Dream kitchen advice/experience please!

[Scottishgirl75]

I’ve recently received a significant inheritance ( for me) and I really want to put it to good use in replacing my badly dated kitchen. My relative adored her home/interiors etc.and would love to think of me using it for this I think. I’ve been looking on Pinterest but I’m a bit clueless as to what is best to go for and would really love some advice for anyone who knows about kitchen or has recently got a new one.

I live in a traditional country style house with a big kitchen/diner space with range cooker. I like the look of painted units with a darker coloured island and big porcelain tiles. But should I go for greys, whites etc. I want something that will not date. I have seen a few lovely light grey ones but is grey on the way out? What are the must haves and what should I avoid. Thank you in advance, any advice at all is greatly appreciated.

Agree with those saying get into some showrooms.
IMO by far the most important thing is layout and functionality - style is easy.
Highly recommend Houzz for some thoughts around layout.
We really subscribed to the 3 zone concept - we have a prep zone, a cook zone, and a plating zone. And everything falls out from there. Little things like how easy it is to get from the hob to the sink, is someone going to be trying to get a glass out from the cupboard above you when you're trying to chop onions, all make a big difference on a daily basis.
Take your time, and think a lot about usage. You'll get fed up very quickly with the most beautiful kitchen in the world if it isn't functionally well designed.

also - my one style comment - for goodness' sake if you're having tall cupboards go up to the ceiling with a small shadow gap. Don't leave this horrendous dust catching 8 inch gap that is a disgusting peculiarity of British kitchens

I spent far too much on my kitchen but love it. And enjoy cooking so really enjoy my expensive oven with lots of cooking modes.

I have quartz work top which I love It pulls together all the colours in the room and has little mirror chips in it to add sparkle. This fits well with my flat but might not suit your house at all. It's been really durable - 2 years on it still looks like new.

Removing the tiled floor was a priority as I kept breaking stuff when I dropped it (I'm not especially clumsy, it's just when you drop something on limestone it smashes). I replaced it with amtico which I really like.

Appliance wise I love love love my miele dishwasher as the door pops open at the end of the cycle so the dishes dry properly. it is also unbelievably quiet.

Good lighting is really important too.

I hate hot water taps (they just seem really dangerous to me) so don't have one but have several friends who totally swear by theirs.

Get shit loads of drawers - they store so much stuff. Think carefully about how you work and use the kitchen. I only have two regrets - both involving not installing drawers inside a cupboard. Think carefully about bins I have friends with built in bins that are too small to be practical so a free standing bin (or two - normal/ recycling) in a good location can actually look better...

Whilst I personally hate painted shaker I think that would go well with the style of your home. I love grey and my house is full of it but it's very of the moment so i think maybe go a bit more classic either white or cream or if you like a bit of colour sage green is quite lovely imo but really don't worry about anyone else's opinion go for what you like. As for the wish list maybe second dishwasher, instant hot water tap, big drawers, pull out larder cupboard for spices etc, integrated bin/recycling, separate utility if possible, think about what you do in the kitchen and what matters to you, what you do or don't want on the counter

Think about the type of food you make before going for the design. A wooden shaker kitchen will be really high maintenance if you do wok / Indian / gastop cooking. Don’t underestimate the buildup in the rims - even if you clean everyday the grime and fat will build up.

@GrumpyHoonMain

Think about the type of food you make before going for the design. A wooden shaker kitchen will be really high maintenance if you do wok / Indian / gastop cooking. Don’t underestimate the buildup in the rims - even if you clean everyday the grime and fat will build up.

I had my last painted shaker kitchen for over 20 years and did a lot of wok cooking on my gas hob - I never had a build up of grime and fat! I had an extraction fan which obviously helps. I only wiped the rims every few weeks. I wouldn’t imagine it would be any different to any kitchen.

Please don’t spend your inheritance on the furniture for one room. How long will you really, honestly, absolutely love it for? How many people with pale stone (quartz? Marble? Granite?) worktops and navy blue hand painted shaker cupboards will have them in 20 years time?

It’s incredibly difficult to buy any homeware that is “timeless and classic”. Go on Rightmove and see if there are ANY you can’t guess. For all the people who “have always wanted a navy blue kitchen” and “don’t follow trends” there are a bunch of “timeless” avocado green bathroom suites with peach tiles.
I know kitchens are “the heart of the home”. I get that it’s the big thing to spend on, and agree it’s where my “house decor” budget would go. But... kitchens units, top end or rubbish mdf, are a total over-marketed racket.

My parents had Ercol furniture because it came up cheap at auction. Dark shiny mahogany was for “best”. Ironic now!

Buy something that could become an heirloom. Make it something robust and useful, When you’re moving into sheltered housing, in 800 years time (or about that!) will you really want the kitchen or the picture /cupboard /sculpture/ bookshelf? wait to find the thing you love.

