Planning a kitchen - where to start!

[MyVegasBaby]

Have been reading through threads and have got a lot of useful info!
In the planning stage of knocking kitchen and dining room through and extending out to add family area at the back. Any suggestions on the best online planning too to design a new kitchen layout??

Thanks!

No idea but we are doing exactly the same, we have someone coming this week to talk about drawing the plans and we don't really know what we want. I'm hoping he has some ideas of what will work!

We are currently looking at knocking through from the dining room to the kitchen & had a meeting with John Lewis today to talk through what we want. We also want new cupboards in the utility room but cheaper ones than the kitchen as they are not next door to one another. John Lewis have quoted about £20k but that's without measuring up or asking for room dimensions. The email that has come through this afternoon has quoted budget of £20-£25k, which is rather strange as we were never asked what budget we had to work with! The JL planner is coming out in March & we have Wickes coming out this Friday. Have you looked on Houzz for ideas? I found it last week & it is fab for ideas :)

Lots of people try the ikea planner for simple plans - although I hear it crashes lots ! Pen and paper might be easier ! Try and compare prices by using one plan to shop around with - rather than getting lots of different plans and different prices as that just gets confusing !
Houzz has a dilemma section where you can ask for help too ? Sometimes you can get a pro to help for free on there..

No idea of online planning services (haven't used one) , but I started with looking at what I have and needed more / less of (having sorted through the kitchen to ensure everything was grouped properly etc...). Then drew out a rough plan of units - base and wall and thought through where I'd put what (so kettle in arm's reach of sink, mugs and tea etc above, cutlery below and fridge in arm's reach for example). Wanted an L originally, but this didn't work so ended up with a U. Then trawled online for style of kitchen etc that I wanted.
(Disclaimer: PIL used a kitchen designer - so their kitchen looks fab, but makes no logical sense in terms of how they've then stowed their stuff. Which puts me off leaving it to someone else.)

I agree don't have a fabulous and expensive kitchen that's a nightmare to actually cook and eat in because nothing's in the right place. From kitchens I see, a lot of designers don't think this through (MN contributors honorably excepted). I had two designs done for me by a local company that were utterly useless. We've got a dining table for 6 and a sofa in the room where they only put a breakfast bar.

If you are knocking through or creating a room, try and get a rough outline of where the main appliances and zones are before you finalise with the builder. You might find you can usefully budge a door or window or opening to fit a unit in neatly and make better use of the space. Can always be tweaked and glammed up later.

This is my favourite site for space planning, I've linked to it lots of times but I think it gets everything in the right order and you can adapt it to lots of rooms.

Ikea planner is great to get the ideas going, thinking through where the big appliances and sink and hob should go.
I did a session with a B and q planner and then once we realised ikea would be way better and cheaper we did two sessions with ikea kitchen planners in store, went at a quiet ish time (evening).
Even with the designers tho you need to think it all through and there are some great mumsnet threads on what works for a kitchen design and what doesn't
It gets a bit easier once you realise what the standard kitchen unit dimensions are and you can start to slot things in if you see what I mean,
Good luck!

There's a lot of kitchen sellers in the world. Some planners . Some good some terrible , Very few totally independent designers.
Find one with good references /reviews , who's prepared to work with you, to design the space to work for you ... if you work with someone who's not selling you anything other than design, you are more likely to get a space that's safely designed and just how you want it !
Then you just visit showrooms and ask them to price up your layout and compare like for like with several other companies too .
Much easier than the old way of doing it if you ask me !!

Thanks all, maybe s few hours with good old fashioned paper, pencil and a ruler might be the order of the day! Off to look at Houzz!

We thought about what we wanted and then got a local company to design the space for us. We found they thought of everything we didn't!

I gave a brief of what I wanted to the kitchen supplier. It had to be tweaked but was better than I could have done. It has everything in the right place and a good designer will design something that works for you and has the advantage of feedback from other clients. I didn't want a cluttered kitchen with a table and a settee. I love my circular breakfast bar and we use it all the time. It is integrated into an island unit and the whole kitchen works for us. Bespoke units were created for us to maximise storage and the whole design is balanced and elegant. I can usually tell a home designed kitchen as they tend to be unimaginative!

I think it comes down to how confident you are with knowing what you want and how much research you’re willing to put into it yourself. And of course budget. I spent quite a long time planning it, used a variety of online tools, spoke to a number of kitchen companies, incorporated some of their tweaks into my design, but I planned it all, ordered it all (from a variety of places so quartz from one place, appliances one online site, taps another, sink another etc etc) and got independent fitters in. Saved an absolute fortune and it works perfectly for how we live our lives / use the space. Its not that bad !

We did the IKEA kitchen design tool too. Saved it and then went into the store to get them to tweak it exactly.

Then we went back when we were ready to buy it, selected the White goods and bought our lovely kitchen.