Kitchen again.. Come and help me design my new kitchen

[goingtobefree]

I am having a kitchen extension done, which involves knocking the wall between the old kitchen and dining room and so will have a large kitchen/diner/living area.It is approximately 23 feet by 18 feet.We are planning for a small utility room in the extension as well .
We already have a small lounge, which will remain the same. We are also doing a kitchen conversion done at the same time.
I have trawled through some of the old threads for ideas/inspiration.

1. Extra deep work surface

2.wall to ceiling cabinets/larder cupboard 3.Avoid wood work surface

1. Area for recycle bin
2. 90cms range cooker
3. Howdens kitchen- we have had a kitchen fitter design the initial design
4. Going for a Tewkesbury light oak( currently have oak kitchen, would like to go for a while/cream kitchen but have small children, this is not our forever house and planning to move in the next 3-4 years)
5. Kitchen island with sink (ideally would like to have nothing but the lay out does not allow this) The size is 6-6.5 feet by 5 feet approximately.
6. Keeping the current dishwasher( white) in the island.

10 two large drawers for pots and pans.

Come and tell me if I have missed anything.
I need adv for

1. Worktop - don't want to spend a lot, currently have laminate worktop lasted us for the last 8 years. I want a under mounted sink in the island, apparently you cant do this with laminates, is this true?What would go with oak kitchen.
2. I would like to have a different colour cabinets/worktop in the island - would it look nice, what colour would be nice, sont moind geting these rom a different place.
3. going for karndean like flooring( another mn tip)- what would go with the oak kitchen
4. TO have velux in the extension or not? having a bifold door in the extension leading to the garden and two large picture windows. Would the velux add to extra light or is it just for aesthetic reasons?

Sorry about the long post.. probably the longest I have ever done

Shameless bump... please, please come and tell me your experiences

Am going through exactly same thing at the moment for new kitchen /diner extension. For the kitchen I want oven and combi microwave in tall unit, don't forget somewhere to hang wet tea towels and to put bigger items like food mixer etc, I really want quartz worktops but my existing laminate one is pretty indestructible but I don't think you can have under-mounted sink with it. I think I'm going for engineered oak flooring but karndean a very close second. I am having rooflights after lots of changing my mind....I think they look really good.
I think different colour cabinets look good too, my tall units will be a different colour to the other cabinets. For help choosing colours I just used google images to look through hundreds of pictures of kitchens and also looked at the galleries on kitchen showroom sites. I never thought I would find it so hard making decisions. Which splashback to choose is the hardest one for me. Good luck!

I think if you really are looking at moving in a few years you need to make sure that you're doing things that will suit most buyers as well as yourselves, it's quite a different proposition from fitting out a dream kitchen that you're going to live with for a while.

Can I throw a spanner in the works and ask why a Howden kitchen rather than Ikea?

Good point littlemissdizzy, forgot about the tea towels which is currently on the radiator.
oh, we are having underfloor heating as well.
We have only gone to Howdens kitchen as the builder recommended it. But we were not overtly impressed with the guy who designed it but it is only the first one and we did not have a clue when he took the measurements at home( I told him that the range will go in there and the eye level on the next wall!! ) I did not realise the choices that you have.We did our old kitchen 8 years ago in our first house, we were young busy , working with young children. We just told the builder to take care of it- utter ignorance the only thing we were worried was about was the price. Surprisingly, we do love our current kitchen but it could have been done with more care and could have used the space wisely. I really want to get this right as we may need to sell it in 3-4 years time but can't afford in the area now- may or may not be able to move in future. Otherwise, it is a decent house to bring up the children, so with this extension - if we have the space we need ,we may reconsider our decision to move.

I would just say, take a lot of care over the layout and "flow"
kitchen ergonomics

Are you happy with your layout - what strikes me is that If you have the sink on the island will it have dirty pots stacked on it in full view? Is it also your prep area or is that somewhere else? You might want to put a higher level along one side of it to "screen" the unglamourous side of cooking.

The reason sink is on the island is because otherwise you will have to wash up facing wall.
The other option is not having an island with u shaped kitchen with large peninsular unit.
Just been to John Lewis this morning- they do have lovely kitchens...
Hmm..

