Critique my Kitchen Designs!

Martynt74

Martynt74

Martynt74

Soldato
Joined
20 Feb 2004
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La Romana, Spain
Rather than highjacking over peoples threads i thought i'd create my own because as we all know, people love telling others that they're wrong in their designs and i'm looking to take all that on board!

So the background. We're buying a new house which has got a long kitchen/living area. In total the room is about 8m long by 3m wide. Here are some pictures of how it currently is (mixing of both the current and previous advert pictures hence the slight changes)

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My wife needs a mid height oven due to illness and also doesn't like the worktops and a few of the doors have laminate peeling off so we've gone from "Add a tall unit housing a new oven" to "doing that and replacing the doors" to "lets just fit a whole new kitchen."

We're not dead set on the shaker style but since we currently have a high gloss red kitchen with black sparkly worktops we're looking for something more muted, so light grey/sage type colours and definitely a matte finish.

Here is a design i knocked up using the DIY-Kitchens planner. It's not perfect and for some reason the planner doesn't want to give us cupboard doors! We're likely to go for a single oven and then a built in microwave so ignore the double oven+microwave combo as shown in this design. I also don't want the drawers to be on the wrong side of the island!

We have a utility room through the door next to the oven which will have shelves for tinned goods and a fridge/freezer so we shouldn't need too much cupboard space. I'm also fairly sure i've given up on the idea of the belfast style sink.

I think what we'll also do is have a 1200mm wide cabinet where the island bit sticks out but have the doors facing towards the open space. This can then be used to store bits of crap/booze. Saves having to mess around with a corner unit.

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This would leave us around 3m on the other side of the island for a table/sofa etc.

Any input would be great :)
 
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Yes, my wife quite fancies the open look. I think we'll just stick a few shelves up.

And yes, all cupboards will have doors. I have no idea how to enforce doors in the design tool!
 
Why loose the wall unit left of the window? you don't have any of those now, while you had two before the re-design. You will miss those!
 
I would want fridge freezer in the kitchen, its afterall one of the most used appliances in any kitchen.
lack of the newer larder and other specialist cupboards which really do make the space much easier to use.
keep double oven, so useful especially when doing Christmas and other large meals.

and god that worktop atm makes the kitchen vile. probably wouldnt look to bad with a different worktop.

also think about cleaning, some sort of backboard along the entire worktop. Personally not fond of tiles due to the grout lines, a bit of epoxied copper or stainless. there's even plastic backings these days, and fall height behind and around hob, grease gets everywhere.
 
We only have a single integrated fridge in our current kitchen, with a bigger unit through into the utility and don't find it much of a hassle. It is handy for things like milk/butter though so i might try and add it in because i agree it's something that would be missed (though not essential). Freezer i'm happy not to have in the kitchen though.

The wife insisting on no wall units makes it tricky as we're automatically on the back foot when it comes to storage.

The unit next to the over is a pull out larder cupboard for flour, oils etc
 
Some initial personal thoughts/preferences/questions
  • Skip the Belfast sink and put in a single undercounted bowl (assuming your utility room has a sink and that is a dishwasher to the left of the sink)
  • Maybe consider a small fridge, when cooking I'm always in and out of the fridge and would be a pain having to go into the next room
  • What will be going in the cupboard next to the oven, if food in anyway reconsider as the ovens will give off heat that can have an effect
  • Possibly skip the tall cupboard and put wall units in around to the window, this will give you extra surface space next to the oven, handy when handling hot items
  • Will there be a bin, where will this go? Integrated or freestanding?
  • Utilise pullout pan draws opposed to cupboards were possible, much easier access to items and less bending down to see whats actually hiding at the back
  • What is to the left of the dishwasher? If a blanking plate avoid and try a different config that gives you useable space
  • Avoid mixed hight draw spacing (on adjacent units) for cleaner lines
  • What is the plan for worktop lighting, the lack of wall units will make that a challenge
  • Why are the doors on the breakfast counter (abet missing leg room) on the opposite side?
  • One advantage of non shaker doors are they are easier to clean plus less edges to bang/dent
  • Also just noticed your full high cupboard is a different hight to the oven unit, another reason to scrap it
I'm sure there's load more I could think of, I spent ages planning our kitchen before finally deciding in layout :p
 
Have covered a couple of those points already.