I have a shaker style Wren kitchen it's now 5 years and it's still looks great. Good kitchen designer,large drawers and cupboards. Can't fault them.
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@HasaDigaEebowai

I have painted shaker. I will be honest and say my house is worth a lot of money. So I spent a lot on the kitchen and ikea simply wouldn’t cut it here.

It does depend on how much work you are prepared to put into the design and spend on the other finishes. My house is also very large and worth a lot of money and my kitchen is big. But my kitchen units are actually ikea. Nobody would ever know. They have bespoke moulding, bespoke feet, bespoke handles and I have real american walnut and marble counter tops and real marble tiles. I also stacked units so they don't look off the shelf.

It is however wooden and shaker style so thats one of the reasons I got away with it.

I would have gone for Ikea all day every day. Their kitchen proposition is unrivalled imo. Sadly I had an issue with their lack of clearance on units, which meant the pull out drawers I wanted would have been impacted (my kitchen is on the smaller side so I didn't have the flexibility). If I'd have had the space, I would have opted for Ikea without any hesitation. In the end I went with a DIY Kitchens shaker, which has turned out as I'd hoped, though I do still pine for the Ikea design solutions.

My next kitchen (hopefully I'll have a larger space to play with) will undoubtedly be an Ikea kitchen. They currently have a sage green method which is just divine

Don't buy IKEA, but do go for DIY kitchens - our kitchen fitter was very impressed with the quality of ours and refuses to fit IKEA ones because they aren't already assembled.

This just highlights the laziness of the carpenter if you ask me... They also hate the lack of clearance with Ikea kitchens, which ultimately means the consumer has a lot more drawer/cupboard space compared to the likes of Howdens/Wren etc. You'll often find that tradespeople highly recommend Howdens for this reason. The other thing I appreciate about Ikea is the transparency on pricing, which you also get with DIY Kitchens. With Howdens you can be quoted anything from £3-5k out depending on their relationship with the tradesperson, which is annoying.

Also, Ikea offer their own fitting service which is reasonably priced. I'd rather leave the fitting in the hands of their own experts who fit them day in day out, than a carpenter who prefers to only fit fully assembled units.

@Guymere what do have for an extractor fan?

Also, your floor tiles. Any chance of a pic? I'm In a dilemma at the moment - between engineered oak and a stone floor. Can't decide!

@HasaDigaEebowai I'm curious to know what you mean by "stacked units"? Do you mind explaining.

Also in the process of considering a kitchen (eventually - after building the house ).

I’ve cheated the system with the “extractor fan”. I have a huge glass lantern roof above the hob. It has no extractor - the roof opens! Against building regs but no one noticed! Works fine actually!

Flooring is ceramic look like limestone tiles. I have no tiling at all. The kitchen is now 10 years old. Work tops are granite and they really should last a lifetime! Our dishwasher is a Miele too. Virtually silent and opens when finished as mentioned above.

Two sinks works well. I agree totally with zoning the kitchen. I also agree with having plenty of drawers. I do have built in bins and they are very large! Anyway pix attached. Not the greatest and don’t show the interior wall with the double Belfast sink and larder unit. Most life revolves around the island though. The back wall is 2 fridges, 1 freezer, 1 coffee machine. Storage around these and two ovens on the wall the other side of the opening.

Be careful with real stone. Various friends have it and it needs maintenance. It gets grubby and they it needs resealing every so often. They have had the sealant removed and then resealed.

Our house is wonky as anything as it's very old so we had our kitchen units made to fit - pine, but we recently painted them cream eggshell, and we had another run of cupboards/worktop made to match. Worktops are beech which just need lightly sanding and oiling. Then induction range added recently (love it so much!) Apart from the new units the kitchen is over 20 years old so if it's a traditional look you're after it's a worthwhile investment going for solid wood units and worktops. We used a local joiner and he did a fantastic job.

Also we recently re-tiled (some of the walls are old plain exposed brick so we left those). We put up these tiles which go with our cream painted cupboards and they're so lovely.

I really do disagree about worktops being an investment in wood. The fact you have to sand down and oil is a big problem for me. I took out oak ones in our London flat because they were just too difficult to maintain. The new quartz ones there are fantastic by comparison. Yes, they are more expensive, but they are no work to keep clean.

I, personally, do not think pine has stood the test of time either. You have painted them! Pine is also a cheap wood and knotty.Therefore the units have been changed very much in their appearance but they are still pine. I think wood kitchens do date. I rememberwhen oak was very popular. Lots of detail on the front and fussy handles. Many are not around now! If they had been plain and painted, they would have been. Or just plain! You can add interest with tiles but I just prefer granite up stands with splash backs where required. Lots of people do like the metro tiles and they work well for some kitchens but lots of kitchens now are not being fully tiled due to cost. Spend the saved money on decent appliances and work tops that last!

