Kitchen regrets - do you have any?

[MiaN]

If you have remodeled your kitchen in the last 5 -7 years, do you have any regrets?

Don't get wooden worktops. They look nice when you've just sanded and oiled them but within days they look terrible.
My last house had a walk in pantry. We've just moved house, I am so getting the architect the draw in one of those.
And a cat flap

Wooden worktops that need to be stained regularly just before having a baby with a DP who won't even get a screwdriver out.

What was I thinking.

They are now wrecked and can't afford to replace,

a couple of tiny things: I wish 2 drawers would be deeper (but there was no option) and I wish plug socket for hand blender was closer to hobs (would be easier for pureeing soups or sauces but again had no choice)

otherwise no regrets at all.
I got to design my kitchen 5 years ago and love it

woah! that strip light around island base appears to be way brighter than it is!🤣

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba you basically have the dream kitchen. Perfect size, loads of cupboard and work top space , massive island without overcrowding the room, it could be used as a magazine photo, where people love the kitchen advertised but realistically ends up cramped and ruined in a space a quarter of the size. Your so lucky you got to design and deck out a kitchen like that 😊

thank you @Asherline, very kind.
it was one of those in for a penny, in for a pound situations when you just know that it's now or never.
9 people here so we needed it to be as big & practical as possible.
not obvious on photo but we have 2 dishwashers, either side of unit under sink. they are always running....DH's suggestion to have 2 and what a stroke of genius that proved to be!

and we have wood imitation tiles (from Topps Tiles) that carry on into the living & dining room.
it looks warm and with underfloor heating it is warm, but with all the advantages of porcelain tiles! we were so lucky to have discovered them.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba absolutely if you get the chance you need to do it right. You could spend more doing bits here and there and it would never improve, it really is a chance in a lifetime to get it right. And your husbands idea is great, not something I would think of but if you have 9 people and the space to have 2 dishwashers then that would be ideal. You need to tell me any other ideas like that he has 😊

I have an undermount sink which looks very stylish but in reality it is too small. I wish I had put in a bigger one.

@TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams

Inherited a kitchen with one of those American style mechanised garbage disposal things in the sink. Horribly noisy , takes some things but not others, blocks the drainage.

Changed the sink and took the opportunity to get rid. DH loved it but conceded it was shit when the drains backed up massively on Christmas Eve.

He wants one of those Quooker hot taps things but they always seemed to be out of order at work at vast expense to fix. I'd be interested in whether they last better in a domestic environment and whether or not you really need to watch the kids around them?

They're awesome if they work!

oh I've just remembered that we did regret buying expensive touch tap.
we didn't know that they are not compatible with the sink or something else (I honestly can't remember, there was a contacting materials issue) and basically the mechanism was so sensitive that vibrations from a heavier van rattling by on the main road or even using the hand blender would randomly set it off!

seriously, it was so "temperamental" the water would just start running as if by itself! we nicknamed it ghost tap🤣
couldn't return it for a refund by then so had to have the electrical part disconnected once we realised a nearby bee farting could cause a flooded kitchen

Anyone regretted having a breakfast cupboard with bifold doors or regretted not having one?

I have a built in fridge freezer. The freezer part is nowhere near big enough.

I have some fab drawers but none of them are deep enough for me to stack baking trays/roasting dishes sideways.

The spotlights aren't exactly where I'd like them to be.

I love my 1.5 width peninsula - it's such a great surface to work on and there are no cupboards above it.

@depressedor

Anyone regretted having a breakfast cupboard with bifold doors or regretted not having one?

What on Earth is a breakfast cupboard?

I wanted a streamlined look but not handleless so went for profile edge handles.
They get sticky underneath and have sharp edges which means I dare not allow small children in the kitchen!

Doors without handles. They look nice, but I need to wipe them down every day to keep them clean. Especially if my husband has been cooking

@ApolloandDaphne

Google threw this at me

Ooh great thread. Currently planning a kitchen so v useful.
Cornish Why is a 1.5 peninsula so much better than just regular depth?

I have no regrets about our actual kitchen but I really wish we changed the floor at the same time.
It would have cost a fortune because its all tiles through into the utility and downstairs loo but it would have been 1000% easier if we had done it when the room was empty.

Apollo - Also called an appliance cupboard so toaster/microwave/kitchen mixer all in cupboard plugged in ready to use on the work top. You open the bifold doors and get perhaps
2m of workspace with appliances then close it when done.

Zing - I was hoping for something like this

In terms of things we could actually have done differently bearing in mind the physical constraints of the room, there are only a couple of minor things.
Firstly, I wish we had extra spotlights over the sink, as it feels a bit dark and gloomy there in the evening.
Secondly, we have an area of open shelving for cookbooks and I didn't plan the spacing properly - we only have 2 shelves and could definitely have fitted in 3. That annoys me.

Generally, I wish we had a bigger pull out larder, but no matter how hard I try I just don't think we can actually fit one into the room.

Wooden work tops. They're a beautiful beech, but DH has oiled them twice in 20 years, hence they're rotted all around the sink area and are covered in stains/pan marks because no one else ever puts anything on the tops to protect them. They're the bane of my life and too high maintenance.

And we had a massive oversized counter top to use as a table with stools - the kitchen designer talked us into it..... I thought it was too big. It goes right up to the back door at a right angle, so if anyone wants to come in and you're sat there, you have to stand up, move the stool and then sit back down. It was a stupid idea in hindsight.

not a real regret but a "oh man I wish I had thought about it!" thing is that having recently made a Lego tissue box for the kitchen I realised we could've covered part of the walls with Lego, instead of tiles!

I think that would've been bloody awesome, adding lots of features to it like displays, hidden compartments, LED backlights etc.
Urgh, why didn't I think of it?

So instead I'm gonna add a Lego splash back to the worktop in the laundry room - the only job that has not been finished since the building work.

and here's the inspiration (no more soggy tissues!)

Absolutely NOTHING to do with kitchen design, but a revelation was shifting the shelf above upwards, so I could stack all my baking trays, tins, muffin tins, chopping boards, cake tins, etc etc on their side VERTICALLY so they take up less room instead of horizontally in a heap on top of each other (no deep drawers here )