Kitchen build log with structural work

The gas hob is only a twisted gas pipe away from where it was before, the design was about creating as little disruption while still working with what we're used to. Having a completely clean island is brilliant as we can spread out whatever we need on it without disrupting cooking/cleaning/sorting food shopping. We could have had the hob moved as a channel was dug out for electrics and the ducting run along the beam, but cooking dishes with sauces creates quite a bit of splatter and it's easier to clean a splashback than everything else coated on the island.

Again the sink is in the same place as the last one, it was supposed to be a few inches further right due to the cabinet and it allows food prep/washing with the sink while the dishwasher is being emptied. If it was more central (left) it would block access to the cupboards/drawers directly beside it on the left.

Flooring would have been so much easier right at the start but we couldn't do anything until the walls were down and we had a clear space, I thought the plan was to lay laminate again so this wasn't really an issue. If I'd known about the other plan I would have pushed for this sooner, especially with the amount of levelling needed. Our neighbour has just started on relocating their kitchen and has decided to put under floor heating in and solid tiles so their whole kitchen has to be removed before any work can start. With ours we've only had no gas for 10 days and no sink for 6 through the whole build. With better planning we probably could have built supporting brackets around the hob and sink to keep them in place while the floor was being done.

Worktop is laminate, for cost and practicality, although we went with a square edge over the curved to give it a nice clean solid line. Unfortunately our fitter decided to cut the worktop from both ends to fit so we lost the good square edge around the oven housing which is a bit of a disappointment.

Our biggest costs really have been labour with the amount of building work and size of the kitchen for it to be fitted, and for the floor.

OCD handle placement? You mean having 2 handles on the pan drawers instead of a single centre handle? This was intentional as the top drawers (one still missing, paint was chipped so a new front is being sent in the post) are half width on the drawers either side of the hob, so to keep clean lines they are aligned vertically instead of having a row of 5, then 2 rows of 3 which would not all line up. That whole hob run is designed with OCD in mind, the corner unit is a 900mm wide base with a 300mm door, so the high cupboard had to be a 600mm end cupboard with a 300 one next to it, with a 1000mm cupboard to line up with a pan drawer. 1000mm space for the hob, then 1000mm the other side, with 300mm to match up with the corner on the other side. All the vertical lines are lined up. Horizontal handles for pull out, vertical handles for cupboard.
 
No I meant handles in the middle section of the drawers. But looking at google people put them in two different places.Middle or top like yours.

My OCD obviously isn't that bad as I hadn't noticed the two sets...lol
 
Looks great, well done! We're doing something similar in our house at the moment. Out of interest which style of units did you go for from diy kitchens?
 
Steeps said:
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Thanks for response, you make a good point re: easiness to clean the island and one I'll put to thought actually.

Did you put electrics to the island? (what for?) I assume sockets? Do you know how deep the trench was /armoured cable? Is it an arseache to do?
 
Trench wasn't very deep, probably ~50-80mm down and it was easy to take up as it was the brickwork between the two rooms, a bit of ducting and a standard cable through it. Otherwise you'd need to chip the floor out (assuming solid) to lay a cable. Only got 4 double sockets on the edge for microwave, kettle and can opener (ultimate in laziness), the island has a 3 socket popup plug in the middle.

The island cupboards will house all the occasional use electrics such as toaster, bread maker, george, blender, mixer etc that don't need to be out permanently. The island is a bonus for us as we've never had use of a surface with access to both sides or with such depth. Having a central clear space in the kitchen gives it much more use than if it was populated with the sink or hob, as both now have space either side and can use the island.
 
I thought I had updated this thread with more recent pictures, but to be honest it doesn't look that different as we had to wait for the floor.

While waiting for the floor we looked at getting a solid roof fitted for the conservatory (through the patio doors on the kitchen) as like most other conservatories with the poly leaky roofs it was wasted space filled with junk. As the dining room is now in the kitchen, the old back sitting room which wasn't used much is to become the new dining room and the sofas and tellybox moved out to a functioning habitable conservatory. Again it's a company that has one job to do, they damaged the laminate that was already down due to an unexpected downpour and their protection system didn't work, and then brought the wrong guttering so had to do more work to get it to fit. This was completed last month and over what summer we had the ambient temperature with the new roof only fluctuated within 2'c of the main house, so the door between the conservatory and the kitchen conveniently fell out while inspecting the floor and won't fit back in the gap. It's really opened up the space!

