Kitchen design advice!

[Castlelough]

Hi I need a little advice about where to put my freezer!

In my new kitchen plan, along one of the long walls, I am going to have a row of tall units - a double door larder press (100cm) a tall integrated fridge, a 60cm bank of units (eye-height oven/drawer/cupboard etc).

I had been planning on putting a tall integrated freezer into my utility room.

There IS space to put it beside the tall integrated fridge in the kitchen. This would give me much more scope to use the small utility room as a 'bootroom'/storage area. It really only has one wall of 200cm wide and has a door opening on each of the other short walls. Taking the freezer out of there gives me
better design options...

....but does a freezer belong in the kitchen? Will the heat of the kitchen affect the efficiency of the freezer?

My kitchen fitter is coming tomorrow to measure up and finalise the plans...so I'd really appreciate some advice!

I should have said that in my previous plan I was just leaving a gap in the kitchen between the tall units and a freestanding dresser, but instead of the gap I could put in the freezer...

Have a play on the Ikea kitchen design software, it's really easy to use and gives you a great idea of what it would look like. The B&Q one is a nightmare!

Our freezer is in the kitchen, I think most people's are, unless they have a chest freezer in a garage, for instance.

A freezer will be fine in either room. I have no central heating in my large kitchen, but find it is perfectly warm enough. Probably because of the American-style fridge-freezer in one corner.

When I eventually build my utility room extension, I intend to have a large freezer in it, and have only a larder-fridge in the kitchen, because I want more worktop space in the kitchen. But I should have the space for a freezer in the utility room. If I did not have space in the utility room, then I would have a smaller freezer in the kitchen. No point having a utility room which doesn't serve your purposes.

Although...

If it's floor-space your after, purely for boot-storage, why not mount your freezer on a raised step, so that you can have footwear in wire drawers that pull out from beneath?

I think having the freezer in the kitchen is fine. Another option (which we went for when we redid our kitchen) is to have an integrated fridge/freezer in the space where your fridge is going to go, and then have a free standing fridge freezer in the garage. That way we kept 2 larder cupboards in our kitchen- like you, we had a bank of tall units including ff, ovens and two larders.

Our garage fridge freezer has all the "spare" stuff in, so if I buy 3 cartons of milk, 1 goes in kitchen fridge and 2 go in garage fridge. If I batch cook, it all goes in the garage freezer if it's not going to be used immediately.

Obviously this solution only works if you have a garage!

Ha Usedtobe that's the thing - we are self-building on a farm with 5x 200-300 year old outbuildings/sheds near the house (but not 'in the garden') none of which have had their roofs repaired or been electrified yet...we didn't really want to build yet another shed, although a chest freezer would ideally be very useful.

Again, living on a farm seems to incur a lot of hats/gloves/fleeces/boots/farm clothes/farm coats/rain trousers/torches/general outdoor and equestrian stuff etc and some things that should be in a shed but that I don't want to leave in a damp, leaky roof, 'wildlife' infested shed... .

If I could start again I would make the utility room much bigger! (We do have a seperate tiny laundry room opening off it though )That's why I'm wondering whether it would be a mistake to put the freezer out there (as per the current kitchen/utility design) when it could be in the kitchen. ...

Thanks Six for your advice - I def want a large freezer as I have a 40 min round-trip drive to buy very basics and further to bigger supermarkets!

Am a little worried about a hot kitchen affecting the freezer (we've put in an Aga which will run in winter time) but maybe I'm imagining problems where there won't be any...

Thanks AWomb I prob won't go onto the ikea website - am so sick of kitchen planning!!! Have been thinking about/planning this for about 5 years!!!! Finally finishing the house and getting out of rental shack we are currently in...

There was one other thing I was unsure about...I hope to use the Aga for 5-6 months of the year and switch it off for the rest of the year. So I am putting in a hob and separate oven. In the plans at the moment I have just a single oven at eye-height. I noticed while out pricing ovens that a double oven doesn't cost a whole lot more. But I'm worried it might look a but much - an Aga and double oven and hob. DH has been grumbling that I could open a restaurant the way I'm going.... I wasn't going to bother with a microwave as we don't currently own one and manage fine without it....so....would you go for the double oven or just the single....

