The Ideal Mumsnet Kitchen - what's in it?

[RubyBlueberry]

Mine is in need of an massively urgent update after just moving in. It's circa 1979 (with original appliances and handbooks and is a gorgeous shade of olive green!)

So what would you have in your kitchen?

"Not sure about a hot water tap - I think it would remind me of the old urn they had where I used to work - it was all lime-scaley and manky. What's wrong with waiting two minutes for the kettle to boil? "

Are the hot taps like that?

Bananapudding, by American fridge we mean the big side by side fridge freezers with a water dispenser/ice maker in the door.
Traditional English fridges are much smaller and have no dispensers.

for boiling water for tea I have this which I bought in TJ Hughes for about £40.

I really like it. You just shove a cup with teabag in it, wander off, come back to brewed tea, rather than wander off, come back and have to re-boil kettle

Has no-one mentioned a laptop for mumsnetting recipes, homework etc?

Other than that my list would include:
walk-in larder
table/breakfast bar
radio
dishwasher
a big clock

I would have (have had in prvevious house and miss it loads)

an island, with pop up plug for laptop. A normal chair height lower ridge (wide enough for dinner plates (or laptop)... to sit at.
With a dishwasher, sink, waste disposable unit, tap, storage space all built in...

James Martin

Polished concrete work surfaces, my samples have just turned up, which to choose.

Stresses - we are selling our AGA aswell, too expensive to run and going to replace with a wood burning stove.

How much are polished concrete work surfaces, Five?

We currently have tiles on which we can safely put hot pans. Any new worktop we have is going to get twatted within a week unless it's heatproof - we'll never remember that it isn't. We can't afford granite.

Does anyone have any good solutions to recommend for corner cupboards?

I'm planning our new kitchen (also a grotty 70s re-fit) and currently pots and pans are in the large corner base cupboard, but they will go in the new wide deep drawers. Not sure what to use the corner for now!

Hate those circular swivel things, and anyway we are having larder cupboards which food will go in. If you don't have the swivels, what's a good option? I hate that you can't see what's in the deepest recesses of the corner!

And we're on a real budget unfortunately (rented house) so no really flash solutions are possible.

By circular swivel things, do you mean th half-moon shaped racks that attach to the inside of the cupboard? I think they're the only solution although Ikea usually has something clever for these situations.

At a previous house we had fully circular plastic attachments on a central swivel, so when you opened the cupboard you could spin it round. But you couldn't reach behind it to clean it, and so the cupboard was FILTHY - another rented house, so not even our filth!

I think the Ikea one lifts out or detaches for cleaning purposes. I'm going tomorrow so I'll have a look.

Thanks very much, that's really kind. Just want a nice neat solution for the corner that is actually useful, rather than a waste of space.

we have a howdens new kitchen we got it trade so 60-80% off so it was alot cheaper (£2k) and its a massive kitchen BUT half the stuff we ordered was wrong wouldnt take some of the wrong bits back as they had been unpacked (thats how we found out they were wrong). their customer service is really bad. ended up with totally different kitchen units then we wanted but it looks great. luckily we had a whole load of old school science worktops they were great sanded down and oiled. it looks a really expensive kitchen. we also found a man locally who imports ceramic double sinks from france, i am putting one in our next kitchen as well they are so great (it was £220).
i have habitat units in the pantry, the whole kitchen used to be habitat units but DH didnt like it so i sold the rest on e-bay. i collected them from auctions and the adtrader as when we moved in we only had a couple of old broken units and no money. we got a massive blue smeg gas cooker from the adtrader for £100 inc hood (worth £1000) and it was barely used. its almost four years since we bought it and still going strong.

Leeka, I think this is all they've got. It doesn't look removable sadly.

I have this sink and think it's brilliant! One big sink, two little ones and a sluicing area, spinning shelf below and two big bins.

A pantry is great to have too - you can keep loads of stuff in there instead of in the kitchen, so you don't need wall cupboards and the room looks much bigger because of that. You can decorate the walls with pictures etc instead. Not that I have ...

Dishwasher - have it raised up so that you don't have to bend over to fill and empty, it makes life a lot easier. And then there's space for a drawer underneath too.

I think marble has been mentioned a couple of times for pastry making - granite does the same job IME. It is also a great surface for speeding up defrosting.

One of my oven's has a great feature - the door comes down, then slides underneath - it's completely out of the way so you can get in to clean it so much more easily.

And I'd also vote for an induction hob - amazingly quick, uses less electricity and easy to clean. And since pans must be steel or irn, a good excuse to buy Le Creuset.

Wow whereyouleftit, that's one hell of a sink. Was it very pricey?

Lyra, yes it was - about £1800 . But I've had it for 5-6 years now and it still gives me a little thrill every time I look at it. And it is practical, so it's worth the money to me. We live in our 'forever' house, so when you cost it out over the 40 or so years you expect to own something, you can convince yourself to save up and spend the money!

double oven is a must, also big fridge.
dont fall for marble work tops or wood. both will be a nightmare long term.
shower tap is great - kids love them too.
butler sink also great, as long as you dont have wooden work tops!
i would like one of those clothes airers (like the pan hanger thing mentioned before) that hangs from the ceiling
howdens are good but not as cheap as you would hope.
you migth find it cheaper to buy all the bits and bobs and then get a builder to do the work rather than getting someone like wicks to do the job lot.
Good luck!

A black Everhot 100i.
Freestanding painted furniture, dresser, island, huge table etc.
Some kind of wet and dry Vax type thing floor cleaner (for the quarry tiles).
A little laundry maid to live in our tiny utility room.
For starters anyway...

What's an Everhot 100i?
Whereyouleftit, yes it's worth it if it's your forever house. I thought it was going to be more expensive than that tbh.

Lyra

attempts to post first ever link

Mmmm, nice.

Yeah but freakin spensive. Might have to downgrade to a lacanche range