This is crucial, high gloss kitchen cabinets.

[nilbyname]

I know. How have I come this far in my life without contemplating which kitchen to get without giving a high gloss one a thought?

I like them, a friend has one in white, another in red. I think they look nice, but my big question is, will they look dated? They seem very of the moment, and I wonder if they will stand the test of time like Shaker style, or if they will look naff in 5 years. We are re-doing our kitchen, and will sell this house within 5 years, so need to know what to go for.

I am leaning towards a white kitchen base cabinets, with wooden surfaces, some sort of stone floor and long wooden shelves up top. Metro tiles in a dove grey on the wall from work top to bottom of shelf.

Opinions please?

Well I have them and will probably have then when we buy a new house too :)

I went to look around a v naice house that had high gloss cabinets. They seemed to have quite a few little chips which made me think never (especially as was owned by two older professionals, no kids to blame).

We have had our white gloss (IKEA if you wondered) for about six years. My plan was always to replace the doors if I got bored or they started looking tacky but so far they still look good.

I really really like the deep red gloss that Magnet did a few years back. A friend had those and they looked fab.

My dad put an Italian White gloss & glass kitchen in his house 10 yrs ago and it still looks good and it really suits the very contemporary house he has. It's a bit of a pain to keep clean though and wouldn't be for me luckily dad is obsessive about that stuff and it looks immaculate.

Oh that is encouraging, all pretty positive.

I do have a young family, of vandals really, and need something hard wearing and very wipeable! i am not liking the sound of chips!

It will be IKEA, best kitchens in the cheap to mid-range by a long shot and that comes from my cabinet maker friend. (He made a swim up bar for Ant/Dec and a deck for Roman Obramovich (sp??))

No chips in ours after 5 years :)

Ours still look great after 6 years despite 8 yr old DS's best efforts. I love the slab door design no where for dirt to collect and a quick wipe with microfibre cloth and they look as good as the day they were fitted.

High gloss white here and I second the easy to clean factor. We also have a tiny chip but that was the fitters error and mostly hidden so I'm not bothered

You mention Metro tiles. Do you mean the brick shaped bevelled ones? If so, just a small tip...they're a bugger to have near edges (like window sills) due to the bevelling. A pro tiler should be ok as opposed to my DH