Do you have a gloss kitchen? Also, what "must have" is in yours

[HurdyGurdy19]

From being convinced it would never happen, it's now gone to looking very likely that we will be building an extension and having a huge kitchen.

I've been looking at kitchens online and like the idea of the gloss/high gloss ones from Howdens, but I'm wondering how easy they are to keep clean and not show marks, splashes, etc.

Also - what is a must-have in your kitchen? I last had a kitchen fitted 23 years ago, and that was an awful experience, and I have never had the kitchen I wanted. It was from MFI (remember them? "Major Fucking Incompetence").

I really want to get it right this time. So what's "new"? What kind of thing should I definitely consider? I don't think waste disposals are as popular now as they were in the early 2000s, but Quooker type taps are calling to me this time round.

What do you love in your kitchen, and what do you wish you'd not bothered with?

We're not quite at the "money no object" level, but we do have a decent whack to spend😊

Glossy kitchen is easy to clean. I use a soft cloth.
Can't do without: boiling water filter tap, insinkerator, two sinks (we have no separate utility) and wine fridge.

I have a gloss cream with the 3d effect glass edge on the doors. I use my Karcher window cleaner to clean the doors. My must haves were the huge drawers for my pans and crockery, far better than cupboards also my built in bin with 3 compartments to separate for recycling and my pull out larder unit.

Can you explain the clean dishwasher..??

Dammit lol - now I don't know about gloss cabinets. I've parked them in no-man's-land for now

I'm not sure about drawers instead of cupboards, but maybe that's because my current kitchen wasn't very well built and the base of drawer warped and stuff fell out - same with the backs of the cupboards.

A pull out/walk in larder is on the wish list now, depending on how they plan the kitchen, so thank you for that suggestion, and also increasing storage by having boxes on top of cupboards. I am only 5ft 2ins and can't reach the top shelves of our cupboards. Maybe they could lower the placing of those, and I can have storage boxes on top for stuff that won't be used daily, or even weekly. Another great idea.

Going to and fro between having a double sink/drainer or Belfast sink. Definitely need a shelf for all my cookery books, and hadn't considered where to put the bin, so thank you for the suggestion of hidden bins.

We're having three skylights put in, so I will no longer be cooking in what feels like a cave.

Thank you all for your input. Some brilliant suggestions.

Going to and fro between having a double sink/drainer or Belfast sink.

I have a double Belfast sink which I think is the best of both worlds!

We have a cream gloss kitchen from Wrens. We had Shaker style doors/drawers which, after 2 years, began to delaminate. Wrens replaced them with slab style which are much better. Love the easy clean of gloss. Our previous kitchen was MFI and was fab - withstood 15 years of heavy family use.

We’ve had both a Belfast sink and a stainless steel double sink. I preferred the Belfast from an ergonomic perspective as you’re closer to it.

I’m not sure about boxes on top of cupboards for storage. It’s a recipe for having to degunk them of sticky dust a few times a year.

We absolutely love our boiling water tap, it’s brilliant.

I've had gloss kitchen units in the last two places I've lived (rentals).

I don't find them a problem to keep clean but neither do I have children or pets! I just whizz over it with some glass cleaner every so often.

My tip: a bigger fridge than you'd think. I had our top/bottom fridge/freezer replaced with a full-height fridge and a separate freezer. No more fridge Tetris.

Belfast sinks — can be brilliant, can be overly splashy. I think it depends on the height from which the tap water falls. So if you're getting especially tall taps, you might get a lot of splashing in a Belfast if the water hits the flat bottom square-on.

I've got howdens cream hi gloss. Handless. I love it and it's easy to keep clean despite 3 kids trying their best to mess up every surface. Love it so much I had the same in my utility room.

We have gloss white handleless. Very happy with it. For pull out storage in cupboards we have wire baskets from www.kitchenfittingsdirect.com almost all our base level cupboards now have pull out baskets. Makes it so much easier to access. They are really strong - elephants could sleep in them.

Kitchen doors came from www.kitchenandbedroomdoors.com . We recently changed our kitchen layout slightly and I was very pleased that the same doors were available as we had bought 6 years ago.

Drinks fridge in the utility room is so useful.

Having a really big sink in the utility room is also useful if you have anything really big to wash - jam pan for me.

