Kitchen advice please

[shebird]

We are about to start on a extension to have an open plan kitchen diner. Having waited almost 12 years for this I am starting to get very anxious about getting it right. I have started looking at kitchens and I am just overwhelmed by the choices and decisions to be made. The only decision I have made is that I would like white shaker style units but cannot decide on work tops, cooker or anything else. I would appreciate advice from any wise mners on how best to approach this and also some ideas of what to focus on most.

Have you looked at lots of pictures and kept the ones you liked most?

It helps to have a visual jumping off point.

Advice about work tops will vary considerably. Each have their own different experiences and subsequent beliefs.

I've had wooden work tops for 15 years and they look great. Osmo do a work top protector which is ace. If you love wood, that's easy. You can sand and refinish them every few years to get them good as new if you wish.

For tiling, I'd advise you to go for simple and unassuming. There's inevitably a lot of stuff around in a kitchen, so simple tiles really help to keep the place uncluttered feeling. White tiles are hard to maintain. Something neutral is more forgiving. Stone colour. With stone colour grout. Don't get bright white grout. It's a pain to clean.

Your kitchen should make you happy, when you walk into it, not groan at how much cleaning and polishing you need to do to maintain the idealistic choices!

So much good advice here, I'll listen in, cos I need a new oven!

When I started at looking at kitchens I began with taking an unhealthy interest in all my friends' kitchens. Ask what you like/don't like about them.
Where they bought them, if they bought worktops separately.
One friend is gadget mad; built in coffee maker, sockets that pop out of the island & hot water tap.
One friend has a dislike of built in bins.
Someone else has a dog bowl built into the bottom of a unit. Really.

I then went to look at fancy showrooms.
Then Pinterest.

I would strongly suggest establishing a budget early on, otherwise you'll be hankering after a Plain English kitchen with a Howdens Budget.

Definitely ask on here, MN helped me enormously.

How exciting! We are nearly (hopefully) at the end of our renovations which has included a new kitchen/family room.

Everyone who has seen the kitchen comments on the countertops and island lighting. We ended up going with quartz counters and I absolutely love them. I have stone coloured outer cabinets and a grey island, with the same light grey carrara looking quartz throughout. I spent months choosing the cabinet colours but it's the countertops everyone strokes :-)

pirate I've chosen carrera quartz too. They're not in yet but I've seen the slab & it's gorgeous.

I agree about collecting ideas. Pinterest is your friend!

There was a programme on last night 100K house? which had 2 kitchens done which might be interesting.

Thank you all some great thoughts so far.
Gadgets and and built in dog bowls are certainly not high on my list of priorities - although sockets that pop out of the island sound like a great idea so I will investigate this.

I agree pirate that the worktops can make the kitchen but I think worktops will be where DH and I disagree. He has suggested copper, zinc or stainless steel while I seem to be more drawn to granite or similar looking worktops.

Bottom line is it has to look great but also durable and practical.

Yes Big watched this tv show last night and there were some great ideas. This is what has inspired DH to look at alternative worktops in copper or steel

Agree on setting a budget. Be realistic about storage. Be realistic about maintenance (i.e. are you a messy cook / are there likely to be spills / do you have children / pets etc). If you have built in gizmos (pop up plug sockets / fancy coffee machine) can you afford to have them repaired when you've blown the budget on your dream kitchen. Do you entertain in there? Do people gather there?

Houzz is brilliant for getting ideas, so is a simple google search of "white shaker kitchens" and then images.

Don't assume that you have to have everything from the same place. We've had (parts) of our kitchen delivered (still to be installed). Appliances came from a variety of online places / oven bought from FB group (ex show house). I'm having different worktops for the outer cupboards than I am for the island unit (same cupboard colour), both from different places. Not having tiles (just an upstand).

I wouldn't be without my granite tops. Totally love them.

My recommendation would be first go and see lots of kitchen showrooms and have open and frank chats with designers. Seeing several different displays and talking to different designers will give you ideas on which to build your kitchen. A new kitchen is a huge investment in your home so you need to get it right and you should look to partner with a company/designer that understands your needs and aspirations and is willing to put in the time and effort into helping you get your dream kitchen.

Gather pictures and make notes and use these to set a theme for your new kitchen. You will be amazed how quickly a pattern reveals itself.

A good designer will be knowledgeable and help you select appropriate products/worktops etc to make the most of your space.

Good luck. It can be a lot of fun working with the right people.

I'm obsessed with kitchens and interiors.

Did my last kitchen 2 years ago. Shaker style with honed Carrara worktops.

There are sooooo many ways to achieve what you want without breaking your budget.

Firstly do you have an idea of budget total and roughly how many units total? If you post that or PM me I will point you in the direction of various options.

In the meantime have a look at these

www.higham.co.uk
www.devolkitchens.co.uk
www.solidwoodkitchencabinets.co.uk
www.woodbornekitchens.co.uk
www.yewtreedesigns.co.uk

Post with more info and we will all help

Re worktops. I've previously had stainless steel, wood and granite.

I love all things wood. But wood worktops are difficult to maintain well and will go black around the sink.

