What is your absolute must-have for a great kitchen?

[BrandoraPaithwaite]

Getting the ancient, grubby, falling to bits kitchen finally ripped out and redone in the Autumn (Covid permitting).

Please help me plan an ideal kitchen!

It's roughly 4.5m square. Door to porch and back of house which we use as main entry/ exit to house. No scope to extend or have bifold doors. Family is 2 adults, 1 dc, dog and cat.

What is your absolute must in a kitchen? Or what have you got in yours that you couldn't live without?

All we have already decided is to have a range cooker in the chimney breast, a big cupboard near the door for coats and shoes. And no island unit or breakfast bar.

Thank you!

Wall oven, boiling water tap.

Think about the sink. I have a 1 1/2 size but the kitchen fitter advises me not to go for the one I originally picked as the corner was very square and so would be a nightmare to clean.

I don't have a hot water tap but have one with a pull out nozzle which I like.

Double wall over, with microwave over it, double sink, movable mixer tap, plenty of storage and bench space, large pantry, and room for a large fridge with ice dispenser, along with a gas hob, either four or six burner.

We had a Belfast sink when I was growing up. It was too deep - useless if you are tall and have to bend down a lot for washing up (we have a lot of nice kichen stuff we won't put through the dishwasher), and it is a pig to keep clean.

I will never have a Belfast sink again.

I would love a wok burner. I do a fair amount of stir frying, and my gas hob doesn't really get hot enough. I have an induction and a gas wok burner, I don't really do enough wok cooking to justify it but it did mean I kept a lot of my favourite pans.

I love my proper pantry. Tonnes of shelving, room for the bin and a place to chuck garden shoes. It had an electrical point and were keep a vacuum charged there.

@BrandoraPaithwaite you mentioned an aga being too £££& - just a thought have you looked at rayburns ? The are brilliant - I think better as I prefer the square tops and I en temps - and you can buy MUCH cheaper than agas on eBay etc. But would depend on whether your chimney breast has the appropriate flue etc as that would be the bit to cost. I assume there’s a gas pipe there already.

And second a pantry

A waist-height oven is a must for me (range cooker in chimney sounds a little bit too much in favour of looks rather than practicality, would look lovely but be very inconvenient to use).

Other must haves:
Gas hob
Stainless Steel sink
Somewhere to sit
Somewhere to put a bin
Wall-mounted microwave
Loads of electrical sockets
As much worktop space as is possible
A 'triangle' of sink, fridge and cooking areas
No open shelves.
No gap between the cupboards and the ceiling.

Underfloor heating. Frees up wall space and a delight on cold mornings.

There is a pantry already- agree they are ace- because there's a door to the cellar stairs, and there's a decent pantry area at the top of the cellar stairs. Loads of shelves. There are hooks in the pantry ceiling which we call meat hooks but no idea what they were originally used for. Part of the job will be getting new shelves put in the pantry and getting the old pantry door and kitchen door restored.

Not a lot of love for the range in the chimney idea... What would you do with the chimney breast/ fireplace instead?

@vinoelle Researching Rayburns now 👀

Sink waste disposal would be my most recommended love mine, also 2 ovens with retractable doors, in built kitchen bins and in built laundry baskets! And units that slide out so no more scrambling to the back of a corner cupboard.

Safe to say after years of crappy kitchens I now love mine 😁

@Ginfordinner They’re fine, the only things you can’t put down are very fibrous things like onion, leek etc. Some UK councils give small yearly council tax rebates for homes that have a waste disposal.

Corner cupboards that have a turning shelf attached so all space is used.

Just did ours and it’s a 20ft room. We put an extendable square table in corner opposite the kitchen itself.We have never had wall units, there’s a huge one pane of glass window along virtually all of the way along the back overlooking the garden so standing at the sink is a pleasure.

We have different coloured lighting along the underside of the units and around the 50” TV with an electric leather recliner opposite. We watch a lot of films in there, all pandemic/zombie related this week!

We’re fortunate to have a huge utility room with more units, a sink and a huge fridge freezer, plus a 5ft long freezer in the shed, so the kitchen doesn’t need to have tons of storage. We did buy a very expensive bean to cup coffee machine.

Large gas job and eye level ovens.

HOB!!!

@BrandoraPaithwaite they are great. I grew up with one - they are essentially exactly the same as an Aga- I think the company is/was even owned by Aga, but they only come in the small 2 oven sizes (which I think is more than enough). One hot oven which was about 180-200 and one warming/slow cook oven (the bottom one) which was 140ish but obvs if it’s gas you will be able to change the temps slightly anyway. Same running costs tho which is the issue but at least you won’t need a radiator in the kitchen! Alternatively a gas range in the chimney would be a good option. How wide is your alcove? A good idea is to put a small 2 ring burner in the worktop next to the Rayburn that you could use in the summer etc so you can turn it off in a heatwave

1. Dishwasher (saved my marriage lol)
2. Micro that is a second oven no need to worry about things that need cooked at different temps and saves worktop space.
3. Pull out larder unit absolutely love this.
4. Induction hob fast to heat easy to clean and heats the pot not the glass so safer.

I have a massive stainless steel version of a Belfast Sink and much prefer it to a double sink. There is a colander that sits on top (from Ikea) allowing veg drainage and washing even with dirty plates in the sink. It’s big enough to put a whole oven tray in, crucial! And deep enough to throw all the dishes in off the counter, so everything looks neater when we don’t have time to clean.

One dishwasher is just fine.

Get floor to ceiling storage. Even the smallest cupboard space can be used for food tins, trays, and cake tins. Plenty of nice deep drawers for tea towels and the like. A bin drawer with big deep bins for rhbbish, recycling and a lidded one for food waste.

People will harp on and on about gas v induction. It’s your choice.

Lots of freezer and fridge space is key in our family, so we have a double fridge freezer in our outhouse too.

Hot water tap and insinkerator made a huge difference to my every day life. Huge!

A 1.5 sink is fine for us, but I would hate to only have a single sink. Externally vented extractor fan. Good lighting, loads of plugs.

Ours has about 1m of counter either side of the hob, fridge freezer next to one of these sections of counter and sink/dishwasher on the opposite wall, you never have to take more than a couple of steps while cooking, and can get things in and out of the fridge-freezer easily while working (we had to have the hinges switched to the other side of the fridge freezer doors).

Watching with interest as planning my kitchen for next year. 🙂

For those with a microwave built in above the higher level ovens - I like the idea but is it not tricky lifting hot dishes out of it from above your head?

My DH wants glass that changes to blackout so we don't need curtains/blinds! 😆😆😆

Absolutely no to the cooker in the chimney breast, counter either side of the hob is absolutely essential IMO.

Oooh. We had about kitchen redone about 18 months ago. Still love it.
Key things for me were:

Bins in a cupboard. Nothing worse than having a beautiful mi Chen RUINED by a visible bin! No matter how fancy they are. They just sit there being a twat.

Longest possible worktop
I have a looooooong worktop, shifted sink all the way to the end. It's great and is between job and sink

second worktop
So someone else can do stuff without fighting for space. Eg, if I'm baking cinnamon rolls in the long one, DS can do his tea and toast in the other one.

drawers, drawers, drawers
For the bottom cupboards, no rooting around trying to find the cinnamon or the jar of raspberry jam.

boiling water tap

ITS AMAZING 😍

@Horsemad

Nope. We have an overhead microwave and it's fine!