I have fallen in love with this kitchen

[middleagedspread]

www.tomhowley.co.uk/kitchens/contemporary-shaker-kitchen/

I suspect it might be beyond my budget though.
Any comments?

[Reastie]

We found the opposite with another independent we went to more . They lowered the cost only by giving us much cheaper appliances etc, not actually dropping their prices at all to take a hit to get the sale themselves. In the end we went with another independent who didn't give us a discount but did give us everything we wanted in the budget and whose design skills were far superior than any other kitchen place we went to.

[PoppyAmex]

If you decide to slum it, I just saw this one which is pretty nice considering the price.

[MoreBeta]

betterwhenthesunshines - that is a very very good point indeed about the top drawer making cupboards short. I have that problem in my current kitchen. Its a pain stooping down to get stuff out from the back of cupboards.

In my new kitchen (which is a rather tricky very long galley with a lowish ceiling) I have a bank of tall floor to ceiling cupboards and fridge freezer all the way down one side and the other side is just a bank of waist high drawer units and under surface appliances, a stand alone hob cooker with two ovens, sink and a totally clear uncluttered work surface on top. The windows on that side let in a lot of light and I have no over cupboards on that side because of the height restriction - just a fan extractor and a shelf over the work surface (for my recipe books) with hidden spot lights.

That way when I am preparing food I can open the drawer under the work surface where I am stood and look straight down to grab a knife or utensil out of the top drawers or grab a pan out of the deeper pan drawers. The lights above shine straight in to them so I can see what I am getting rather than in the back of a dark cupboard. My ingredients are behind me in the larder cupboards only a short step and arms length away at waist and head height. The only things lower down in the larder cupboards behind me will be items I rarely use or spare supplies ready to be moved up on to higher shelves.

The fridge freezer is a DXD Rangemaster with the usual doors at waist and head height but two wide freezer drawers below so again I can look straight down into a drawer rather than stooping to look into a lower compartment shelf and drag stuff out of the back.

Things like this are rarely mentioned in kitchen design. Everyone talks about 'the work triangle' and soft close doors and granite tops and what types of handles but I find that having lived with a really badly designed kitchen in a rented house its stuff like the ergonomics of actually preparing food with frequently used utensils and ingredients all at arms reach all around your prep space and good lighting that matters just as much.

[fossil971]

You can get a kitchen that looks exactly like that from almost any manufacturer at all - DIY kitchens, Wickes. Every single kitchen place offers a grey painted in frame kitchen. Most of them get their doors from Second Nature or a few other manufacturers so you will just see the same thing again and again and can compare costs because it's the identical product.

How you style it with handles, worktop etc is all down to you to get that look.

However do note that the Tom Howley kitchen is mostly style over substance: features in it that are crap: skirting board type plinths - acquire kick marks as no toe space when standing there (experience: I copied it!). Almost no workspace next to the hob and huge bulky shelf at head level over it. Uncleanable space under that big cupboard. No visible extraction. Cooker and sink miles apart. Nowhere to put kettle. Drawer line units generally.

Got to say I'm liking the built in seating bench just visible though!

[fossil971]

X posted but agree - ergonomics, design and storage are everything.!

[middleagedspread]

fossil you are a genius. I would be gutted to spend ££ to find it impractical.
So would you advise that all my local fancy pants kitchen designers use all the same products? How can they describe themselves as bespoke?
What about Kitstone/Neptune/Highams?
Sorry to bombard you, but you seem to know so much.

[middleagedspread]

Also, I wonder what the Tom Howley caracasses are made from?

[middleagedspread]

carcasses even!

[Lavenderloves]

I have a hand made kitchen. It's solid and so much better than any off the peg. The carcass is wood, real stuff

It's ready for a coat of paint as i fancy a change. I've also found it's aged nicely iykwim

[Lavenderloves]

DOrset kitchens made mine.

