Designing a kitchen around a chimney breast

[agnesrose86]

We are knocking through two rooms to create a kitchen diner and I am hoping to install a range cooker in the chimney breast and fit the kitchen around it. I am just wondering if anyone has done this and if so what you did in terms of cabinets either side? Do people tend to just have doors that don't open to give a seamless look or is there some other clever solution?

Here's a pic of the look we are trying to achieve although it is likely we will have 15cm either side of the cooker. Unbelievably frustratingly our rubbish kitchen designer has said 15cm cabinets don't come in the style I want!

How deep is the chimney breast?

Assuming it is less deep than the units (which would be fairly common) I would put shallow units which go in front of it and flush to the cooker. I would be a bit worried about getting units which are a tight fit, specially next to a cooker where heat might be an issue.

That's the thing. I think there will only be about 10-15cm in front of the chimney breast and I would think minimum depth of a kitchen cabinet is 30cm? I was wondering if I could get a normal cabinet and get my joiner to cut it down to fit so there was effectively a shallow shelf that I could keep spices etc but I have no idea if this would work!

Just measured the depth of the chimney breast and it is 55cm.

I would think shallow shelves or spice drawers would work. And any decent joiner should be able to make something like that work.

We have this, through necessarity, not choice. We have extra tall wall units, (so shallow) either side of the (set slightly forward) cooker and cupboards to the left, in the alcove. The worktop runs above the cupboards on left, over the wall-as-floor unit, behind the cooker, then over the other wall-as-floor unit.

It looks nice - well, far better than what was there before, but the whole chimney breast gets covered in fatty splashes from where dh fries stuff. If I could afford it I'd have the chimney breast taken out ASAP.

Yes I would do that too if I could afford it, working this out is really annoying although i do think it would look nice. Are your wall as floor units 30cm depth and are they big enough to be useful?

We had shallow shelves which we put jars with pasta, couple of ornaments, cooking utensils that are decorative etc on. Was quite handy - had little bars across the front to stop things falling off!

I could have two shallow units on either side that come out slightly more, like this pic but I would much prefer them to be flush. What do you think?

Millions of pictures of cookers in chimney breasts on pinterest but I want to see behind the doors!! Were yours made bespoke BYO?

Could you make the other units that little bit deeper rather than the shallower ones shallower?

Yes - we had a bespoke kitchen - it was smaller and we had a different issue to hide but the shelves weren't very expensive to have knocked up and people always commented on how nice they looked

This is ours (ten years and a few owners on). I think those drawers were real but shortened, and the cupboards were cut to fit. I am not much help as we were really young and clueless, and had a lovely kitchen designer guy who was super enthusiastic and just sorted everything out.

Ah, we kind of fudged the depth issue by having the corner and the end of run, I see. That's the fridge next to it, we had a free-standing one but a later owner has bunged an integrated one in.

If you are having a painted kitchen you could have made 150mm (or 165mm or 173mm what ever size you have left ) cabinets from Jali.co.uk for either side of the cooker. Design them either to be similar or totally different to your other cabinets - your choice - but that way you could utilise the full depth ...

Thanks, thats so helpful. I am beginning to think a standard unit cut to fit would work and yes I could bring the whole lot forward a bit as long as I can get worktops deep enough.

If you are getting counters cut you can always get them deeper - we had ours 10cm deeper than the norm and it didn't cost much more

The ideal thing would be something L shaped so I could utilise the depth and still have a seamless look along the front. I wonder if is it possible to put a wire pull out fitting for a 15cm cabinet in a 60cm cabinet?

The kitchen is painted but by the kitchen shop and although I am thinking of just going for white, it is not bright white so may be hard to match.

Fair enough re cost of removing. :)

Yes, I think they are 30cm deep (normal wall ones anyway) and are v useful. Not sure if photos convey how much stuff is crammed in the right hand one. The biggest pan at the bottom of the other one is one of those big stock pot things if that helps with scale?

We do have extra deep wooden worktop so it goes to the wall behind the cupboard on the left, which I think was set forward so it all lined up - it was sold as breakfast bar worktop iirc.

Hope the photos help.

Excuse awful slatterny pic - i couldn't be bothered to clear the stove top, but here's how the worktop runs behind the cooker. :)

Thanks so much Leeloo, great to see.