I dont think raising the freezer would work for you. You definitely need boot-room space on a farm.

I don't see why the Aga should affect the freezer, as long as they are not near each other. Fridges and freezers are designed to work in the comfortable indoor temperatures of centrally heated houses. Quite a range IIRC - something like 10-30 degC.

How many people do you tend to cook for? I find one medium oven and one large combi-microwave (ie it also works as a good but slightly small electric oven) only just big enough for a family of five. I definitely want two ovens in future. I think two medium would probably be more efficient than one huge.

Besides, when you get around to the outbuildings, you can have a chest freezer in the nearest one, and smaller one in the kitchen, regaining the space that the big freezer took up.

I would definitely put freezer in kitchen and have a decent boot room. We don't live on a farm but do have 3 DC and the amount of warm coats, rain coats, jackets, hats, scarfs, boots, shoes, trainers in use at any one time is ridiculous. A long wall of coat hanging with benches for shoes and boots will be well worth having the freezer in the kitchen.

As a farmer I would say keep the utility for boots coats and mud. You can never have too big a utility for a farmhouse. If have a small freezer for veg and ice cream in the kitchen then stick a chest freezer in one of those outbuildings.

Re the aga - how many people do you cook for? My mum and mil (both famrmers) have agas they switch off for August. My mum does harvest teas for the workers and hates having the again off. If you asked her she'd say have 2 single ovens and an Aga - don't bother with a double oven.

Also good at Xmas for cooking for ridiculous nos of people!

Thank you all so, so much for the advice!

Kitchen man came today and I went with the freezer in the kitchen and I do feel it's better placed there than in the utility/ bootroom now - thanks to all the reassuring comments.

I still have a bit of time to tweak the final plans when he emails them to me.

Regarding utility room/ bootroom he has tried to convince me to do 4 long presses along my 2 metre wall - 4x50cm. He says it will be nice and streamlined...

BUT, even though streamlined sounds nice I wonder whether some worktop isn't essential in there? I was going to go with 120cm worktop with 2 wide drawers beneath and some open storage beneath that again (in a 'pot board' type style), flanked by a full length (40cm wide) cupboard on either side (one for mop/sweeping brush etc) and one shelved) .
Nice as it would be to think everything could be put away neatly out of sight I think it is more likely that shoes/boots etc would end up dumped in front of the long presses, and costs would never make it inside presses...might be better to allow for plenty of hooks on the other walls...

What do you think?

Thanks for the tips regarding cooking. I'm not sure how many I'll be cooking for! We are expecting our first baby in 12 weeks time! But Aga will be switched off from Easter til Oct, I imagine, due to running cost and modern insulated house not really needing that level of heat. We have underfloor hearing that will kick in, if needed, when Aga is switched off. It was a very guilty pleasure purchase I'm afraid!!! But we I did opt for a reconditioned one, and I think it is so beautiful! .

And thanks again for helping me to work through and process all this. No matter how many magazines I've hacked up, it's the simple practical decisions that have to be made that are the most difficult. And DH isn't very helpful/ has no opinions on kitchen/utility room as long as it doesn't break the bank...!

You're on a farm. Your gear will be wet/muddy/mucky/dusty etc. No way should things be put away behind closed doors! They need to be hung up where there is ventilation. A wall of hooks for coats, with a row of boot trays underneath, is vastly better. You can keep your nice, clean Going Out coat in your bedroom wardrobe.

As for worktop space, that depends on you. I know that I tend to dump things on horizontal surfaces, so, for me, the room would stay tidier and cleaner if I went for the 'streamlined' look. Where do you plan to store hats/gloves/scarves etc?

BTW your plans sound gorgeous!

Where is the buggy going? Will there be room in the utility between coats and boots on one wall, and units on the other, without blocking the way? (I'm visualising a galley arrangement.)

Six you are up early! Thanks for the nice compliments! I'll try to upload the plan when he emails it! It really isn't a huge kitchen and the utility room is small too.
A galley would have been lovely in the utility but there is the back door in the wall opposite the wall of 2m of units. It leaves about 80cm of coat hanging space on that wall. I might put a wall mounted welly rack below the coat hooks there. If I stand at the back door facing the wall with units on it there is a door on the left into kitchen and a walkway on the right past a tiny cloakroom/toilet and into the laundry room.

