Kitchens without integrated white good. Pros and cons

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I'm redoing my kitchen and have a perfectly working freestanding washing machine and dishwasher. Looking at kitchens everything seems to be integrated now, and obviously looks shiny and sleek. Anyone done their kitchen and not integrated white goods?

I'm so undecided... obviously would be cheaper to keep existing ones but would I regret it long term?

Tell me about your kitchens please...

I have a integrated fridge freezer and swore never again. When you include the space needed at the back for cooling the fridge freezer does not have a lot of depth and can be quite small. Would 100% do freestanding fridge freezer.
I also have a a integrated washing machine/ dryer and that works great and would do the same again. Just be conscious of the drum size if you need a big one.

I would never have non--integrated personally. I can’t understand doing a beautiful new kitchen to then have lump of a fridge freezer or dishwasher in it. But I prefer form over function!

Interestingly you say they all seem to be integrated now, I’m always surprised how few integrated I see.

Just do what you think is preferable, there’s plenty of people doing it both ways.

I'm happy with free standing cooker / oven (I like my oven to be under my hob) and fridge freezer (don't like under counter only) but IMO dishwasher and washing machine are much nicer integrated.

I also prefer an integrated dishwasher and washing machine (if the latter needs to be in the kitchen, which ours hasn't at five out of six of our most recent houses).

We've reconfigured a disproportionately large separate utility, lobby and cloaks at our latest - much more compact - cottage to create a tiny lootility that has space for the washing machine and potentially a tumble dryer as I really didn't want them in the - also fairly small - kitchen. The dishwasher we'll be fitting will be fully integrated.

Otoh, we prefer a freestanding fridge freezer and when we finally had to offload our ancient Smeg f/f last year, we decided to go with another freestanding (this time a French doors/drawers Hisense model). We're having dark pinky red cabinets and chose a black f/f as well as a black/brass range cooker as we like freestanding ovens too.

I wouldn’t have integrated again! They cost about £400 more for very similar specs. Just not worth it for me. They do look nice though.

Integrated appliances is more expensive for actually less appliance.

It's hard to get stuff that fits the gaps you have when you want to replace it. For example look at the whole nonsense around the 60:40 fridge split thing.

On the positive side they look good.

We've gone all integrated - I love the integrated dishwasher - it's so quiet!

We've a full height fridge and a full height freezer - so loads more space than we used to have in our split fridge freezer so I'm happy.

It does confuse visitors though - they haven't a clue where anything is ....

A friend with a very sleek lovely new kitchen wanted to keep her old appliances as they were very expensive and nice - the only integrated she has is the dishwasher. And her big fridge freezer and the freestanding washing machine don't look at all out of place.

We’re doing integrated dishwasher but freestanding fridge freezer. I haven’t decided about the washing machine yet.

Fundamentally though you just get less choice if you go integrated. I want one of the American style fridges that has the double fridge doors with freezer drawers underneath. I only found one company doing those integrated which is Fisher & Paykel and they are £12,000!

My kitchen is small and perfectly formed.

My washing machine is integrated because I hate the look of that appliance.

My dishwasher was new so I didn’t replace with an integrated one.

My fridge freezer is not integrated.

My kitchen looks good particularly because the washing machine is hidden.

I would only ever have integrated. I will accept a fridge freezer with housing unit all around it.

Personally I don't think washing machines and dryers belong in a kitchen. Washing and drying your dirty laundry where you prepare your food is not something I would plan to have if I were getting a new kitchen fitted. Taking those two appliances out, I don't see the problem of having an non-integrated fridge and dishwasher as you get more choice for less money if you don't integrate them. You can make lots of things look nice if you have a little taste or ask a professional to help you design your space and colours.

I'm stuck with what I have but I'm not particularly a fan of integrated appliances. There's more choice in free standing, they are bigger inside/have more capacity and it's less of a ballache if they develop a fault and have to be pulled out.

They do look much better if you like the rows of identical cabinet doors look, I'm not bothered about that but I would like the appliances to "fit in" appearance wise (ie white washing machine amongst white cupboards, rather than stainless steel colour). Our dishwasher was supposedly a particular size according to AO, but they ignored external fittings so it actually sticks out a bit, which drives me utterly mad when I see it.

I was hoping to get the rear ground floor remodelled so I could put washing machine and tumble dryer in a utility room, and sort out the dishwasher, but it looks like that's not happening any time soon.

We're about to buy a house with a big and sleek kitchen with the washing machine being the only thing poking out of a long line of sleek cabinets and it looks awful. However:

Don't the fire brigade dislike integrated appliances? Tumble dryer, I imagine.

