Has anyone got any advice regarding using an independent kitchen designer vs designing it ourselves.

[Mustardfan]

When deciding on a new kitchen do people use an independent kitchen designer? I’ve done a design for my kitchen on free software, but it’s nothing special, and I’m thinking that someone with expertise could probably do a better job. I’ve looked online for a kitchen designer and the only one I’ve found is very high end. Has anyone got any advice? How can I find a designer?

We got John Lewis, IKEA and Wren to design for us. It’s either free or a minimal charge you get back if you go with them. It does depend on who you get on the day. We spent a while in the shop with the dimensions, looking at styles we liked etc and talking through the white goods we wanted, then they either just did it on the software or came out to look first and then did the design. We liked elements of each and took what we liked to our preferred place and they added them to the our design. They were each quite different and it was helpful.

Thanks, I might try them.

How off do you find the current kitchen and how unusual/large is the size for the room?

We have always done our own but we generally have a good idea about how the kitchen should flow for how we use a kitchen and can make the adjustments to the current kitchen fairly easily.

There is a bit of personal preference too. When we were looking at redoing our last kitchen my sister told me to put lots of drawers in instead of cupboards as she found them much more useful. Our existing kitchen had lots of drawers in it and they drove us up the wall and turned two of the drawer units into cupboards.

It's actually more the dining area that we want help with, at the moment it hasn't got much storage in it and we want fitted cupboards, shelves and drawers for that area, which is quite large. We've done a design ourselves, but it looks plain and might look rubbish in reality.

Wall cupboards on floor can help with that sort of thing

My parents have a peninsula with floor cupboard on one side (600 mm deep) and wall on the other side (300mm) which gives a large worktop perfect for dishing up and lots of storage for the dining half

If you do full height ceiling to cupboards two tone can help with the aesthetics the lower half matching the colour of the kitchen units and the top colour matching the walls.

We went for a large oak side board and coloured matched the walls with the colour of the kitchen cupboards so it feels like one cohesive space.

Things like door handles can make the difference too. We had a recessed bit of wall in our downstairs loo that was neither use nor ornamental. My partner built some plain MDF doors but we then painted them to match the doors with some fancy brass door handles. It lifts the cupboard entirely

It can be tricky balancing storage and space and aesthetics. I really think it's one of those things you either have or you don't although you can definitely pick up tips as you go along and where a kitchen designer and their graphics packages can make a huge difference!