Can I design (or even build) my own kitchen?

[Snowstorming]

Hi Mumsnetters,

We recently bought a house and renovated most of it. We don’t have a huge budget and the kitchen is left to do.

It currently has 3 top wall cabinets, a sink, worktop and tiled floor. The kitchen is small (imagine a combined kitchen diner with the kitchen in the corner).

I really want to renovate it as it ruins the look of the rest of the house and I feel like SO much space is being wasted. There’s a boiler smack in the middle (in the corner of the kitchen) and I would love to change its position but apparently that’s not going to be worth the money/hassle. I’m tempted to redesign the kitchen so that the top walls are utilised COMPLETELY with lots of cabinet space/shelving so that the bottom half can have a nicer sink, storage space and appliances (washing machine and oven mainly).

I was tempted to just buy the basic IKEA kitchen and fit it all in but I’m wondering if I spend a little more time thinking about it then I could possibly come up with a kitchen that utilises all the spaces and looks good.

We don’t have a whole lot of extra space so I need it to be as useful as possible! :)

Any tips, ideas, recommendations? Open to anything!

Thank you ☺️

YANBU, of course you can design your own kitchen space.
Tips - Google for free space planning tools, and visit a lot of showrooms/websites to pinch ideas.

not really an AIBU topic, best to ask in property development/DIY topics.

but YANBU.
I designed our new kitchen. if you are capable of building it go for it.

We designed and built our kitchen in our first house (out of Ikea units some of which we adapted so that they worked better for us). That was easy.

Our current house the only "built in" unit it the sink - we removed and sold the glossy black fitted kitchen which looked awful every time one of our toddlers touched it. Everything else is freestanding furniture mostly sourced through Facebook. We made a kitchen work table (think old farmhouse style) as it was ~£200 cheaper than anything similar we could buy and we have 1 Ikea wall unit with a dish drainer in it above the sink.

We're both reasonable at DIY but that's through practice. But I think anyone could do what we did in our first house as long as they researched well, had appropriate tools and took their time

Yes - I designed my kitchen.

I could not have fit it.

Avoid the ikea ones as the backs are straight and if you have uneven walls or skirtings that can be difficult to fix.

Other than that you just need to be mindful of doors and drawers too close they don’t open

I designed my kitchen with the IKEA planning tool, my DH fitted it (got someone to check the electrics, and someone to cut and fit an oak worktop)

I didn't buy an IKEA kitchen but I used their online 3D kitchen planner to design my new one. Everything went to plan.

Avoid the ikea ones as the backs are straight and if you have uneven walls or skirtings that can be difficult to fix.

Other brands don't have straight backs?

They are cutout at the bottom

DIY stores, IKEA included have kitchen fitting experts.

Have a look diy-kitchens.com good range, good prices and good planning tools.

Yes, thats whatever does. You design your kitchen using whatever kitchen shop you go for. Do us fitting ours now which is us less common but not that hard. Try DIY kitchens

The DIY Kitchens has a really good free planner tool online.
We bought one of their cheaper kitchens and are very happy with it particularly the delivery. They manufacture it all themselves so no import delays etc

I’m having an extension built in January, and knocking through the wall on the current kitchen and dining room - I’ve designed my own kitchen, it’s easy, and like you, need to maximise the space. My current cabinets are from IKEA - whilst they are great for price and quality, I’m getting the new cabinets from diy-kitchens.com, as they have a greater range of widths, which IKEA doesn’t.

You need DIY kitchens, their online planner is brilliant t and you can spend hours shuffling things around until you get it just right.
They check the order for you and it all comes assembled for a really low price.

Do you like the rustic look? I'm going for freestanding kitchen.
Basically a freestanding cooker, 2 large workbenches with drawers for cutlery and shelf underneath for pots and pans and crockery, on each side of cooker.
Open shelving on walls. Hang hooks for utensils under shelves fir mugs. And a table to eat off and work on.
Too many wall cupboards will make room seem smaller.

We had a new boiler and had it put in the loft above where the old one had been it didn't cost much more