My LL paid £700 for an integrated fridge in December and the shelves bow if you look at them wrong. You can see half a shelf with its crap light too.

The new integrated freezer drawers are really small.

You also can't just easily pull things out to inspect for repair works.

Iirc my old integrated washing machine made one heck of a racket if you dared to put 1lb over the weight it thought it could cope with in it.

I had a similar decision last year when refitting. I was happy to go with built in ovens (tall housings) and hob but dislike other integrated appliances. With integrated appliances you have far less choice, much higher costs and reduced capacity (substantially reduced in some cases, always check the data sheet).

My dishwasher doesn’t “stick out”, it does however hold roughly 30% more place settings than the largest integrated appliance of similar make and quality. Freestanding appliances also come in more colours and finishes these days.

My large American style fridge freezer with ice dispenser wasn’t even available in built in form (unless I wanted to take out a second mortgage).

We have integrated fridge and freezer but free standing dishwasher and washing machine. Our kitchen designer put cupboard doors over the washing machine space so it is hidden but still freestanding.

Most people don’t have anywhere else to put their washing machine and tumble dryer. British bathrooms are usually far too small to house them.

I bought a house with an integrated dishwasher and it was such a ballache when it broke and needing replacing. I got a freestanding one and it's much easier.

More and more people are doing small utility rooms now to at least separate the laundry activities from the kitchen. If people have the budget for a brand new kitchen and integrated appliances, they probably have the budget for taking out some of the space and turning it into a utility room. You do not have to spend a lot of money to do it.

More and more people are doing small utility rooms now to at least separate the laundry activities from the kitchen. If people have the budget for a brand new kitchen and integrated appliances, they probably have the budget for taking out some of the space and turning it into a utility room. You do not have to spend a lot of money to do it.

I actually have a utility room that houses my washing machine and tumble dryer, but I have lived in and been in many many kitchens in the UK that absolutely don’t have the space to make a separate utility room.

I have never gone integrated. Freestanding tend to be bigger, easier to swap out when they break and you can choose what you want.

For us, I think part of the problem with non-integrated appliances when renovating previous houses has been the colours - or lack of - that are available.

We don't like white kitchens (last time we had one, in our first house, we kept it six months as we realised what a mistake it was 🙄 Fortunately we sold it to some friends who loved it) and majority of washing machines, dishwashers etc only come in a choice of white, black or silver, which narrows the options for cupboard colour imo. Plus, we bought a cream (graded, so only around £300 at the time) Smeg fridge freezer for our second house and it kept on going till our eighth, so that limited us further.

Add into the mix light blue cabinets (we've had two blue kitchens that I painted myself - one was Oval Room Blue, the other a celadon colour from Homebase), plus a cream oven (we've had three cream Rangemasters over the years - bought to coordinate with the bloody Smeg!) Or the crap red Bertazzoni Pro I stupidly bought for our last house, and white/black/silver dishwasher etc would just look wrong imo!

I have to concur that non-integrated are bigger internally, but as a family of three and now just two of us at home, that was never a real consideration.

In that case they don't and they keep them in the kitchen.

I'm all for non-integrated.

I've had 2 kitchens with integrated in the past. The door of the fridge freezer in the first was really heavy and would end up misaligned. The door connection eventually broke and the fix was something tricky for me and we had to pay more than I would have thought to get it fixed. When we had to replace the dishwasher in the 2nd, our plumber said that the plinth wasn't going to work with the door and he cut a massive bit out of the plinth to fit it in. Grr. Space inside appliances is definitely more limited. Integrated appliances are more expensive, the doors and handles have to be paid for.

Now I am older and wiser and my non-integrated kitchen looks absolutely fabulous in my opinion. I have a brushed steel free-standing cooker, an American brushed steel fridge freezer and a brushed steel dishwasher. They look part of the design to me - I have kettle / mixer / toaster on show, so I really don't care about some brushed steel in the run of units too. So easy to replace. The door fronts look fine as they are designed to be on show.

The only look which is awful is an integrated appliance with a missing door!

I know it's a bit 'off topic' but clothes in the washing machine/drier are clean? They're only dirty before you put them in and unless you've got the dirty laundry basket actually in the kitchen all the time, there's not going to be any cross-contamination with clothes and food. I mean you have dirty water in the kitchen all the time from washing vegetables/dishes etc...

I have a very small house with quite a big kitchen. I'd never have integrated appliances because I like the 'farmhouse kitchen' look with free standing units, it suits my cottage better than a very 'smart' integrated look.