Please give me your comments/criticisms on my kitchen plan!

[whiskyowl]

A few notes:

• The room has a floor-to-ceiling window on the LHS and an open plan doorway (no door) on the right.
  
• There is no wall above one row of cabinets - layout is open plan but nonetheless restricted because there is a drop between the kitchen and the next room of around 1m (there will be a wall in place).
  
• Because this was done on the hellish Ikea kitchen planner, the ovens cannot be rendered properly. There will be 2 ovens the same size. The lower oven will start where the small drawer currently is (there will only be one drawer below, in other words), and the top oven will end so that the top cupboards will be in a neat row.
  
• Splashback and worktop behind the hob will be the same material.
  
• The cabinets are a mixture of oak (Ekestad) and white (Ringhult). The row where you can't see the fronts will be white.

[feve17]

I agree, think matt grey with the wood grain would look so much better than white.
A Quooker boiling water tap would be a great addition to add & hubby would no way burn himself on it. The child lock feature is brilliant (I've seen grown ups struggle to figure it out when they don't know it's boiling water), its separate to the normal hot & cold lever & it has to be pushed 3 times before the boiling water will come out so there's no way he would turn it on by accident.
I'd getting a built in fridge if the budget allows, I think it would look a bit sleeker.
You could make the fridge side more symmetrical too by swapping the big larder unit for 2 smaller ones; but this is up to you as can work out more expensive.
I really like the design though & love the big window at the end!

[NotMeNoNo]

What about a white flush to ceiling extractor like a Luxair? Which way do your joists run in the ceiling?

[whiskyowl]

One thing about this is that my kitchen is currently tiny. It is quite literally the size of the hob area on this plan with an additional sink! I currently do all my cooking - both prep and serving- on one 60cm piece of worktop. I have no real idea of how I'll use a larger kitchen! So advice is appreciated.

[whiskyowl]

Thank you all so much for taking the time and the trouble to give me your ideas! They are really helpful. I'll be sitting down later on with a glass of wine and seeing what I can move around!

Interesting split on the hob location! The main thing determining this for me is the extractor - because of the open plan layout (and my terrible cooking skills, buuuuuuuurn), we need a pretty heavy duty extractor and it needs to remove the dirty air to the outside. I don't want to have an extractor over the island because it will interfere with the view out of a large window in the next room. I've spent ages and ages finding lighting etc that allows me to have a totally smooth ceiling under strict instructions from the architect!! There is an extractor that sits in the work surface, but I don't know how effective this is and it's also £££.

I have obsessively mapped everything I own, down to teaspoons, to drawers. There are quite a lot of hidden/internal drawers in the cupboards!! I have a separate utility room with a bit of extra cupboard space too.

bitofa - the units and appliances are around £5k. Bear in mind that this includes a load of internal drawers, filler pieces, cover panels and an expensive sink etc. along with two ovens and a hob. You could do the same thing for a lot less without that stuff. The quartz worktops are an eye-watering £2.5k on top of that; it would be much cheaper to have laminate but I have fallen in love with them and am refusing to budge.

nome - Yes, we are definitely having an upstand. The kitchen floor is 1 metre higher than the floor of the next room, so anything that fell off the island would cause some serious damage by the time it clunked someone on the head the other side! I actually had to explain that to the architect, who thought we could just have hot pans and trays with nothing to stop them being pushed over.

[Believeitornot]

You don’t have much worktop either side of the hob. I myself prefer lots of worktop next to the hob, not on a different run even if it’s an island because of how I cook.

So if I were you’d I’d have the oven under the hob, ditch the tall cupboard by the fridge and have a much wider run of worktop for prep.

The thing is, you need to think hard about how you actually cook and use a kitchen, not about how nice things look on Pinterest. Function first!

[codswallopandbalderdash]

I don't like where the hob is. Will you not need more worktop space next to the oven when lifting things in and out etc?

[Badgertastic]

Also if you were going to do that I would have switch the cupboards on the island to be 40cm, 80cm (with hob over), 60cm, 60cm, 80cn sink and 40cm. Would have a better symmetry to it.

[Badgertastic]

Have you thought about having only all tall units across the back and having the hob on the sink run? It cuts down on worktop space but would give you bags of storage.

