Favourite Kitchen?

[PokerG]

Post your favourite kitchen pictures here!

I am in the designing process for my new kitchen and although some things are set in stone (or rather granite) I am still looking for ideas. So post your favourite kitchens and say what it is you like about them.

Gary

 

[Steve Maskery]

We have a full-height pull-out larder unit which definitely gets the thumbs up. It's both neat and practical.

S

 

[engineer one]

don't know about favourite kitchens, but some things that i think are valuable are as steve says the pull out larder/storage units. either full height or under work top.

also personally i would always put drawers, even if behind doors, on under counter storage units. fact is you are always down on your hands and knees otherwise at least once a day if you don't have sliding out shelves.
or drawers. also in corner units i think that the pull out metal ware that isaac lord for instance sell are worthwhile.

reading some american stuff recently one comment stuck in my mind
why have lots of storage in the kitchen?? surely you are only going to cook their, unless you have a breakfast bar???

dishes should be near where you eat, and too many top cupboards overpower the kitchen and reduce the light.

as with all these things it is all personal, but i think we often do not do a proper audit of what we have and what we need when rebuilding or building a new kitchen. from preference i would also put the washing machine outside a kitchen if you have room to provide a wet room for instance.

not sure if this helps or just complicates :roll: :twisted:

paul :wink:

 

[Paul Chapman]

Probably an obvious point, but you need to ensure that the work surfaces are the correct height for the person who will be using the kitchen most. My wife is only 4' 10'' tall (or should that be short :lol: ) so our worktops are 34" high and our hob unit is 30.5" high (because you need to take into account the height of the hob plus the height of a saucepan). It's easy to get the height right by the use of adjustable legs that most units have.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Pekka Huhta]

I got our kitchen finished about a year ago. It was a bit longish project, 5 months altogether.

The house is an old one, built in 1919 so I wanted the kitchen to blend in. I designed the cabinets myself, but a carpenter built them. I did everything else myself.




What do I like about the kitchen... It feels like home I think that the layout got quite balanced, some earlier sketches were a bit worse on that regard. One thing I like is that the cabinets look like individual pieces of furniture, not the dull look of the modules kitchens are usually built from.

And it's wood, all of it. Some people have selective glass windows, I have a selective front door; you can carry chipboard out as much as you want, but it's impossible to get any in

Pekka

 

[the_g_ster]

Hi

I think it's important to consider the kitchen relative to the type of house that you have. Old victorian ones with high ceilings let you get away with higher units that look awesome if nicely glazed and well lit. More modern houses can get away with some of the more manufactured looks but us mere mortals without huge facilities can't really do fancy high gloss coatings etc this requires.

I will be going to make mine soon and am really looking forward to it. I have some ideas of "chalon" and robinsonandcornish among others and there are some great designs and ideas. Look at the classic colours as an accent of you are going for old looks too, as can really contrast to some nice wood. Farrow and ball have some great ranges.

G

 

[Keith Smith]

Hi Gary,

When I fitted our kitchen SWMBO made all the decisions

Then changed her mind several times and we ultimately ended up having the kitchen in a different room.

So all my pre-planning was more or less a waste of time :roll:

We ended up with mostly drawers, an island unit and food storage in a separate pantry.

It's in oak with oak worktops and a granite top to the island.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Keith,
Your photo reminds me of the importance of having somewhere to keep cookery books. When J & I got married we had over 130 cookery books between us, and only two duplicated titles! We threw a lot away, including the iconic Cooking in a Bedsit by Katherine Whitehorn , but we still seem to have as many as before. We do find it hard to resist an interesting-looking cookbook.

S

 

[Keith Smith]

Steve,

That was originally space for a TV, hence the sockets in the top right you can just make out. I've been going to put an extra shelf in for about the last 18 months one day I'll get round to it :roll:

Keith

 

[engineer one]

so you spend a lot of time eating food off the floor do you keith :lol: :lol:

that's really low for a tv :roll:

nice looking units though

paul :wink:

 

[wrightclan]

FWIW, here's a thread about my kitchen. Sad thing is, just as I'm completing it, we decided to sell up and move back to the States. :roll:. BTW, no matter how much pre-planning you do, there will be things at the end you would have done differently.

Brad

 

[Keith Smith]

so you spend a lot of time eating food off the floor do you keith :lol: :lol:

that's really low for a tv :roll:

nice looking units though

paul :wink:

Thanks Paul, :roll: :lol:

Where I'm stood taking the picture we have a small sofa, hence the idea about the TV.

Design changes are one of the advantages/disadvantages of doing your own kitchen.

If you have a kitchen fitted, once the design is agreed, it is difficult and costly to change it. Plus they are in and out in a week or two so not a lot of time anyway. If you do it yourself it may take months, mine did, and you have a lot of time to think plus SWMBO may think there is no obvious financial penalty for design changes.

In defence of Judith I must say that we ended up with a much better kitchen for the changes, not only does it look right but it is an efficient workshop for food prep. I live in an old barn conversion, the original kitchen fitted was a white vinyl coated chipboard job that looked completely wrong and didn't actually work as a kitchen.

As for Paul Chapman's point about altering the work surface height, it has obviously worked for him, but I always advise against this. It is fine if you live in the house for the next twenty years but if you want to sell the house it may well put someone else off from buying it, and none of us know the future.

Keith

 

[PokerG]

Lot of great suggestions. What I actually want is a combination of a few of them. My house is around 200yrs old, with crenulations (think 4 bedroom castle). So an old look to the kitchen is probably most appropriate.

I really like the lightness of the all white kitchen as ours is partly underground and lighting is one of the area I am definitely going to be changing. But I do want the colour and grain of the wood I use to come through.

The room itself is about 20' long but not very wide, maybe 11' (it varies across the length). So islands and peninsulas don't work. But storage space is a plenty.

Gary

 

[Keith Smith]

I really like the lightness of the all white kitchen;But I do want the colour and grain of the wood I use to come through

sort of mutually exclusive :?

an old look to the kitchen is probably most appropriate

In which case I would go for an MDF kitchen with a some period details; you can then paint it in a light colour.

Our kitchen is quite dark, only having one small window. We have fluorescents on top of the wall units which cast a diffuse light in the room.

 

[RogerM]

I find that diagonal corner units work really well for us. Not only does it improve access to thecorner, but it gives a greater volume of storage space as well as increased worktop area.