Floor was supposed to have been fitted this/next week for the kitchen so all the appliances back out and essentials so we don't have to touch it over the weekend to allow it to dry and not get marked. They did a full survey, damp testing and a fixed price was agreed fit the floor for all work including removal the tiles (even though that surface was better than the kitchen side). They insisted that all work was paid up front before work could start, nothing unusual or risky as it is a local department store. Unfortunately they've now decided while taking up the tiles that additional DPC material is needed as the tiles were doing that job, requiring an extra week on the schedule, 2 more visits for extra coatings, 2 layers of screed and an extra £500 on top of the quote that we had already paid extra for with the removal of the tiles. They're going to get a nasty surprise when they ask for that payment because as far as we're concerned the price was agreed at the time of the site survey and they wouldn't do the work until the job was paid in full so we have fulfilled our side of the contract to have a suitable finished floor laid, they can claim the rest from their liability insurance.

Also finding more shortcuts from the kitchen fitter. The dishwasher was wired in to a plug in the cabinet next to the unit, easy access and very useful to be able to turn off and remove should we need to replace it... but he boxed the cable in so tight we've had to cut the plug off to remove the dishwasher to get the floor down. 3 sets of taps under the sink, none of them labelled and only a hole drilled to access to turn them so can't see where they all go. Will post more pics when the floor is laid :)
 
What floor you getting? I presume karndean /amtico (posh vinyl tiles) as screeding etc?

Im getting karndean when after my kitchen is fitted next couple of weeks. Fitter said it was OK to fit after the kitchen in which suits me as it means will have more working beforehand.
 
It is Karndean, got all the flooring here ready to go down. The first layer of screed is down and looks great considering how uneven the floor was (and that was supposedly screeded although 18 years ago).

Floor fitter insisted he would not lay the floor unless a new DPF layer was laid (screed - DPF - more screed). Department floor surveyor said (and quoting loosely) "If I told you at the time you'd need a new DPF when taking the tiles up it would have added £500 to the cost and you wouldn't have agreed to have the work done", so basically they lied to get the job and left the fitter to give us the bad news, he was not told about the tiles when he came to lay the screed, just that he was lifting an old floor.
 
Is that because it's concrete floor out of interest? The DPF (damp proof fill??)

What was initial quote? Ive only had one bloke in to quote for karndean however he seems quite competent. Cost £1710 fitted for ~£600 worth of tiles at 29metres squared
 
Do children use the kitchen much -
I was intrigued by your choice of hob without a continuous grid for positioning pans, since that can make pans less stable if they are nudged.

It will be interesting to see how you position the lights to avoid shadows in the sink, roller blinds for the window too ?
 
Our quote was about £1550 for 24sqm including lifting and disposal of current tiles on the floor. There's quite a lot to fit around (island unit, wall pillars, fridge area, 3 door frames) so knew the labour cost would be higher. The original tiles were fixed to the floor with bitumen giving the DP layer (which was known at the survey) so a new layer would have to be laid. They now want an extra £500 (supposedly at cost, no profit!) to lay a bitumen layer on top of a thin screed they have now laid instead of the thick screed, then another thin layer of screed on top. My arguement is: They knew from the survey this needed doing but didn't pass on to the fitter the correct information (their fault) and we don't owe any extra for screed because they've only laid a thin layer instead of a thick one, the floor is currently not level. They wanted the fitter to lay the floor without any DPF on a solid base 70's floor which means after a year the flooring would start to lift and Karndean would not have been happy about that.

The hob is great, using the same pans we had a traditional one before and unless the pans were dead centre they never felt stable, very easy to become unstable if the pan overhung a corner. Now with this one as most of the weight is in the centre the pans sit better and feel more supported. There are no young kids currently in the house but this design isn't any worse than the usual grid designs for pan stability.

In the old kitchen we had a 3 spot strip on the cupboard next to the sink to get light near it as the old fixture was poor due to the bulbs used, we were planning on doing the same again this time but as we have more spots on the run, shallower cupboards nearby and much brighter lighting we didn't feel a need to put additional lighting on the sink. A blind will be going up at some point, we did have one on the old kitchen years ago but it broke as the brackets were not that strong (cheap Ikea one).

