HELP roundhouse kitchen lust and open shelving dilemmas

[pops84]

we are in the process of planning a new kitchen extension- i have fallen in love with Roundhouse kitchen http ://www.roundhousedesign.com/ its no 2 Bryans.
Have been to roundhouse but costs way above our budget. However, a very good carpenter has said he can do the same design for a fraction of the cost.
Love downpipe colour and industrial edge to it. But a few things i am unsure about:

1. worried downpipe may be too dark as the kitchen will be in the middle bit of the house with extension at the end. we are having a large pocket door put in between front and back rooms so that might help and also two large velux windows in bit over extension

2. absolutely love the open shelving and i think it softens and warms up the grey but worried it might be difficult to maintain.

3. we are also getting a quote from Highams- met with Tim higham and he was really lovely and i absolutely love their larders- but again may be out of our price range. Has anyone used Highams- if so what were your experiences? Also getting a quote from doormaker- anyone used them
   We want the tall cabinets to go up to the ceiling so hence need to get them made bespoke.

4. at the back we are planning to have bifold doors but also want the option of being able to open a window - does anyone have any suggestions on companies that perhaps do a door panel with option to open window

apologies for all the questions - but i hope someone can help, sooooo much to decide!!!

the scope of questions suggest you might need to hire a good designer ! get the design detail all on paper / CAD and ask your carpenter to quote ! will also be a good idea to email your design to several smaller and/ or larger companies to see how they fare too ?!

it's always good to shop around !

In answer to your questions:

1. I don't think Downpipe for the kitchen units will be too dark in itself, but will depend on using a light enough colour on walls and floor to stop the parts of the room far from the windows from being dark

2. How tidy are you? We are not tidy. So everything in our kitchen is hidden away. If you're the sort of person who is happy to dust an artfully arranged collection of something-or-other on an open shelf - go for it. If like us any horizontal surface gathers crap - don't do it.

3. Higham did our kitchen and we've been really pleased. Lovely people to deal with all the way through, minor issues all resolved speedily and well, and the kitchen is beautifully made. It wows everyone and I have had several friends-of-friends round on friends' request to look at it and get Higham to quote for their own.

4. Haven't seen a bifold door that also has a window in it. We got around it by putting a tall narrow opening window in the side wall and then the doors along the back. You can get some that open like a normal door (i.e pivot rather than slide) before the rest of the panels slide away behind if that would help?

Thank you very much for the advise. Having thought about i think despite them looking lovely think you are right pootlebug- likely to get very grimy and home of odd crayons, dice etc.

I am waiting for highams to get back to me re design and initial costing and pootlebug having used highams is there anything in particular you would definitely recommend or advise against?

did you get a traditional or contemporary highams kitchen?

many thanks

You are describing almost exactly what we have just done to our kitchen except the bi fold. Piccies on here... we used Flint (Dulux equivalent of Down pipe.
colporter.tumblr.com/post/66017484491/kitchen-reinvigoration

We went for open shelves because a cupboardy pantry thing to hide all the cr@p

Our Higham kitchen is contemporary - corian fronts to all the doors, matching corian work surface etc. The insides of the cupboards are all the same as having a more traditional one though.

I love:

• Big deep pan drawers
• Integrated fridge and freezer
• The pantry cupboard
• Units with roller-shutter type doors on them....one is the designated 'crap cupboard' where I put all the junk that accumulates on the worksurface to try to keep on top of it all iyswim.

There is a not-very-good pic on my profile that I took when we'd just had it put in....should really take some better ones.

spotty 26 wow love love love the grey and white in your kitchen, was a bit worried about going for dark grey but looks great. Although having said that we are going to have more tall cupboards so may still need to think about it.

Pootlebug also love the white corian, in yours.

I was shown white corian by Tim at Highams but dared not ask the price as thought it would be v v expensive. Would you mind sharing how much just the cabinetry came to - don't have to say exact figure if you prefer just a rough indication.

We are basically looking to spend about 12k on cabinets alone- so suspect corian will be out of our price range. Also do like the option of being able to paint in nice dark grey- oh so unsure!