses with a torch. A damp patch found now is a washer. Found in two years, it is a cabinet.