Had we known how much of the ceiling needed work and the costs associated with it I think we might have changed to spots or twin fixtures rather than the old central fixings, but it works fine and adds a bit of dimension (contrasting line) rather than trying to align spots.
 
Steeps said:
Distance between island and drawer units, was trying to get as close to the 1200mm "lifetime home" recommendation but due to the pillar for the steel it had to be reduced to 1100mm. There is a 1400x1700 turning area at either side of the island.

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Are you using this as your design bible?

I'm drawing up plans for my kitchen at the moment and 1200/1100mm seems somewhat excessive - that's a good turn and step to get to the island from the kitchen counter. 800/900mm feels more usable to me.
 
Not so much a design bible otherwise I would have strictly kept to 1200mm and made sure the thresholds are completely level. 1100mm feels good as it's wide enough to access cupboards from both sides without doors/drawers banging, or someone using the hob with access to still walk behind or using the island just off to the side. 800mm would have been far too narrow if more than one person was to use the kitchen which would defeat the point of trying to open up the space.

Flooring went down last week, more plastering work on the old door frame happening tomorrow, kitchen fitter coming back on Wednesday to finish off kickboards and fridge/freezer enclosure. Should hopefully be done by the end of the week :)
 
Nothing wrong really with 900 for an island but one thing to consider is how much space access to the washer/dishwasher would need when loading/unloading. That's not really an issue for us as our dishwasher opens out onto a central space with 1400+ to get around it and far enough away from the drawers/cupboards to make unloading quick and painless. Basically our island is treated as a very deep worktop that you can walk down the other side of as that wall was not suitable for worktop/cupboards, otherwise a U shaped kitchen with a central table probably would have been fitted. A 1200 gap would have given us a 750mm walkway around the other side of the island but the pillar meant we had to push it back in 100mm so the 600mm cupboard door could be opened. Still gives us enough space on the main side to open a 600mm door and <500mm pan drawer without them coming into contact. Our old kitchen only had 1400mm between worktops and that felt cramped with 2 people trying to work, 1100 feels good as someone can be preparing food while another is watching the pans and dishwasher being emptied at the same time, something we couldn't do before.
 
mattyg said:
these are 2200mm wide and 2500mm tall. Really make a difference BUT they are sails if its windy

Rear Lounge BiFolds


DIY Kitchens for the Utility (wanted to make sure we were happy with the quality so tested with the Utility room.

20170531_084231

More than happy to put them in the main Kitchen.



OP looking good mate. Have you decided on flooring yet.
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Hi matty,

Sorry to bring up such an old post but we are building an extension now and I need to spec some bifold doors for our space which is also 2200mm wide. Do you mind telling me what you paid? And they are aluminium yeah? Thanks
 
I just fitted 3000’s and paid £1971 plus VAT plus fitting plus glass. That was cost to the trade.
Fitting was £450 including 2 side opening windows as well, and glass, which was ultra high performance Saint Gobain, with a U Value of 1.0 , was just shy of a grand inc. So all in, fitted, just shy of £4K.
 
SimonR said:
I just fitted 3000’s and paid £1971 plus VAT plus fitting plus glass. That was cost to the trade.
Fitting was £450 including 2 side opening windows as well, and glass, which was ultra high performance Saint Gobain, with a U Value of 1.0 , was just shy of a grand inc. So all in, fitted, just shy of £4K.
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Oh jesus I hope mine doesn't run that expensive. I really cant justify so much.

I doubt I would be speccing such posh sounding glass though. I'm a pauper lol.
 
The frames prices were cost to the trade direct from the manufacturer, so you could add upto 25% on top of the frames price if you buy through a window company. As this is going to be a fairly sizeable opening into a largish room 40m2 that catches a lot of sun, I wanted to make sure that we had minimal solar gain in summer and maximum insulation to prevent heat loss in winter. The glass was Saint Gobain 6mm Securit C-Lite and I was wrong on the pricing, I just rechecked my invoice, £1k was my total glass bill, the glazing on the doors was £400. So my bill was £3400 for the doors fitted, which was over a grand cheaper than the mainstream window companies were quoting.
 
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