Kitchen designs: opinions please!

[MyCatIsNotFittingMyKitchen]

In the process of planning a new kitchen to go in a not-yet-built extension. (Digging has started so please don’t suggest changes to the floor plan - it’s too late!) As ever, some compromises are going to have to be made.

In an ideal world, we’d have a fridge-freezer, larder and eye level double oven. In the real world, this is going to lose us some worktop space. One of my plans has a larder to the right of the sink and dishwasher. The other leaves out a larder altogether.

If you don’t have a larder, where do you keep your food?

We don’t have anywhere else for a fridge-freezer to go - not a utility room, hall, or anywhere else. So that will be the unit next to the one housing the oven.

The hob and sink positions are fixed in my mind, i.e. I don’t want either on an island or peninsula. The dishwasher is next to the sink. The end unit of the breakfast bar contains bins.

We have had mixed messaging about whether we can have a built under double oven underneath an induction hob - it seems to depend on the designer and supplier/brand. We originally had a built under oven under the hob and a larder where the built-in oven is on these plans.

What do you think of these two layouts? Is there an obvious alternative? What mistakes am I making, and what would you change?

PS It will have a sloping roof and skylights but I can’t work out how to do that on the DIY planner….but it won’t be this dark in real life.

Swap the fridge freezer and the larder round. Better to have the fridge closer to the sink and the breakfast bar seating for making drinks. Plus there's no work surface next to fridge in your plans. That means you've either got to turn around 180 degrees and walk to the breakfast bar or to the right of the oven to put down things you take out of the fridge. Think about how you'll use and move around the kitchen for different processes. Include things like unpacking shopping.

What depth is the breakfast bar front to back and what storage do you have in it?

Put pan drawers in base units wherever you can. More expensive than straight cupboards, but so much easier to use and great for storing lots of things other than pans. I'd have a separate bin too rather than fill a cupboard with one.

Thank you! I’ll try playing around with that. All good points. I was concerned about people getting under my feet trying to access the fridge when I’m cooking; that suggestion would take it out of the equation.

The breakfast bar is standard depth (60cm) units with a 30cm overhang on the plan. Not allowing for the bit where it dog-legs the wall. There is currently a pull-out bin, and two sets of pan drawers (600 and 800mm).

You’d have a separate bin, then? Is that purely on space grounds?

Would you have any concerns about which way the fridge or larder doors opened? I wondered if they might bash on the adjoining walls and mean I couldn’t pull drawers out fully.

I might not be able to explain this very well, but any cupboard won't be fitted hard up to a wall if it means the door can't be fully opened. There will be some space and a piece trim used to cover that. It's also highly unlikely that every wall is exactly true and planners and fitters work to overcome that whilst making it look as though everything is true.

You can get larder units of different sizes and with different kinds of doors, e.g. folding and tambour so anything is possible where you have space restrictions.

The other thing to consider where space is tight is taking cupboards right up to the ceiling.

We have lots of kitchen equipment so I want to maximise storage. I dislike bins in cupboards but lots of people love them. They are often pretty small.

Join the DIY Kitchens customer reviews and experiences group on Facebook. There are some designers on there, including Karen at One plan who will give you some great advice.

Looks lovely op, but I would change breakfast bar and have an island that is longways, better flow .

@skippy67 , thank you - I have done that! I plan to put these up there later today and see if anyone will give me a steer. I’d be quite happy paying someone like Karen to sort the design but I suspect she may not have availability within our time frame.

@onanotherday , if the kitchen were bigger, I’d definitely go for an island. But I think an island would mean we couldn’t fit a table and chairs in the room. It’s not massive - maybe 5.3 m wide by 3 metres at the short end, 3.7 metres at the long (kitchen) end. Imagine two rectangles not quite aligned with each other….

I"ve got the bins in drawer under the sink scenario ...... and its wasted space for bins if I'm honest. They look good but don't really hold much. I don't drink tea / coffee, so my recycling bin fills up (far too) quickly with soft drinks cans / bottles, and newspapers / magazines don't fit in easily. Then a ready-meal / prep'd veg tray fills the bin (whether recycling or not) without room for much else. I felt I was forever emptying these - and I live alone, so not generating loads of waste!
So I've now got a large shiny Joseph Joseph freestanding bin .... and lovely storage for cleaning materials, bin liners etc n the drawer!
The only positive is that one of the bins is perfect size as a food scraps bin before putting it in the "outdoors" bin for collection.

we had a peninsular kitchen and the fridge freezer as at pinch point at the end of the peninsular. It was a right royal pain in the ass as it was a complete pinch point in and out and always seemed to be open. Especially when cooking for lots of people who were all trying to get cold drinks or milk for tea. We have it now in a run of units - not near a work surface and it's absolutely fine and most importantly you can get round it if the door is open.

And we've got a pull out bin next to the sink - I really like it - it's out of the way, holds a full swing bin full and frees up floor space.

We have a 300mm wide pull out cupboard for bottles etc. The dishwasher was hard to place so as not to block the space when you are filling it.

We also have lots of drawers - which work really well.

Have you had a b&q design done or magnet - just to see if they have any other ideas?

Also if you are short of storage I'd think of removing a stool from the Island if you are going to have a table anyway and put a tall cupboard against the wall on the left.

Thanks everyone, some great ideas here.

@BarrelOfOtters2 , we’ve been to Magnet and I’m working with Howdens at the moment (virtually as I have Covid). I am disappointed as neither have been able to make suggestions based on what I’ve put forward - it’s as though they only draw up what you say, rather than “have you considered X?”. I explained to both that we were looking at either an L shape and peninsula or a U shape design, but that we were open to suggestions. But nobody has suggested alternatives.