Between the depth of the units and the doorways there is really only a further 30-50 cm of wall space on those side walls. I'd like to put tongue and grooved panelling any exposed bits of walls in utility and on into laundry as I think it would be easier to wipe them clean/hide stains and dirty fingermarks than to wash walls. And then I can easily affix extra hooks etc anywhere I need one! Kitchen man said it would be very fiddly/time consuming to do and would cost a good bit as a result . So we'll see.

Buggy will have to live in the hallway or sit blocking access to units in utility room. Hallway is very spacious due to terribly bad house planning. If I could start again I'd have more rooms opening into each other and less hallway

Gloves, hats, scarves can live in drawers? Or in right hand long press in pull out racks? Or have you a better idea for me?!!!

Your thread was far more interesting than dragging dc out of bed and into uniform

I firmly believe that there's no such thing as too much storage. But I would also always choose functionality over appearance.

I don't think that 80cm is enough for coat hooks on a farm. And what will you do with wet accessories? They can't go in a drawer soggy.

When you come home on a wet day with baby in buggy, plus toddler in wellies, all dripping, probably muddy, will 2m of storage work for you?

Do you really need a full wall of storage?

Was going to reply with the same. We had about approx 80cm of hanging when we created our small cloakroom. Hmmm then we had 2 adults and one baby. We now have 2 adults & 3 children. We have added an extra row at child height below the original 80cm, a freestanding coat stand and we still permanently use the bannister too. We're moving and I am planning major coat and shoe, hat, glove storage! What else are you planning to use your utility storage for, given you have

I also wouldn't have blocked in cupboards. Other than the fact of damp clothes hanging in a cupboard is not a good idea, kids are much more likely to hang their stuff up if they can see the hooks and a row of coats and jackets in different sizes can look very homely (sentimental!)

sorry unfinished sentence...given you have a laundry room (lucky thing!)

Hmmm do you think I should leave the space between the 2x40cm of tall cupboards for hanging space instead so? That would create 120cm of extra hanging/boot space?

There will be three x 40cm cupboards in the laundry area above the wm and td, with worktop on top of machines for folding/baskets.
To the left of that we plumbed for a sink. I was thinking of putting a 'cleaners sink' which is low for a mop/filling buckets. There isn't really depth for a proper sink. And have hooks along the wall for laundry bags (whites/darks/colours/handwash). There will be space to mount ironing board on the wall behind the door. I'd love to squeeze in one of those ceiling-hung clothes airers but it would be literally suspended over the walkway. Equally, only a narrow/tall clothes horse could fit in without blocking the walkway between door and machines. I wish it was a bigger space, but it was meant to be a tiny study originally and I knocked through to make it adjoin the utility room...so I'm lucky to have it at all!

Apart from coats/boots etc I thought utility room might store some veg/potatoes/basket of firestuff/small compost bucket/pet food/ torches/ flasks/picnic basket & blanket and have a lamp for DH coming in that way at night. And mop/vacuum/bucket/cleaning items. Though it is possible I could just about squeeze those into the laundry room. I could just about manage a tall press in laundry room beside sink of 40cm deep and 50cm wide...hmmmm.

Love hearing your opinions!

Having tall cupboards at each end, and leaving the middle free for coats and boots is an excellent idea.

What about eye-level wall units above the coats, linking the tall units together? The wall units should have upwards-opening doors to save your head when you stand up.

Six that's a good idea....do you think I should run a low bench between cupboards at the bottom, with cubbies for shoes?
Some boots/wellies could go on the bench but it would also give a place to sit while pulling them on/off?
I could a little stepladder for accessing the high cupboards....
Hmmm less cupboards would also cost less!

This is something I'm wondering about for my boot room, too.

I'm thinking not. I think that the bench will become a dumping ground and will be wetted by dripping coats, so could be uncomfortable to sit on.

If you're happy to use a step to access the wall cupboards, then I would raise them 30cm higher and install a long shelf beneath them for hats etc. You could keep a couple of substantial stools (kicksteps?), one in each corner of the coat-gap.

In a few years you will probably find yourself installing a row of hooks on the other wall at waist height for the dc.

Thanks Six for taking so much time to mull it all over with me.