I would also really recommend going with a local carpenter if you can afford it - we found ours on Houzz.
We also had wood effect ceramic tiles which are brilliant - had our floor professionally cleaned a few weeks ago and the cleaner initially wouldn't believe us that they weren't wood! So easy to keep clean and look great. You can get some amazing natural effect ceramic tiles these days.
Enjoy it OP!!

Just had my new kitchen finished (4 days ago!). My house is about 150 years old and all floors / walls are wonky. I was also advised to avoid IKEA as they are very difficult to fit in non- straight places - so much has to be altered that they can lose integrity / the streamlined look. There is nothing wrong with the quality.

Most kitchen carcasses are the same, so it doesn't matter who you go with.

Choose what you love, not what's in fashion.

Depending on your health, future-proof if necessary; I had large handles so that I can get both hands in for leverage, for when my arthritis gets worse and I can't use my fingertips to open things.

Get someone qualified to check that what you want is possible with current regs - I had to make some fairly major changes late on which I didn't really want and cost more, but had no choice about.

Actrually most kitchen carcasses are not the same. Absolutely not. When you pay for a higher end kitchen you do not get Ikea standard carcasses. I guess if you do not have a higher end kitchen, and have never looked at one, or looked at their interiors and fittings, you simply would not know. However, it is best to be aware that lower and middle kitchens can be similar but they often have different hinges, different interiors, drawer linings (mine are oak) and higher end runners and finishes. They are absolutely not all the same.

I, personally, do not think pine has stood the test of time either. You have painted them!
I have to disagree because being solid wood (and they are not knotty) they can either be left/stripped bare or painted any colour to suit current trend and therefore more sustainable - also not having cheap mdf inside the units means they are much more resistant to water damage.

What water damage??? Who does your plumbing. FYI wood warps when wet. Badly. Are pine kitchens even sold now? I cannot remember when I last saw a new one.

@Scottishgirl75 We did this very same thing last year, with an inheritance from my father. I spent a huge amount, but we had an extension too, which meant that we were able to create a much bigger kitchen.

If you plan to stay in the house 'forever', then don't worry about what's in fashion now. I went for Hague Blue, knowing that it's very much an 'on trend' colour - but I don't care, because I love it. That said, if we decide we don't like the colour, we can always have the cupboard doors/drawer fronts repainted with another colour.

My advice would be to start with the appliances you want to have, and then build the units around that. For me, it was my fridge and freezer. I didn't want an American fridge/freezer, because the freezer part is always too small - especially if they come with an ice-maker. Instead I went for side-by-side 60cm wide fridge and freezer, so have loads of space - most of the food I buy needs to be in the fridge, and I cook and freeze a lot too. It also means I have a drawer in the freezer just for ice!

As PP have said, avoid a wooden worktop. My DB and SIL had one in their new kitchen. It looks lovely, but it needs a lot of work to look after it.

If you can stretch to a hand-built kitchen it will give you a lot more flexibility - and you can work with any odd-shaped sizes/spaces that you have.

A glass splashback can add colour (lots of different colours to choose from) and is so much easier to clean - and will stay looking clean - compared to tiles

And definitely go for drawers rather than base units. So much more space.

This is my kitchen:

BIWI your kitchen is really beautiful, I love that colour! This is definitely my forever house so I realise that I should take all your advice and just get what I love! Just so many decisions to make. Flooring is a big one I think and appliances too!

@BIWI Beautiful kitchen! I'm not ashamed to admit that I too went for a navy shaker with grey wall units - I have no regrets at all. It was very me and I almost always love pictures of people sharing their navy kitchens.

I personally did go for wall tiles as I preferred the effect of these over a splashback. I don't find them to be particularly more maintenance, I'm just conscious not to 'splash' so much when cooking.

My white quartz with blue/grey veining is my favourite thing about my kitchen. Adds such an elegant feel the kitchen overall, and the expense is worth it in my opinion.

As others have said, pull out drawers are essential! I got a single belfast sink which I find very spacious - I live in a 1 bed London flat, so even a smaller sink would have worked. I too have a dishwasher that opens after its cycle though it's not a miele, so guessing this functionality is not exclusive to miele. I opted not to have a boiling tap - I'm quite content with a kettle. I also turned the awkward L shape corner of my kitchen into a walk in pantry with a pocket door which perhaps wouldn't work for a lot of people but certainly works for me. I've got my washing machine in there too so it's turned into a small utility/dry food pantry and breaks up the kitchen quite nicely.

I had a very small space to work with being in a small flat, so no luxurious islands for me, though I did manage to fit in a 1m double pan drawer unit which is not attached to my straight run of units. I don't know where I'd be without it.