Have you ever designed your own kitchen?

[Booksandmags79]

Hi everyone

Hope you may be able to help me. It works out considerably cheaper to try and buy our kitchen online. The only snag is you have to have designed your kitchen yourself and know what you're ordering.

Has anyone done this successfully? Any tips or things to watch out for? I could do with saving as much as I can as the budget is tight.

Thanks in advance for any info anybody has. I have zero experience in this kind of thing and so I'm sure the potential for me to go horribly wrong and cost myself more money is high!

I did mine but it wasnt hard. Its a small galley kitchen. I just measured it and decided what I wanted, where I wanted it to go and worked out what size units would fit in.

Thanks misspollypops. Maybe I'm making it more complicated in my head than it needs to be!

We ordered our units online but we'd already been to several kitchen designers to get quotes. A couple of them sent through their plans to us and we based ours on theirs although changed some things to fit the units offered by the online shop. If you know a tradesperson, Howdens or other places will email the designs to them. I did feel a little bit bad about doing it but if we hadn't gone online, we wouldn't have been buying a new kitchen from the people who gave us the designs as no way could afford it. We still bought our ciuntertops from them too. I recommend units online, great customer service and good quality kitchen.

*countertops

It's not difficult but you need to factor in things like how doors and drawers will open so they're not hitting each other, end panels on units etc.

Don't most people just go to b and q and get them to plan it and then buy it elsewhere..........

We took a design from elsewhere to DIY Kitchens when it worked out far too expensive from the original retailer we'd approached. I also did a scale plan on DIY Kitchens kitchen planner. It all worked as it's now been fitted.

I designed our kitchen recently and then got the kitchen company owner in to quote. We ended up with exactly my design :-)

I have an L shaped kitchen, measured and ordered what units I wanted from Wickes. Local handyman fitted it.

Great thanks everyone, very helpful I'll check out units online too.

We designed ours and looked up a lot of kitchen design theory. Basically figure out where all appliances might go, then you need space to put things coming out of the oven, prep space, and a zone for the kettle and drinks and for the toaster and snacks. Add draining board, drawer units, where water and gas are, and there's not that much scope! We compromised so the hob is off-centre above drawers, but otherwise it's lovely.

I spent aaages designing mine so the layout would work well for me. Like I can empty the dishwasher without moving more than a step or two, etc. then I took it to b&q to find out I couldn't have my hob immediately next to my mid-level oven. Luckily this only meant a minor change. So I personally wouldn't be happy without an expert giving my plan the once over. Don't know if that helps or not!

Like I can empty the dishwasher without moving more than a step or two

I designed this into our new kitchen and I didn't realise at the time just how useful it was going to be. We have the dishwasher, then a single undersink unit then the very wide pan drawers which contain all of our day to day cutlery, utensil, plates, bowls, mugs, glasses, pots, pans and colanders. It's ace!

You've mentioned Units Online above (where I recently bought a kitchen). They actually have a design service, it costs £100 which they subsequently knock off the cost of the kitchen if you order from them.

Otherwise as others have said, high street retailers will plan a kitchen knowing that they're perhaps just 1 of 2 or 3 kitchen companies that you'll have approached. There's no obligation to order from a company just because they've done a plan for you.

Amazing tips thanks everyone, I've managed to get someone lined up to fit it etc. so now just need to make sure I don't make a total balls up of the actual design! You've given me confidence and where to start, so hopefully we can get cracking.

I've designed what will be our new kitchen. Also went to wickes to have one done but mine was actually better (more space between sink and hob, more pan drawers). I suggest you have a look on houzz there are a few articles about designing the kitchen and using zones rather than the kitchen triangle.
Will be ordering from diy kitchens who are half the price of wickes and nearly £1000 cheaper than howdens.

Thanks Yorkshire tea I'll check out Houzz.

If you've got a fitter lined up, run the plan past them as they will be able to spot the obvious mistakes (doors hitting doors etc). It's end panels I always forget.

Will do thank you

I've done it twice, but they weren't exactly huge kitchens, so there wasn't much choice about where things would go.

You need some of that squared paper so you can make an exact plan of your kitchen, with plumbing etc., and then a catalogue with exact unit sizes, so you can see what's going to fit where. A wide choice of units and sizes does help.

DH has done this twice with the IKEA kitchen planner online. Once you've gotten to grips with the program and whether you want DOORKNOPF or HANDELL etc it's all easy enough.

I designed our kitchen from DIY kitchens and they had loads of helpful info on their website. They've got templates you can printout to mock up what you want. I also spent hours on Houzz.

Best tip I found was list all the items in your kitchen (crockery, cups, tins, dry goods, pans, microwave etc) and where you want to keep them (drawer, pull out unit, larder etc) so you know you've got enough space for everything you want/have/might buy in the future

try this www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/planning-tools/kitchen-planner/

Kitchen cabinets tend to come in standard sizes so it will work wherever you are getting your kitchen from

Fantastic thank you for this everyone, really helpful.

Kitchen cabinets tend to come in standard sizes so it will work wherever you are getting your kitchen from

This is true of most, but Ikea's cabinets are a bit different. They're deeper than usual and don't have the same access gap at the back. They're also very difficult to fit anything other than Ikea appliances into.

We just had a new kitchen fitted from DIY kitchens as part of an extension/refurbishment. I paid an independent kitchen designer £250 to come round for an hour and a half and talk to me about what I wanted, what I hated about our old kitchen, to measure up and then draw out a rough plan with me. He then went home and used special computer programmes to design the kitchen and sent it to me for approval. We got the plans, the computer generated images, a full list of every single unit, end panel, etc we needed to order from DIY Kitchens. We were allowed one revision all in the same price. This was worth every penny. He came up with a design and use of space I had never considered. And the list he created for me to order the kitchen was invaluable! No idea how I would have known about end panels, plinths etc without that.