I had this dilemma too but our sink never seems to be empty and would rather face the wall while washing up than having dirty pots and a drainer on the island...with a dishwasher I really don't spend that much time at the sink. I've had a sink face the wall before in an open-plan kitchen and I had no problem with it. It is making the kitchen design harder though. One of the reasons I ended up doing the extension was because I really miss having a kitchen island so it's a must have for me.

I would (and did) get a few kitchen designers in to look at the space to get lots of different ideas. Some of them have some really sensible suggestions. I found the Howdens design to be the least inspiring. We eventually chose a design and kitchen from 1 of the independent guys - the kitchen was the same price as Howdens.

Howden units may be good but the design service not up to the mark.We have had two builders in so far but they vary so much in price.
We thought we will be ableto start as soon as we had the planning permission but would rather spend adequate time planning.
Kictchen ergonomics website looks good,will defintely use it

My tips:

• Don't put sink in a place that involves carrying dripping stuff over the floor. Our sink is opposite the cooker and the place where I chop/ prepare food, so the floor gets filthy round there. Before I had the sink then a space for food prep, then the cooker, which was much more sensible.

• We got Ikea kitchen and love, love it. Very practical units, especially the pull out larders and large drawers for pots and pans.

• We got a man who does kitchens/ bathrooms etc. (ie. more of a high end decorator) to do ours and he charged 600.00 for 3 days work as opposed to the 2,000 Ikea quoted. You can get someone to do the gas. Ours has been fine 2 years on, nothing broken or disappointing.

• Don't get a 90cm oven as it's massive and will take a lot of energy to heat (I decided against this for this reason). You can (I think) get 90cm cookers with 2 smaller ovens which is a much better option, but those massive ovens are ridiculous to cook most daily family meals in.

• Some different coloured cupboards look great. We have a different colour on the top layer of cupboards. I would go for a cream with oak.

• We got a kitchen designer in (one of those companies that come around) and then remembered their ideas and did it with Ikea!

Hi, this is my first post here after weeks of lurking on the kitchen threads.
If you want laminate worktops but the look of an under mount sink, check out Franke Midas or Centinox as both have a very slim edge and look very much like under mounts. I like them but not sure about not having draining board. Sorry cannot do a proper link as using my tablet and don't' know how.

Thought I would just point out that IKEA are changing their kitchen range next year in the UK and have already done so in parts of Europe. The new range is called metod. The old range will be available for 2 or so years to allow people to buy extras etc but we are waiting to see the new range next year before we do our kitchen.

Hi, we have just done a new kitchen diner family area thingy. We got our kitchen from DIY kitchens on the Internet. Absolutely fantastic, loads if choice, quick delivery, and only £3800 for kitchen and utility room. This didn't include worktops as I went for quartz! I love it. Even have a large cupboard to keep and use all small appliances in to keep them off the worktop. I would definately do all of it again.

Hi, I am watching this thread with interest as we are about to start an extension with a new kitchen. oopnorthmum - I have also heard great things about DIY kitchens but as they don't have a design/planning service how did you go about making sure you ordered the right things from them?

I'm just finishing off my new kitchen and utility and am v pleased.
I wanted a stainless steel worktop but £££££.
I have had slate and laminate in the past and laminate lasted much better (slate useless) so went with it again. A fraction of the cost of stone/granite and it is really nice.

I don't like islands-I think they will date very fast and am uneasy about permanent piece of furniture that can't be moved in the middle of the room. One thing we repeated from our old kitchen, which was only there because the builder cocked up, was an open space between units. Perfect for trays and table mats. I have had it redone again in utility and kitchen.

Coloured grouting doesn't get grotty like white.

If messy when cooking, take a tip from my ds's Asian MIL who always has a cloth on the floor that she scoots about with her foot while cooking, to pom up spills.

I agree with laminate for the worktop - we ummed and ahhed about slate or something else like moondog and now I am SO glad we got laminate;

You can put anything down on it, spill anything on it, leave water on it, and it's fine.

AND - big selling point for us - you can cut it to exact size on site, so you don't need a specialist fitter and it's not the end of the world if your measurements are 1 or 2cm off or your walls are wonky.

I also looked at those micro-edge sinks which looked quite cool but in the end ridiculously pricey and I just couldn't justify it tightwad

We are happy with our IKEA kitchen and everyone says it "doesn't look like IKEA" because I paid a bit more for tiles (Fired Earth) and got advice from a posh paint shop about the colour on the walls.