Top tips for kitchen planning

[PurpleFlowersInMyHair]

Please share your top tips for re-designing a kitchen. We’re buying a house with a very out of date kitchen and knocking through to make a kitchen diner.

Please tell me about ....

• things I need to consider
• errors you’ve made to save me from making the same
• key features which have had a big impact - either cheap or expensive

I'll start with a silly one that we didn't do, and it annoys me everytime I use the sink! Buy a tap with an aerator attachment (I'm not sure what they are btw), they cut down on the water splashing all over when you run the tap. :)

Our current tap does this- so annoying isn’t it? Had no idea it was due to lack of aerator - thank you!

Not entirely sure what one is, but when we were having our kitchen redone a couple of years ago one of these was suggested, we thought it was pretentious nonsense - how little we knew! Lol.

Things we considered but couldn't afford the oven/double oven in a midrange unit, so at 'eye level'.

Can't think of much atm really as we've only a small l-shaped kitchen off a dining room.

Go round a few kitchen places and get some free planning - even if they won't give you the plans it'll give you some ideas and things to think about. Just don't give them your real contact details like we did once in MFI - they wouldn't stop phoning us! :D

We're doing exactly the same. Though probably getting ahead of myself as we haven't bought the house yet.

One thing I'm hoping to do is block off the kitchen door as a door, but turn it into a hallway cupboard for coats etc. That'll take a bit of space out the kitchen but will be next to the oven unit so won't be hugely noticeable. In my head anyway.

Proper access to the corner cupboards as currently night on impossible to get right in them. When we did the kitchen in our old house we had a pantry cupboard which was fab, so definitely will have one of those.

Ours is north facing so lighting is important I think. Also hoping to put French doors where there is currently a window in the dining bit.

I did not know that about aerators on the tap, so thanks for that point.

A big drawer with 4 different bin compartments. I find it very pleasing!
Also pan drawers and no cupboards for under counter storage. So much easier.

We also have a WiFi oven that you can control via an app. Sounds pretentious rubbish but quite handy when you’re putting kids to bed and want to heat it up or cook things at the same time!

Best tip I read was to draw out a layout, then imagine yourself doing 3/4 common tasks eg

Make a cup of tea
Get breakfast
Unload dishwasher
Lay table
Clear table and load dishwasher

^ And if any of these will be awkward or require a lot of steps back and forth then reconsider the layout

More drawers, fewer cupboards. There's a pleasing trend towards drawers being 5ths of a unit, so you can have two double-deep ones and a single or one double and three singles or five singles. The doubles are excellent for all the pots and pans you'd usually be scrabbling around in a dark cupboard for.

Move the washing machine out of the kitchen if you can - give you more cook space, and there's no need for it to be there if you can get water in and out of it somewhere else.

Make sure you have a cooking triangle - hob/cooker, chopping/prep surface, fridge.
And a tea triangle - kettle, sink, cupboard with tea etc in.

Sink and a half, at least.

No dark surfaces, they make cleaning tricky. We used Corian, it was half the cost of the whole kitchen but well worth it.

Agree with all the above. Especially the tap aerator thing, I replaced our kitchen tap with one that doesn't have one and it drives me mad, splashes everywhere .

My top tip is do an inventory of what's in your kitchen now. Everything. Including crap on surfaces, junk in drawers, random tea towels etc. Then work out where you want it in the new design, so you don't forget to allow space for anything, including random crap which will always follow you . Time consuming but worthwhile (I hope - currently part-way through new extension build!)

There’s a very useful thread already with hundreds of people posting their lessons learned...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/1554664-The-MN-lessons-learnt-kitchen-thread

Make sure you get a water softener. I love my extra large sink, makes soaking oven pans easy. I have as many deep drawers as I could fit.
I regret not having a warming drawer as didn't think I would need it with two ovens, but when entertaining and using both ovens I wish I had one for warming parts.

For the people with the splashy tap problem:
Lakeland sell something called a "tap adapta" which can be retro fitted to a mixer tap.
It either aerates the water or, pull the fitting down/push it up (can't remember), and it gives jets of water, like a shower head. It also twiddles round 360 degrees so you can direct the flow of water to rinse the sink etc. Costs about £10.
Not the prettiest piece of kit in the world, but very practical.