What makes a kitchen look expensive?

[Thegrandoldelf]

I'm just curious as to what particular details people think make a kitchen look expensive? We've just ordered a new matt handleless kitchen and I keep wondering if there's anything I should be making sure is incorporated into the detail to get the most 'bang for our buck' so to speak.

Matt handless is definitely good to make a kitchen look expensive. I’d say a proper stone worktop not laminate, integrated appliances, under mount sink, a more expensive looking tap and wall mounted eye level ovens (more than one) unless you have a range cooker. Also good lighting including under cabinet lighting

Clever lighting, including under lights, kickboard lighting, lights on top of cupboards
Clean lines
Under mount sink
Decent taps
Good flooring
Minimal clutter!

I think the appliances make a big difference. Our kitchen was done on a budget but we spent big money (comparatively speaking) on a really big fancy hob and it seems to divert people's attention and make them think that the whole kitchen is some fancy expensive thing when actually it was very basic.

We have recently had a matt handless kitchen fitted.

We have a solid wooden work top, an expensive sink and under cabinet lighting via a Philips hue light strip.
I like to think it looks expensive.

Dsimon is yours Luca Matt white?

Good fitting.

Not having the stupid dust and grease gap between the top of your cupboards and the cealing (unless you live in a period house with very tall ceilings).

Integrated appliances.

No clutter on the work tops and no long trailing power cables e.g. for blender. Best if appliances are mainly hidden in an appliance garage or something.

Stone worktops.

Nice sink and tap.

Fancy extractor.

@SimonBridges love your curved end to the run

Non laminate worktop
Good lighting
A place for everything (no clutter)
Good appliances
Good flooring

Quooker tap and no kettle

A blackboard with 'quinoa' and 'blackberries' written on it in chalk pen.

We just got a budget kitchen from Ikea and have done our best to tart it up and make it look expensive! We have:

• fancy handles and knobs (not from Ikea)
• quartz worktop. Our fitters were able to install a standard Ikea sink (£90) as an undermount one which save us about £300
• under cabinet lighting (Ikea)
• fancy tap
• freestanding range style cooker (only 60cm though so not proper range).
• nice patterned floor tiles (from Topps so not expensive but look like fired Earth).

Total spend about £5k but I think looks much more than this (not inc fitting)

All of the above plus being a good size and with a good 'flow'.

No point in having beautiful fitted everything, stone worktops and an expensive cooker/lighting etc if it's a tiny little galley kitchen where nothing is in the right place (think cooker by the window, sink beside radiator etc)

at the chalkboard!

A lot of it is in the design. Expensive kitchens tend to be really sleek. Working out how you can avoid changes in level or awkward corners or breaks to runs or awkward cooker hoods helps. Spending time getting cover panels, cornicing etc right really helps.

There is a lot of emphasis on bespoke cupboard doors, but I actually think these make less of a difference than many people think. In a larger room, you can make a cheaper kitchen look really different by mixing and matching off-the-shelf doors from different ranges, then spending the extra on materials like stone worktops or good tiling.

Clutter will make even a £100k kitchen look cheap, so getting everything off worktops and into drawers and then choosing one or two beautiful things to be out on display can work really well.

Thanks for all your comments. We've got quite a lot of the things mentioned above in the design (quartz worktops, decent appliances, 800mm wide hob, under cabinet lighting, reasonable tap) so hopefully it will come together well. Sounds like our biggest challenge will be clutter. Our current worktops are pretty cluttered primarily with random 'bits' that we don't know what to do with. Maybe I'll just collate them all in to a new 'junk' drawer!

I think a lot of it is just good design and a decent worktop.

Work out whether you need them!! Through the process of building work, I've realised that my kitchen is full of stuff that I don't really use. I do not, for example, really need three wooden spoons, two plastic spoons, three identical spatulas, and a plastic ladle in my utensil drawer!! One thing I've realised, having come perilously close to cluttering in my own life is that all this stuff just sneaks up on you and it's only by taking a step back and doing a regular audit that you can get it under control. If it is something worth keeping, it's worth a space in a proper cupboard or drawer. If it's not, then consider binning it! If something hasn't been used in the last 18 months, chances are it's not worth the space it's taking up.

A cautionary take - my MIL built a gigantic utility room, the same size as her (already ample) kitchen on the side of her house. It cost £80k. But it has failed miserably as a space, and looks and feels dirty and horrible, because she has filled it with a lifetime's worth of junk. There are about 60 pint glasses, about 40 mugs, about 4 different sets of crockery, umpteen different saucepan sets, more utensils than you could ever use... you name it, she has it. Some of the saucepans don't even work on her induction hob, or have holes burned through the bottoms, but they can't be thrown out because they were wedding presents. It wouldn't matter if they'd spent a million on their kitchen, it would still look horrible now.

I also think a good stone worktop and a high end cooker make all the difference. On top of that keeping it clean and clutter free. No matter how expensive it it's mucky and cluttered it'll look like shit.

@whiskyowl thanks I think that's a really relevant point to consider. We have loads of stuff in our cupboards that we never use but keep on the basis that they might be useful. Realistically if they've not been useful in the last 7+ years (which is how long we've owned lots of them) they're unlikely to suddenly become must have essential items in the new kitchen.

Not having integrated appliances can lessen the impact of a kitchen. I've seen pictures of some quite nice kitchens but the washing machine/dishwasher on view spoil them. I appreciate people may not want to buy new appliances but in context of a new kitchen, surely it's not that much.

1. Work tops. Marble in particular.
2. Integrated appliances.
3. Tapwear. A nice designer style tap makes a huge difference.
4. Ceramic butler sinks
5. Coloured traditional styled doors (in particular dark blue and sage green) as opposed to plain white/cream, modern gloss, wood laminate, or bright colours.
6. Flooring, stone/hard wood rather than tiles or laminates.

Granite work tops
Range cooker

grandoldelf - Yes, I know what you mean! I've sworn a solemn vow to go through every box of kitchen stuff before it is decanted into the new space and to get rid of anything we haven't used. Goodbye yoghurt maker, you seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anything not trendy. So not rose gold or copper because there are thousands of limitations done on a budget which just cheapen the look of actually quite nice costlier versions. Ditto anything sage green or grey/mustard. Done to death.

Also go against pp grain and say Butler sinks. Once upon a time they were exclusive but no every bugger has them in their Shaker style F&B kitchen with island and barstools.

I did see a polished brass kitchen recently (splashbacks and worktops). That was pretty amazing as it was so subtly unusual.
Clear worktops also help - everything in drawers/cupboards/appliance garages etc

Handles.

We had an Ikea kitchen that noone noticed was Ikea as we had handles from somewhere else.

'quinoa and blackberry' :-)

Cornicing, end panels and boxing in. The 'edges' make a big difference to the look; stops them being boxes stuck on walls.

And subtle lighting.