putting in a new kitchen for the first time- tips please!

[MunteoirMajella]

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed tbh.

My sister has recommended the man who fitted her kitchen, which is great.

He recommended two kitchen suppliers and we've seen one we like.

I am just feeling overwhelmed with all of the rest of the choices- handles and taps and so many bloody models of ovens and none of them have prices in the catalogue

You don't have to order handles and taps right away so forget about those for now. Start with a kitchen plan, the suppliers usually send someone to measure up and then you go to the store to do the plan.

Step by step it's not too bad once you have decided on style and colour.

You will start paying attention to these things now! Start nosing round your friends kitchens and fiddle with their knobs. You'll either quickly decide that you want round ones, or flat ones or whatever. Or, you'll realise that you don't care! As long as it works. If you don't have enough friends with enough variety of kitchen, go to home base or IKEA and play in the sample kitchens. Ditto taps!

Just remember, nothing is fixed in stone, if you decide after a year that you don't like your handles, they can be changed.

Below the work surfaces, go for drawers rather than cupboards. You can easily see everything, nothing gets lost at the back. No lost space.

If you’re in a hard water area, don’t go for granite. It’s almost impossible to keep shiny.

Make sure you have an easily wipeable surface on the walls above the work surface. An upstand looks good, but you need the extra coverage, esp around the hob.

You cannot have enough gas burners.

Get lots of plug sockets, when you think you’ve got enough, add 4more.

Watch out that cooker hood is above eye level, the curved ones look good, but I got a black eye from mine!

If you think the kitchen unit choosing is bad just wait till you get on to where the lights/sockets need to go.

And the dishwasher plumbing, and if/where you need tiles, and plumbing for a fridge with a water dispenser if you’re getting one, or a waste disposal unit. And a washing machine if it’s in the kitchen.

And then, oh god, the worktops - what kind? WHAT KIND?? That alone can take weeks of research and procrastination. Laminate, or earth stone? Or wood? But what about the maintenance? And granite or quartz - which one exactly IS better?

Then storage solutions - where will you put the in? And the tea towels? How will you get into corner cupboards? What width drawers do you want? And why? Where will you put the Tupperware?

You have to know all of thus before you buy it because if you get it wrong it will be the most expensive mistake ever and worse still you’ll have to go through the whole thing again.

I’m kidding of course, it’s not that bad. Well, it is a bit. You have my sympathies, I’m almost getting to the end of this process and it’s a miracle I’m not in therapy. I’m shit at this sort of stuff though.

Shit. Forgot the flooring. For flooring - see worktops but replace nouns with engineered wood, vinyl, luxury vinyl, solid wood. These are called different things in different places.

Don’t assume that you have to have a fitted kitchen. Freestanding or partially freestanding is excellent and gives flexibility. Remember that kitchen units are only basically a cupboard and have no vaunted special status that makes them worth 3x the price of a cupboard elsewhere. In fact the shops bamboozle you with what seems like loads of options but actually is them restricting you to certain sizes, shapes of standard units which may or many not fit in your space. You can actually build in whatever you like, into your own space and it’s dimensions, very easily, or get someone to do it for you. A basic frame can have any ‘work surface’ put on the top, when we did our most recent one we were able to buy lengths of unit from the kitchen warehouse shop direct and I paid someone to fit it on top so the joins would look good. I’d consider if you want wall cuprboards and if you do do you want them all the way to the ceiling, we did this because the tops of kitchens units are often gopping and such a waste of space.

Have a look at where the utilities are now and decide if you want them in the same place or not, check what the floor is currently made from to see how easy it would be to run things, remember moving services is more costly as you need to get qualified people in to do it, usually. Ask yourself where are you going to put the hot thing when it comes out of the oven, how quickly can you get the overheating pan or your burned fingers to the sink, where is your surface next to the fridge for taking out multiple ingredients at the same time. Where do you do the majority of the food prep and which way are you facing, what is your view as you are doing it.

Get an eye level oven.

Don't get gloss cupboards- they're a mare to keep clean

There is a "kitchens lessons learnt" thread in DIY/Property - check it out! So much good stuff in there.

My advice would be to have plain kitchen doors. I once made the mistake of a Shaker style kitchen. It looked lovely but all those carvings were a devil to clean, real grease catchers. If you are staying in the property, but the best quality cupboards you can afford. After 25 years my kitchen is as good as new.

Think about underfloor heating instead of radiators - keeps tiles warm.

Definitely drawers under the worktop instead of cupboards.

If you’re in a hard water area, don’t go for granite. It’s almost impossible to keep shiny

It's really not, I live in a very hard water area, you just wipe it with method daily granite cleaner, it's as shiny as the day they installed it two years ago, and it's black, and the easiest to maintain work surface I've ever had,....and I've had them all.