Good call on mixing the different drawer heights, hadn't really noticed that but it does look very messy. Also on the non shaker style cupboards, can see food getting caught in the doors. Maybe something like this one is a better option. Similar look but the doors are flat

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In the cupboard next to the oven, the plan was to put things like flour, oils etc. I think that should be ok with residual heat. We have food next to our current oven like that and it seems to be ok.

Can't remember what i specced next to the dishwasher but think it was a pullout spice drawer thing.

I'm hoping that because of having no wall units that we won't actually need worktop lighting as there'll be no units to block light coming from the spotlights.
 
I like those doors above, clean but still classical.

Still a very big cupboard to keep oil/flour in, I'd been tempted to utilise the top drawer under the hob for spices/oils (small oil containers), with the lower one for sauce/frying pans. In fact that's what I've done at home and its great when cooking, just pull out the draw look down and you can easily spot/access whatever is needed. Bulky items like flour put in the utility room larder.

Regarding the lighting without under unit lights will mean that whenever you want to do anything in the kitchen you will have to put the main lights on really bright to get enough light at worktop level. Bearing in mind you have an attached dinning room that will spill a lot of light into that area.
 
Yeah i love the above style. The above is a Magnet kitchen, struggling to find someone similar from many other companies though.

Well, flour, pasta, rice, packets and things like that. Probably also stuff like cling film/foil etc. I think we'd easily fill it.

We have a 3 drawer pan unit at the moment and don't think i could go back to non-pan drawers to be honest. The middle drawer houses all our spices.

Good point on the lights, maybe if we do go for shelves we can get some lighting hidden away in them.
 
couple of thoughts -
Having oven next to door and without adjacent surface to put hot objects, seems a safety'ish issue, so would have it on window wall, where its height may create a stronger partition with living room (=> so move hob back where it was too.)
I guess you like sinks without drainers ? personally a drainer and non-undercounted sinks (where you cannot wash big pans) is invaluable.
If you decided you need shelves, after all for, space, then might as well go cupboards (stuff not exposed to dust, looks uncluttered from living room)
 
I would...
scrap the cooker unit and have that as a place for a fridge
move the cooker under the hob
have wall units around the corner area
try an reuse the granite, its gorgeous

but each to their own, look for "the kitchen triangle" cooker-fridge-sink with work surface in-between them
 
Probably stick it in the Utility. That's where we have the bin at the moment and it's not a big inconvenience.

For all the comments about the worktop near the oven. It might just be me but 'd just pull the tray out the oven and put it on the bit to the left of the sink. To me it doesn't feel like it's too far.

I do think i'd going to try and convince the wife that some high cupboards are better, even if it's just along that wall where the oven is. Even if it's just for glassware.
 
Marvt74 said:
Probably stick it in the Utility. That's where we have the bin at the moment and it's not a big inconvenience.
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If that works for you then fair enough, but I know the wife & I would really miss the convenience of an instantly accessible bin. So much that I've included a dedicated bin cupboard in our new design, between the hob, main prep area, and sink. Granted we have more space to work with though, so you probably have other things that take priority.

I'm with you on the worktop near oven thing though, it's just a turn and half step at the most to reach your nearest work surface so doesn't seem like an issue.
 
Yeah, maybe we just don't put much stuff in the bin i dunno, but generally if preparing food i chuck any peelings/offcuts in some waste packaging and then stick it all in the bin at the end.

Maybe wouldn't be as bad if the kitchen was purely a kitchen but we found that this way any bin smells were contained in the utility room rather than wafting over to the back room area. Obviously that can be remedied by putting the bin bag out when it starts to smell but we're lazy :p

Got the quote from DIY Kitchens and it was a fair bit more than i expected (they adjusted the oven housing to match the height of the larder next to it)

Came to about £5400, although that did include £1300 for granite worktops which i suppose isn't too bad.

I've also spoken to a local joinery firm who do custom kitchens just to see what they can offer.
 
Seems a bit pricey. Ours came to a tad over £4500 without worktops, that's for 17 units, including 4 sets of pan drawers which bump up the price quite a lot. The units themselves are very reasonably priced, but stuff like trims, internal fittings etc soon stack up, especially the end trim panels. I think over £800 of ours is just for those and we were considering going without them at one point, especially since the unit carcasses are a pretty close colour match to the doors anyway. In the end we thought we might as well go the whole hog since we don't plan on doing it again any time soon!
 
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