Stainless steel is amazing. Utterly durable and indestructible. Only thing is that you must expect that it won't stay pristine. It will scratch with pans chopping boards being pulled across it.
As long as you can live with that. Amazing.
Granite is fab. It does stay pristine with very little help.
Get honed granite. Polished shows up dust and finger prints.

If you wanted wood in part of your kitchen. Ie away from the sink area. It's totally fine and works really well. It just doesn't like water.

My quartz worktops are being installed downstairs right now as I type. I'm very excited! They're going to look amazing.

We had to do our kitchen on a relatively meagre budget so I spent whole weeks on Pinterest gathering ideas, went to shows like Grand Designs and Ideal Home for inspiration and to meet suppliers and I read and reread a brilliant long running thread on here called something like kitchen lessons learned which had so many good ideas. Then we designed it ourselves, which wasn't daunting mostly because OH is an architect and I have a design background so used to doing floor plans, visualisations etc. I'm not sure we would have been brave enough if we didn't have these skills though.

We ordered online from DIY Kitchens, we are very impressed with the choice available and the quality of the units but unfortunately the customer service has been abysmal.

I reckon we at least halved the cost of doing it this way which allowed us to splash out on worktops and our dream cooker.

This is the thread I mean www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/1554664-The-MN-lessons-learnt-kitchen-thread

There's also a follow up lessons learnt one year on with some interesting hindsight tips

Definitely spend some time browsing Pinterest and make yourself a dedicated board, repinning what takes your fancy and pinning from other places on the web too - get the pin button for your browser.

www.pinterest.com/explore/shaker-style-kitchens/

There are lots of articles as well giving advice
Link

Link

You don't have to have all the same depending on how big the kitchen is, you could mix and match.

I absolutely love real wood, but have never chosen it because I know I wouldn't want to run the risk of it being dented or burnt or stained with red wine or olive oil.
Recently I had to do a new kitchen with cream shaker cupboards and I put a wood effect laminate with them, it was much better than the laminates of old and actually looks really good. That was chosen for a rental property though, not for my own kitchen. I wanted something durable. At home I have granite for the third time and still get on really well with it.

a few thoughts from our recentish kitchen.

cooker - we didn't go for a built in cooker as the ovens are smaller, so we have one that slid in, it has 2 ovens (Main + small oven/grill) and a glass lid that covers the hob when you're not using it.

we have a solid beech worktop which is lovely and hasn't needed any of that oiling that everyone says it does, it's about 8 years old now and looking great. Little bit grubby round the sink but not too bad at all.

sink and 3/4 - not quite a double sink but bigger than a sink and a half, very handy indeed.

wtf? Where did that link some from???

come from, even.

Everyone will have different views, so the important thing is that you do what suits you and your household (and your budget!).

We had an extension built last year, with a new kitchen/diner, and I researched long and hard about what I wanted for my budget. I spent a lot of time on MN for advice/ideas. As a result, we have the kitchen that works for our family. We also thought about how we used other areas of our house as well. EG I really don't like tiles in kitchens, as I think they look grubby very quickly. But I couldn't see how we could avoid having them behind the sink because of splashing (hob not an issue as it is in the island/peninsular thingy). The our kitchen designer pointed out the bleeding obvious, which is that most washing up goes in the dishwasher and the baking trays, big saucepans etc that don't can be washed up in the utility room. Genius! So our kitchen tap and sink gets used for prepping veg and filling the kettle, the kitchen is streamlined and there are no splashmarks.

Also, we were on a limited budget and limited kitchen area space, as I wanted to use most of the new room for dining/living area. Some things take up a lot of room but aren't used very often, eg huge Le Cresuet casserole dishes. These have been relegated to the utility room and garage freeing up space in the kitchen.

Personally, I hate range cookers and was very happy to get rid of mine and have a built in double oven and separate hob instead. Other people swear by range cookers because of the extra oven space. You need to think about what works best for you.

One thing I did learn is that the prices in kitchen showrooms bear no resemblance to the actual price you pay. I think our kitchen would have been over 2.5 times the price if I had agreed to pay the full price.

I love my kitchen, it works brilliantly for me. It wouldn't necessarily be someone else's choice though.

I'm another kitchen obsessive . Aside of the cupboard door style, have you got your layout sorted? Extensions and rooms where the kitchen is only part of it, can be hard to get right and get the visibility, walking routes, working and storage areas all happening together. I would suggest don't rely on the architect or a kitchen supplier's designer unless they come up with something impressive.

You can look atdynamic space for a work flow approach to planning. A lot of the storage ideas can be copied with less expensive products. I have more or less got my kitchen into this configuration and it works really well with a lot less walking/colliding than we used to have.

I don't know the layout of your extension but try to sketch out your kitchen whilst you still can tweak the location of doors, windows, the way through to the house/garden, vents and drains etc. Also think about lighting, if it's also a bit of a family room can you have that part on a separate switch to the kitchen part? I remember seeing a kitchen with a bit of an upstand on the peninsula so that mess and washing up weren't seen from the dining side.

The things I have learnt from my last kitchen are that getting rid of wall cupboards above your working area gives you much more light and headroom, and a feeling of space. Also that pull out base units (e.g. wire drawers inside) are genius and you can jam them with far more stuff, and still be able to find it, than you can with shelves.

Once you know what style you are after, the worktops/sinks/details etc will follow on from that, depending on budget.