High maintenance kitchens - let me learn from your mistakes

[KristinaM]

I'm a terrible housewife, I live in the country and I have three small, messy children. What do I NOT want in my new kitchen??? (apart from the kids of course )

I've already worked out that the beautiful cream glossy floor tiles are probably not for me.....

Avoid very pointy or stubby taps. I have a mixer tap and it swings between two sinks, it gets filthy and because it's an odd shape (tapered but square) and backing onto a deep window casement (17th century house) there is no way to clean it well. It's fine now, it's only 2 months old but I just know I'll be doing contortions with viakal in a year or so.

I bought it because it was really swish too

As others have already said..

• no wood worktops, they mark and who has time to sand and reoil them
• no cream tile floor, the grout goes dark making it look rubbish and then if you drop anything it smashes into a million pieces

ooh yes those deep drawers , we used to keep all our post and pans inside, they hold loads.

My advice - have a speckly, rough kitchen floor. And don't go for any stainless steel.

BTW I keep reading this thread title as "high maintenance kittens"

Have a brown kitchen and a brown floor!

Actually this is a great thread - I'm filing it away for my next kitchen (if I ever get one!)

Agree about the deep pan drawers. They are great and I didn't want my pans out on display on little shelves - pans are ugly to look at usually, unless they're shiny new unused ones.

Stainless steel can be cleaned with lemon juice alone - it's true - I've tried it and it comes up lovely!!!

Anyway, granite looks stunning when it's spotless, but it's a nightmare to keep bright and shiny.

Cupboard doors with ridges collect muck and and amtico flooring is a godsend.

We have a fab Villeroy & Boch sink that has a special coating so it doessn't stain, it is brilliant

And a rinse, like a spray thing that you pull out and it quickly hoses the sink down

Karndean flooring is nice too - like cheaper Amtico! Have a black slate-effect one in both kitchen and bathroom and get lots of positive comments. Also very easy to keep clean.

my granite worktop can be seen by some to be high maintenance but on balance its not

pros
doesn't scratch
always looks fab
can stroke it
can put hot stuff directly on to it
can cut directly on to it (if you have a good knife sharpener)
great for rolling pastry / icing / biscuits

cons
you need to wipe it with soap / dettox (no kitchen cleaners) then wipe over again with an e-cloth
needs a granite spray cleaner every so often

Our granite is black with flecky gold and silver bits so that's perhaps why any mark on it shows up so much - I suppose that's a good thing as you can see where you need to clean. Haven't heard of specialised granite cleaner tho. ..so will have to invest of that.

I have a new kitchen which I love. We have wood on the floor which is really lovely,smooth cream cupboard doors (v. easy to wipe down) and a cream composite stone worktop. It costs the same as granite but is non-porous. Love it!! Also, deep drawers rather than cupboards are fantastic. Re taps- we have a mixer tap with hot, cold and chilled filtered water.

our granite is star galaxy .. black with bronzy flecks

granite cleaner from lakeland (of course).. although guys who fitted said best thing was ethanol (I think)
e-cloth is the way to go generally

I have to say I agree with you re the black worktop - it wasnt the best choice for our kitchen as the conservatory of the back of it tends to hog the light. However, it's not been in that long (six years) and I think dh would literally collapse if I suggested changing it yet!!

We have a typical country-style kitchen, which was made and fitted last year.

The things I find hardest to keep up with are:

Granite drainer - we live in a hard water area so constantly wiping scaly puddles off it. BUT it is honed granite so not as high maintenance as shiny.

Oak worktops - any red wine rings are almost impossible to wipe away once they've soaked in. So I would suggest an annual sand and seal if you want wood.

Cream coloured Aga - shows up all the dust and food drips (!) will prob go for a pewter/red/dark blue colour when we next move.

Belfast sink - great, easier to keep clean than a stainless, but it needs Jiff-ing every few days as stains show and it quickly gets manky round the plug hole.

Light coloured doors with panelled bits - dirt and food gets stuck on the panels and in the corners of said recesses. A real pain to keep clean. I would suggest you go for a nice darker colour on your doors. Mine are duck egg but still show dirt - not as much as creamy colours though.

Floor - we got this one right actually! Dark grey slate tiles - do not show the dirt even though the dds are constantly running in and out in their muddy wellies. Only needs cleaning every few weeks. Infinitely lower maintenance than wood or limestone/Travertine.

HTH.

Love my limestone floor BUT you would not believe how far a jar of jam can spread when dropped on it.

If you have a granite worktop, check how far it overhangs the dishwasher. We've lost no end of glasses and plates as I swing them out of the dishwasher & catch the edge on the overhang.

If you get granite, get a mottled one, doesn't show the marks

Big pan drawers. Really didn't want these but DH did, couldn't do without them now.

I big corner cupboard (you know, the corner where it's always difficult to get into) to put in those huge woks & pans that you use once every 3 months.

Pull out larder cupboard, great.

Make sure there is somewhere near the cooker to hide oils, spices etc so you can reach them & continue stirring the sauce.

Kettle, mugs, spoons and tea/coffee cupboards should all be close enough so you don't need to move your feet

Think about what you use & plan each cupboard it will go in BEFORE you plan the kitchen. We had building work done so had 12 months to plan where everything was going to go. DH thought I was mad but appreciates it now.

Insist on base boards on teh units and not legs - even if your dh says it will look nicer (it does - but as I originally said every blinking toy car, crumb, stray grape ends up under teh units)
If your kitchen is large - 2 sinks is fab. We have a 1.5 sink at the "utility" end for washing pans etc, and a round one on the island for washing veg etc.
B&Q also do teh pop up powerpoints - great idea!

From my mothers experience - don't touch MFI with a bargepole.

We had black Mat granite type tiles and they were a bugger to keep clean - I think light coloured flooring shows the dirt less.

Quite right - my kitchen was hideously expensive (it kept spiralling) and unless it is absolutely spotless with all the fancy light bulbs working (which is rare) it still looks dark, mucky and uninviting - sob! (I WAS pregnant when I designed it and not quite with it)

Don't buy a drawer that has a place for the corkscreww, knives and so on. You know the ones that have it so the knive fits in a knife shaped bit. When you lose those things its a nightmare to fine one that fits just in that space

Talking about kitchens. I am doing up mine and I am trying to find a draining cupboard. The sort you get all the time in Italy.

They hang over a sink and have wire shelving so that when you have washed something in the sink you put it in the cupboard above the sink and it drains there (out of sight)

Has anyone seen these anywhere in the UK?

ahh I will have a look

Ta

I think we made every mistake possible with our kitchen (but it is still 1 million trillion times better than when we moved in):-

I hate the cream shaker cupboard doors as they collect dirt and never look clean.

I hate the pale laminate worktop that we compromised on (to get kitchen finished quicker) because it is always covered in tea stains which I have to scour with bleach.

The stainless steel cooker hood and hob are a sticky dust trap - as mentioned before.

We soon changed the very expensive pale rubber flooring that all the magazines told me was hardwearing and durable as the cats scratched it to buggary and it NEVER looked clean from the day it was laid (we now have dark floor)

The builder set my floor cabinets too high so the kickboards don't fit underneath properly (keep falling over) and so I suffer with food & other debris etc under cupboards

Sorry so long.........