DIY kitchen :- opinions please?

[GnomeDePlume]

We will be starting our new kitchen soon. It is not a bad size, 3m by 4.9m (9 feet 10 inches by 16 feet). It is not going to be a very light room. This space is one end of a room which has a dining area at the other so the space described is just the kitchen part.

We will be fitting it ourselves so are looking at the various DIY options.

Currently we are thinking handleless white gloss with a matt dark grey or black worktop.

So does anyone have any opinions please? Is white gloss a good idea? Will we regret it?

Gloss white does show dirt easier but is the easiest door to clean, I would stear away from a black worktop and choose something a little different. Maybe a dark walnut style worktop, that goes well with gloss white.

Use your local kitchen retailer, they will help you and provide you with a better service than anywhere

If it's a dark room, don't have a dark worktop.

If it's a dark room, don't have a dark worktop.
Unless it's glossy and will always be illuminated, even during day time.

Something glossy but not completely black would be better. If you have a lot of gloss white you can still have black as an accent colour, just not too much of it.

I wouldn't do gloss as it tends to look dirtier than matt finishes (finger prints etc) plus I think it will date quickly. Definitely go for pale worktop if it is a dark room - white quartz with a fleck in it will work well.

We fitted our own kitchen and used diy-kitchens.com. Best price we found and better quality than Howdens or Benchmarx. The carcasses come preassembled and are very well put together. The doors and drawers are also prehung which saves a lot of bother. The only tricky part is ordering all the right bits (filler panels etc) but they have a helpline and if you are near Leeds they have a showroom. Well worth a look.

Just saw this is only one end of a room - ours is similar and the kitchen end does not have much natural light but we used black and it looks great :)

Many thanks for all the comments. Ideally we would have a gloss quartz type worktop. Unfortunately budget wont stretch that far at the moment. We arent keen to have a gloss laminate worktop because of how easily they scratch.

Many thanks for all the tips. Off to look at the internet again!

White gloss never dates. Wood dates much more quickly. Remember 90's pine country style that is being ripped out everywhere now?

thank you. I am tempted by gloss to have a very minimal kitchen

We've got cream gloss, looks less clinical than white - with oak worktop, obviously you have to be careful with the oak but any disasters you can just sand and re-oil.

White gloss will date every bit as much as 90s pine has. Almost everything dates.

Personally I don't like the white gloss thing but if you like it have it. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a kitchen style that won't look dated at some point in the future when styles change. I've got a very 'classic' kitchen but even so in 10 years time it will probably scream 2015- sage green shaker and oak worktops with chrome handles.

Oh and from my experience of white cabinets and dark worktop in a dark room- the worktop should be fine as long as a)it's shiny and b) the flooring is light. The flooring makes a MASSIVE difference to the overall light levels. Then the cabinets. The worktop is the smallest factor.

Good point about the floor. We will be going for a pale tile floor

Also because you've got the DIY skills if in the future you decide it looks dated you can easily update by changing the doors but keeping everything else as it is, you could even change the work tops.

Etak15 great minds and all that . We cant afford the worktop we want yet so the initial one will be a stop gap until we can afford the shiny, sparkly one we really want.