The MN lessons learnt kitchen thread.

[jollydiane]

I have read loads of kitchen threads so here is my conclusions.

1. Plan for where you bin is going to go.
2. Handless kitchens look lovely but can wind you up.
3. Floor Tiles look stunning but can be a bugger to keep clean.
4. Splash-backs are very practical for cleaning and can look stunning although some of you think they look naff.

What else should I add to the list before I make my purchase?

The one area I'm really stuck on is flooring. I want something that I can use my lakeland steam mop on (another MN suggestion) which I love.

Oh jeez Whisky, my husband will LOVE that. He had an obsession with keeping boxes. I had to remind him that we aren't going to be moving for at least 10 years (I hope anyway) & that he doesn't need to keep the new TV's box 🤦🏽‍♀️

That portable induction hob tip is genius.

I had been wondering how I was going to make a wide job look good over two side-by-side ovens. Now I’m thinking I will get a 4xhob and set it over one oven and the other over can just have worktop. Much tidier appearance.

We lived with the ikea single hob for 3months & I now have it packed with the camping stuff for when we get electric hook up. It will be amazing, can't wait!,

Shout out to the customer in John Lewis who has convinced me (and more importantly, DH) to get a Fisher and Paykel 3-Door fridge freezer when I was swithering.

She had clearly done all the fridge research possible and had checked with friends who owned the F&P model and they all ‘loved it’. I swear, JL had placed her there.

Thanks to this thread i now have a 29 point check list to hand to the kitchen designer in a couple of months

Any more pearls of wisdom?

And are there any original posters about who can say how their kitchens went?

Has anyone had any problems with those 'pop up plug socket' things that come up out of the work tops in islands. Seen them in IKEA and Wicks - IKEA ones are nice and flush with the work tops. Wicks less so.

Great thread!

I have a friend with a pop up plug socket in the island and she hates it. Awful to keep clean, wastes counter space and since it’s the only place in the kitchen with lots of outlets she constantly has it up with a bunch of cords hanging from it to do everything from charge her phone to blend baby food. If it’s possible, plug sockets either in a drawer or on the side of the island or even hidden under a seating overhang might keep your space clearer.

Have made copious notes from this thread

use the wood sealant/hardware from Howdens (Uni-something) not the Ronseal worktop oil or plain Danish oil, neither of which is any use.
Use Deep drawers.

Brilliant tip re the ikea portable hob, both as a stopgap and as a spare alongside a 4 ring hob instead of getting a 6 ring hob.
I'm dreading being without a kitchen during the installation. We're blocking up a door in the utility at the same time so can't use that as a temporary kitchen.

I personally burn myself A LOT on those mid-level ovens. Never do on the lower down ones.

I usually see the advice is for drawers, drawers and more drawers, but I will put in my personal punt for CUPBOARDS with more than one shelf!

But that's probably because the designer of our kitchen went drawer-crazy, and as a result we have eleven drawers of varying sizes, but only four cupboards, two of which that are corner units, one about 1m deep but only accessed by a 25cm door .

Having our kitchen extended into what is now a large utility room and garage running at the side of our house. Has anybody done this ? it will not require an extension.

Sorry posted far to soon, we live in a traditional semi detached house, and we are really not sure where to start, we think we may need an architect so we use th space well..............any advise greatly appreciated

Bookmarking

Amtico, Kardean or other luxury vinyl brands

My cutlery tray has a large space for larger knives so it goes. Knives, knives, forks spoons - 😂

Bookmarking

We've just moved house. My old house had a beloved IKEA kitchen which was designed off the back of this thread and was an absolute joy. Everything was carefully considered, a place for everything of all shapes and sizes. Easy to clean and efficient to cook in. Total cost of our IKEA kitchen was about £10k.

New house has a £50K - I shit you not, I've seen the invoice - Nicholas Anthony kitchen. It is nowhere near as good as our last IKEA job. Reasons as follows:
*upstand fouls the plugs. Because plugs now have a stiff bit of plastic where the cable joins the plug, there is not enough distance between the top of the upstand and the plug, so in order to use some appliances, you have to have the plug half out of the socket.
*appliances. Top of the range Siemens with far too many stupid options. The hob has a boot time FFS. Go for premium appliances but buy the bottom of the range as all the bells and whistles are pointless. So many extra button presses just to make things hot.
*nowhere to put a tea towel
*power assisted larder cupboard that's senile and decides to open itself every now and then.
*Island isn't that useful as cooking prep space as people dump stuff there (that might be my family tho)
*no draining board as that would ruin lines of quartz work surface.
*you can have cups near the kettle or near the teabags/coffee/milk fridge, but not both.
*bins: you have to open the bin cupboard, then manually pull the bin out, rest it on the floor, take the lid off the bin and put it someplace, then scrape your plates/put your rubbish in and repeat the whole operation.
*ovens wrong way round. THere's a bank of 3 appliances - combi oven, coffee machine, and main oven. The main oven, which is the most used, is furtherest away from the cooking/prep space.
*Combi oven a bit pointless. The microwave is only 600W so a bit useless.

Honestly, never trust a kitchen shop, they're just there to sell you stuff.

And one more - the cutlery drawers are not deep enough for a spatula or flipper.

Lol

”power assisted larder cupboard that's senile and decides to open itself every now and then”

ovens wrong way round. THere's a bank of 3 appliances - combi oven, coffee machine, and main oven. The main oven, which is the most used, is furtherest away from the cooking/prep space.

Assuming they’re all the same size it should be fairly easy to swap them round?

Draining grooves are even worse than no draining board as they collect limescale and gunk and mean you can’t use it as workspace. We have no drainer and just put a teatowel down.

Teatowel - hang on oven door? Or another handle?

Plug sockets - I can only suggest plugging in some sort of adaptor/splitter which would mean the plug is further from the wall. Annoying!

The bin sounds awful! Any chance you could install a pull out bin instead?

Yes - we will probably swap the ovens around. Nervous about dinging something in the process though.

We will install a pull out bin as well; the tea towel thing bugs me because if you have a tea towel over the oven door, you can't see what's cooking inside (grilling fish fingers for example). The ovens aren't close to the sink either, so your tea towel isn't close to where you need to use it.

What bugs me is the complete lack of thought that went in to a £50K kitchen. I could understand no tea towel holder or a crappy bin set up in a £4K B&Q job, but not in a premium high end kitchen!

A slot under worksurface between cupboards for trays and chopping boards.

I have horrible plastic laminate flooring in the current kitchen (doer-upper). Will be replacing with solid wood parquet, oiled, when that floor gets to the top of the 'doer-upping' list. Laid this in the last house, it was great, not too cold, doesn't scratch easily, and easy to patch if scratched (just sand out scratch and oil the bit you sand, much better than varnish that scratches like mad and takes hours to dry).