Howdens said I couldn’t have a built-under double oven under an induction hob. They have now revised their drawing to a built-in double oven at my request, but I think it looks clunky.

Magnet said I couldn’t get the dishwasher and sink next to each other by the window, but I could have a built-under double oven under an induction hob.

Noting your point about the fridge-freezer. And putting a cupboard at the end of the peninsula. We did experiment with a 40cm larder in that corner and a U shaped kitchen.

I’ve had a go at another design, with nudges from a kitchen designer on the DIY Kitchens Facebook page. Any thoughts? It does lose counter space - but gains storage and eye level appliance space. The gap between the end unit and the window would have shelves in. The tall units are, from left to right: swing pantry, pull-out larder, ovens, 30cm larder for glasses, mugs, etc, and fridge freezer.

Integrated fridges and freezers are not a good use of space. They have less interior space than freestanding ones. Quite often the doors start to be sticky to close ( maybe because of the extra weight). Having had an integrated under counter fridge I would never willingly have another ; once you had accommodated the plinth space it was effectively only good for the milk and juice.

When we moved here we inherited an integrated tall fridge freezer which I hate.
I would much rather have a larder fridge ( no icebox) and a freezer both under the worktop, had that three times, very successful. Unless you really can’t bear the sight of a white or silver fridge door lurking under the worktop, they are both larger and cheaper, and much easier to replace if( when) they go wrong. (actually I painted mine with Roman columns , but that’s another and completely optional story….)

Also why do people have the fridge/ freezer next to the oven? Because you know, heat and cold , a bit counter productive in terms of energy consumption..
( gnashes teeth, we have this as well. If I ever used the oven instead of my trusty combi, I would be very cross, as it is, it is just a very expensive and not very capacious pan cupboard)

I'd have 3 tall units. Larder (80cm, 2 doors, shelves), fridge freezer, ovens. Then a low unit with crockery drawers/shelves above, then a 90cm corner, then the sink and then dishwasher/bins. A modern integrated fridge freezer will be fine and it's not as if the oven is on 24/7.
I would put an induction hob on the island, leaving a 90x90cm clear space at the free end for serving out, and a ceiling or wall extractor fan for ventilation.
The only thing is, does that mean you could be cooking at the island and people coming through the door bumping into you?

We don't have a larder but our peninsula unit has 30cm cupboards on the back (no stools) and they take masses.

I had a design for a new kitchen and did not like where the designer put a fridge freezer. I decided it would be better to have two side by side so keeping worktop space. (I haven't gone ahead with the kitchen yet).

In that design with the bank of tall units you've got a totally dead section of worktop. I don't think you've the space to do the tall units like that. Do you have a bird's eye floor plan showing the proposed ground floor layout with your extension? There may be other possibilities that haven't been thought of, plus it's really useful to see where the doorways are and overall layout.

@WeAreTheHeroes , that’s the conclusion I’m coming to. I also still don’t like having the hob on the peninsula. So I think we’re now back to variants of L shape and peninsula or U shape. Let me see if I can attach a floor plan….

So ignoring the random hob and extractor in the middle of the room, which I moved to show someone the units (!), this is the room. It is to be a kitchen-diner with a table and chairs so the kitchen can’t take over the whole room, if you see what I mean. It also needs to stay on that side of the room in terms of water/electricity and so on.

The door on Wall A will be a pocket door, I hope, into the new utility. The door on Wall G is an open doorway to the rest of the house.

Thanks OP, that's really useful. If the doorway to the rest of the house becomes a standard size one you'll have more usable kitchen/diner space.

You need around 1.2m around chairs for circulation. If you have built in seating in an L shape or just on one wall against the far end wall F, you'll have more usable kitchen space. Plot the size of the table and chairs in properly and lose the peninsula. Then re-plan the kitchen.

What about flipping the dining and kitchen spaces around and doing a total re-think? It might bring up other options you haven't thought about.

Our kitchen is a very similar shape and size. Look at bringing kitchen units round the two corners A/G and C/D instead. It could make the whole space feel more integrated.

That is an interesting suggestion but we can’t reduce the size of the doorway as it’s leading through to a windowless room - it’s currently the rear end of a living-dining room but will become a snug with light coming in from the kitchen, and through double doors to the new sitting room. So we do need to work with what we’ve got. But thanks for being creative - I appreciate it!

Ok I see the plan now. I'd move the peninsula to the other wall so you have a U shape of units. Then people entering through the arch can walk straight to the dining area without going right through the working part of the kitchen. You can maybe have a cupboard accessible from behind to deal with the 2nd corner.

Oh hang on that wall A is to utility. Well it still kind of stands about keeping the walking route short.

What's the layout plan for the new utility room? Can you share that? There may options there for storage.

@WeAreTheHeroes , the utility is so small that we can’t fit in a fridge freezer unless we compromise on having a water softener, as my understanding is it needs a cupboard to itself. We have room for three units which are washing machine-sink-water softener cupboard. Plus wall cupboards.

I have been playing around and doing lots of calculations and I think I have two preferred layouts now. The U shape maximises ease of access to the fridge, and worktop space, but means a slimmer and smaller larder away from the main run of cupboards. The peninsula and L shape gets the larder I want, but reduces workspace and perhaps makes access to the fridge more awkward (next to the doorway on the left - utility).

Any thoughts?

Here's a thought
Make your larder full width of that space, but cut down to 450mm or 350mm deep. It can have doors that open like a wardrobe, or even bi-fold and fold right back, but then nothing will be lost at at the back, you can have spice racks, tin shelves, deep shelves lower down. You actually get loads in it. Larders are the sort of space you open, get stuff out and close again, people won't spend a long time standing there except when putting shopping away.