[NotMeNoNo]

As long as you have a bit of space between hob and sink they could both be on the low run, then all storage on the back wall.
If you are worried about things falling off you could have a small upstand and shelf, I've seen that done it helps divide the room..

You can put an extractor in the ceiling or wall, it will clear the air if powerful enough.

[mnpeasantry]

*Top of the hob

[mnpeasantry]

This is really similar to our kitchen layout and even the finishes are similar. If you could lose the cupboards on top of the top that would open that up a lot more.

You have loads of drawers which is great and I guess some encased drawers for cutlery, utensils, chopping knives etc?

Have you mapped what you have against the layout? Might you need a more flexible cupboard or two?

I would really go for a boiling water tap if you can. It’s wonderful.

Will your oven also double as a microwave to free up more counter space?

Good luck!

[Tika77]

I’m not too sure of the hob in the island thing. Unless you have a wider island than tha standard units, there’ll be slashes on the floor behind the hob.

[bitofabelly]

Ps I would move the hob over to the island too...this is what I plan to do...there is something nice about facing people when cooking ...I hate being stuck cooking with my back turned..I think you have plenty of room.

[bitofabelly]

Can I ask how much this kitchen will cost..just curious as I’m hoping to revamp.

[QuitMoaning]

I agree with SilverSpot. The hob is a fun activity, the sink is just for getting water and washing up dirty pans so I would swap them.

I have a hob on my island although not connected yet as worktops went in this week so just got to finish the kitchen.

[SilverSpot]

I agree with @lalalonglegs it isn't drama to chop on the island then turn and cook.

Personally I would rather have the hob on the island with a down draft extractor to maintain eye line - and the sink on the back wall because I do loads more hob work than sink work (dishwasher).

[dynevoran]

If you did want symmetry as suggested above, you could swap the under hob drawers (the central one only) for a 40 instead of 60. Leave the other two sets of drawers at 60 wide each. That frees up 20 so you can have a tall 40 each side?

[lalalonglegs]

I don't think there is enough space on the island to have the hob and sink and to have a decent amount of worktop so I'd keep the hob where it is. It's quite normal to have them in separate areas of the kitchen and, to my eye, they only look about a metre of so apart so taking a pan off the hob and swinging it around to the sink shouldn't involve effort or danger.

[lalalonglegs]

My only criticism is the asymmetrical run of cupboards on the back wall.

[EdgarAllanPO]

Go for grey or gray cabinets rather than white. White cabinets are an absolute bitch to keep clean, unless you are slightly obsessed like me and wipe them down about 40 times a week. Disclaimer I have cats who sit on worktops and use my cabinets like a stepping stool.
But I like the design and yes to a kettle.

[BoomBoomBoomBoooom]

I too would have the hob on the island with the sink. It currently looks awkwardly hemmed in. Chopping should happen next to the hob so you can chuck stuff in pans but it looks like theres not enough space, especially considering there with me a kettle on one side. This will also be where you are taking faffing with oven things I'd assume. Dishing up seems like it would be annoying in this kitchen too. Not a huge issue but overall I think it would be easy to work in and flow better with the hob moved.

[whiskyowl]

Now wondering if I could do it with different spacing...

[whiskyowl]

justanother - It's a lovely idea! It would look loads better like that. Sadly, this being Ikea, they work in 20cm increments - so you can only go 60 to 40 and there isn't space for two 40s.

I was kind of tempted to have 4 units across by the hob to make it more even, but I have no pantry space elsewhere and I think I'm going to need the tall larder unit to store all my cans, pasta, couscous, flour millions of packs of crisps, chocolate, superfood wheatgrass powder for adding to smoothies etc.

Totally lying about the wheatgrass powder

[JustAnotherManicUsername]

It looks great. Could you make the main run more symmetrical by replacing the tall cupboard next to the fridge with two half-width tall cupboards, one there and one next to the ovens? You might find you get more in two narrow cupboards than one wide one as well.

[dotdotdotmustdash]

Having just spent 10 years living with a very badly designed kitchen, my advice to you would be to have your hob and sink on the same run of base units. I hated having to cross the kitchen with pots of hot water to drain pasta etc, a nightmare if you have children, pets or any kind of arm or shoulder weakness.