[MoreBeta]

My kitchen fitter told me that Gower in Leeds make the Wickes kitchen carcasses. By the look of what they say on their website they supply much of the UK flatpack DIY market so that may well be true.

I also know that Howdens do a lot of the DIY market as well.

Not many kitchen shops do make their own joinery. Thyey must by definition buy it in.

My friends in London who usually fit IKEA did have a hand made bespoke kitchen made for their own house by a local joiner for £5000 and it looks like a very high end country house style kitchen.

My parents had a hand made one done by a local jpiner too - so it can be done a lot cheaper than the kitchen shops typically quote if you can get the right fitter. In fact, I would say the fitter is the most important thing to get right when fitting a kitchen.

[middleagedspread]

Lavender, they are stunning. Did you go to Beaminster to look at them?

[Lavenderloves]

No i was pregnant, planning a wedding, frazzled. I faxed them a sketch and they drew me the plan. We had it fitted by our builders at the time.

I did keep it simple which kept the cost down, no top units as i don't like them and i mixed it in with original shaker pine. Original stuff is hard to find but i can reccommend Eastburn pine they have great stuff. They also do amazing kitchen but ££££.

It's very possible to have quality for less.

[Lavenderloves]

Eastburncountry furniture. Sorry i would link but thecipad won't letvme.

[middleagedspread]

Thanks. I might take a trip down there to investigate.

[bushbabyblues]

If you buy Ikea carcasses you need to be good at DIY because they take hours to put together.

You can buy a Magnet carcass ready-assembled and although it costs slightly more you save on the labour.

We bought the cheapest Magnet ready-assembled carcass (sadly not an in-frame which I do regret as they look so much nicer) and had a joiner make the doors and coving himself to match the architraves in our house. Looks "meant to be" in terms of period features and we have had so many compliments on it. Our kitchen doors are painted (we've had them done twice now, first in white and then renewed last year in pale blue) but the carcass is white laminate - if you were fussy you might not like the contrast but it doesn't bother me.

We also kept costs down by sourcing all the appliances ourselves.

We did splash out on a Zimbabwe worktop and handmade white tiles (the kind that look like bricks. This last was a mistake as they're a bugger to clean and have to be scrubbed with a nailbrush every bloody day)

[Francagoestohollywood]

So, basically, sorry your friend charge £££ to install ikea carcasses?

I know the difference between an IKEA kitchen and a Boffi one.

[sudointellectual]

betterwhenthesunshines, I'd be really interested in looking at the copper/bronze handles you've gone for.

[TheRealFellatio]

That is almost identical in every way to the kitchen that I designed personally and had handmade by a local bespoke joiner (not mass produced by MoreBeta's supposed three companies ) 6 years ago. I had to order the stainless steel cup handles especially from the States because they were impossible to buy here unless you were buying trade. There were loosely similar cheap alternatives, but not the same, and I wanted the Dog's Bollocks ones.

It was handpainted in Farrow and Ball's 'Blue Gray' paint (actually a muted, dusky Duck Egg green) and the only major difference was that I had matt, 'tumbled' black granite worktops, which looked like slate. The floor was the same as the picture here. It was beeeeooootiful.

It was my Cistine Chapel. And then I moved.

[TheRealFellatio]

Sistene, not Cistene

[Lavenderloves]

I might look at that shad of F and B. it's my next job :-) i want to chane to those handles too. That's the best thing about a quality kitchen, you can change it, update it, refresh it.

I also think cheating with a cheap carcass defeats the object, the whole point is it will live a long time.

[TheRealFellatio]

Does anyone know how to cut and paste a photo from a webpage, rather than the whole webpage itself? Then I can show you my kitchen as it appeared on Rightmove without it showing my old address!

[sudointellectual]

Right click > Save image as

[Lavenderandroses]

Why don't you see how much a local carpenter / cabinet maker charges to make the same kitchen?

[middleagedspread]

I will, be I've heard they are £££. I'm going to look at lots of options.
Dorset Kitchens are quite local.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, I feel much better informed.