I would second the suggestion about more sockets than you think you need.

You can get pull down basket/shelves for wall cupboards OP.
Or a kickstool - I got mine for £30 yonks ago and it's so stable. Love it.

The 2 dishwashers thing - the idea is that you fill dishwasher A, put it on, start filling dishwasher B, take clean stuff out of A to use, by the time B is full of dirty crocks, A is empty, and you put B on to wash and start filling A...
I am TOTALLY going for this but I think we'll need a "fill this" magnet or something as both of us can be a bit inattentive when we're sleepy!

Is it really accepted to get, say, 3 different places to do you a 'free design' and then get the kitchen from supplier 4 fitted by trusted local guy? I am trying to work out a design but like most people, have never "had a new kitchen done" ever and have only used a very small number of kitchens in earnest. I don't trust myself to spot where I went wrong, and I don't know all the handy stuff that's out there.

Pale blue gloss from DIY here and i love them so easy to clean hot water with washing up liquid in it and a microfibre cloth 2 years on mine looks as new as the day it was installed

I inherited a gloss kitchen when I moved.house. Wood effect bottoms and cream tops, I hate them with a passion. The cream has discoloured in the sun and kids and a dog are a no no with it. I can't wait to go back to a Matt kitchen.
I definitely recommend a boiling water tap though!

We have white gloss handle-less. I don’t mind the gloss but I hate the little ridges instead of handles as they collect dirt.

At the moment I’m considering replacing our standard mixer tap with one of those ones with the pull-out sprayer hose. Our sink is quite small and they look really handy for washing big things which don’t quite fit like the fridge drawers.

If I was redoing the whole kitchen I’d replace pretty much all of our lower cabinets with drawers. I hate having to get on the floor to dredge stuff out from the back of the cupboards!

We have a Howdens gloss kitchen in grey, any fingerprints get wiped off with a micro fibre cloth but we don’t have kiddies at home which helps.

Must haves when our kitchen was done last were a pull out larder, wine fridge, pan drawers and pull out bins.

I wish I’d had lights put under both sides of the wall cabinets instead of just one and that I’d had a couple of electric sockets installed by the breakfast bar.

I stayed a hotel's converted stable annex for a few nights with a red gloss kitchen*. It marked like crazy. Admittedly DD and husband aren't great for just using cupboard handles, but it was enough to annoy me.

A big extension/fancy kitchen won't be cheap..... so perhaps visit IKEA
Close to closing time and see what state their kitchen cupboards are in.

Maybe look for an airbnb to try out for a couple of days on the basis of their kitchen

*just outside Stratford upon Avon, if you want the name.

we have white gloss cupboards with a matt grey island, the matt shows up most of the fingerprints, but we do have handles to discourage hands all over the doors, love:
boiling tap
waste disposal
ceiling to floor cabinets
2x dishwashers
separate full size integrated fridge and freezer
hidden bins

The builder who is going to do our extension works with Howdens a lot, and he suggested we start off by looking at their units. He sent the plans to them ahead of a telephone call between us and the planner today - just so she could get an idea of what style I want, what appliances I want and what kind of layout. She's going to send us two sets of plans, one with Shaker style and one with gloss, so I can see which I am most drawn to.

I've just had a look at www.diy-kitchens.com which was mentioned on another thread, and I do like the look of some of theirs, so might see what the difference in price would be if we went with them.

I forgot to ask about having just drawers on the bottom, rather than cupboards - tut!

I have white gloss - hate it, so difficult to clean and keep clean.

I would say think about where your bins will go, we have a pretty small kitchen that the planner clearly didn't think about bins and they are a pain!

We have bins and some of the recycling in a deep drawer under the sink. It's all convenient to get to and nothing is on view, which is nice because bins are not attractive. Would highly recommend.

A pull out drawer under our double Belfast sink is big enough to house a decent sized bin, food recycling, battery recycling and one more receptacle that we use for the bags that sliced bread comes in. A lot of cleaning stuff is under there too - washing powder, fabric conditioner, refills for washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, stain remover powder, soda crystals, dustpan and brush, spare sponges, cleaning sprays, lots of stuff.

I had dark grey gloss kitchen. Hated them. The finger marks drove me crazy and they scratched really easily. We now have matt white and that’s so much easier.