Gloomy dark room - describe your kitchen to me ? Please.

[Weasleybug]

About to get kitchen re-done and have to make decisions PDQ as builder is available either in Sept or not till Jan so....

our kitchen is quite big but on the side of our house so is quite dark so I need to maximise light ....

Would be grateful to hear what has worked and what hasn't to this effect please (units, worktops and floors please !).

try these people for large rectangular porcelain tiles

I would definately go for the ceramic equivalent of "natural materials" such as slate - I have a slate floor and its a nightmare to clean - I have to spray a floor cleaner on and use a bristle brush and even that doesnt do a 100% job - although it does look lovely We have a maple kitchen which is quite nice (put in by builders not our choice) but need to replace worktops with granite but cannot decided what granite to go with so anyone posting with ideas I will be lurking

Thanks all ! Very useful stuff here.

Look out for my 'what to do with my bathroom' thread coming to an internet forum near you !

My kitchen is very large and is a 'kitchen diner', so dp who is a builder and wanted to impress me when we first met 8 years ago said he would remodel my kitchen, and put underfloor heating under a new tiled floor. Fan bloomin' tastic.
Ds2's food does seem to end up baked on sometimes though.
Just suggesting this as if you have a tiled floor they are very cold and I can walk on my tiled floor in bare feet even when its snowing outside.

Bathrooms? He did that with the underfloor heating too!

Thanks Flibberty - we're having underfloor in bathroom but builder has recommended we don't have it in kitchen because of heat disappearing down through the floor boards.

Oh yes, dp would say that too - our kitchen is a solid floor which is why it used to get so cold.
I would go for a solid wood floor then, they are much warmer underfoot and if you get a light wood will help your dark room.

lol - cleaninglady, what you want to do is get yourself down to the marble/granite suppliers yard place. is completely different to looking at little sample pieces... dp and i first looked at a selection of small pieces based on our first indication that we wanted dark, but not too dark, with 'bits' and def not black because the smear water marks will haunt you forever.... so we were sent some small samples and were sure about which ones we liked... went down to the place and were shown into the portakabin office where they had a diplay of much larger samples...and changed our minds completely. were absolutely sure about our new choice and then shown out into the yard to look at the massive slabs....and really werent taken with any of our previous choices. opted for something completely different in the end. is mostly brown with bluey bits and creamy bits...sounds vile, but is lovely.

point is; go and see the great big slabs of it. really is worth doing.

thanks TM will do! The smears on the glossy stuff would haunt me as am cleaning queen (hence nickname ) so will start to have a look around the builders yards.... guess what my next thread will be ?
"Which one of these granite samples do you like the best...."

If you can leave a space on the wall opposite the window for a mirror

I may nick that idea CD!

nice one CD. good idea.

my othr top tip for agood way to inject some of your personal taste/style into a kitchen is to use a bit of amazing wallpaper. i have a canopy space over an aga...filled with a really gorgeous wallpaper (then sealed and finished with a produc called Polyvine which gives a dead flat finish. marvellous).

soif there is a small section of wall or opportune canopy space or something, that could be something to consider. make it reflective or metallic and it will bounce light too, as well as being reallyverystylish. also, b/c its only a small spac, you can use really expensive wallpaper coz youll only need one roll.

We've just redone our kitchen which is also largeish but at the back of the house and previously a dark room. We knocked out the back window and put in a huge new window. It felt a bit extravagant at the time, but I'm so pleased with the results. We've also put in a huge skylight in the ceiling, but obv that's not usually possible! Our units are a v soft blue/grey/white and the walls are painted an off white in that Dulux paint range that's made to make spaces look larger. I thought the claims sounded utter tripe and only went with it because I like the colour, but the room does look really bright and sunny now. We've had an off white opaque wax finish on the wooden floor which is very shiny and reflects lots of light off it. It needs a good clean once a week, but (lazy bad me) I have a cleaner and she hasn't moaned yet! Durat work surfaces (it's kind of like Corian but made from recycled plastic - Finnish I think and v trendy!) are lush and come in lots of super-sheeny finishes. We are intending to put in glass splashbacks but I've run out of steam!
Also we have v minimal white roller blinds on the windows to minimise the light lost.

furzella, that sounds really nice!

good idea about hte mirror - not sure we will have room though. Our kitchen is really odd - its big but has lots of odd quirks like a 45 degree wall at one point and sticky outy bits to hold the steel when they knocked it through. Gave the kitchen bloke something to think about though !

Thanks everyone !

You could get several little mirrors
could look quite good i think

or get an odd shaped one made?

Our kitchen is 1980s brown and green hell, but landlord too bleedin' stingy to replace

Tranquila thank you! Am in domestic goddess heaven and have forgotten the three months of hell with only a microwave and doing the washing up in the bath upstairs! We just have to get rid of the peach rag rolling in the hall now, which is super-classy if you're into nicotine stained early '80s retro...

lol. hey, that look could come back in if you wait long enough

Those of you with cream units - what colour walls have you got? Mine are white at the moment but it doesn't look quite right. The only problem is that our room shape sounds a lot like Weasleys - so in a way keeping the walls and ceilings white is easier to pull it all together....