Do's and Dont's +NEW KITCHEN

J

joshea

Registered User
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183
Hi

In the process of designing/deciding on kitchen for new build.

Would be greatful if people would add to a list of
things to do and things to watch out for.

The kitchen area itself is large enough (4.5 X 6.5m)

Cheers in advance
 
consider colour of floor tiles after you put kitchen in or decide on timber, as your more limited the other way around
make sure you put alot of plugs in
 
We got an Ikea kitchen from Scotland about 2 years ago. In hindsight i wouldn't do it again.

1. Allot of parts never arrived in delivery. Had to phone ikea about 10 times. They did send out parts when asked but some of these also didn't arrive, i thinke there were 4 deliveries in all.

2. It cost a fortune to have someone put it together. There are so many parts in each drawer etc.. It takes ages even to put together one drawer.

3. Got a gloss red kitchen and some of the side panels were a completely different red to the doors of the presses etc. Very dissapointing.

4. It didn't fit together very well. Extra edging had to be purchased to cover up some of the edges that just didn't fit together correctly.

5. Carpenter ended up costing as much as the kitchen. 6k kitchen + 6k labour.

6. Allot of stress.
 
I thought I had allowed plenty of sockets.....not so at all! Would have opted for a couple in the floor as I have an island unit, if I had of thought of it at the time - which would have allowed greater flexibility for placing of appliances.

I have just base units as I wanted an extra window - kitchen is in the corner at the rear of the property and love the extra light and more views of the garden. I have two tall cupboards both with sliding shelves instead of static ones - was €200 more at the time for these but so worth it for the ease of access.

Make sure you have a stopcock under the sink. My builder wasn't going to put one in, til I insisted (not sure if that was perculiar to my builder or the norm).

I drew out a scale version of the kitchen (and main bathroom), along with scale versions of appliances and units....played around with them until I was happy.

Think very hard about the placement of any radiators in such a large room, as it/they can limit you too.
 

I put in an IKEA kitchen last year & didn't have any of these difficulties.

One think I wouldn't do again is have the dishwasher in a place where it's side is against a wall - we get lots of dirty splash marks on the wall now from loading dirty plates / cups in - constantly washing down the wall but some splashes have stained.
 
Think very carefully about the location of your fridge, sink and oven. If at all possible, it should work like an assembly line as you move from one task to another.

I would agree completely with the sockets. And get phone & tv connection.

Give yourself plenty of counter top space. You'd be surprised how much of it gets used by fruit bowls, bread bins, mixers etc. etc.

Give some thought to your lighting. Do you want one light or a number of spot lights?

Best of luck with it.
 
Plain high gloss units whilst lovely show up every mark and need a lot of wiping down and polishing. Plain coloured tiles (splashback and floor) also show up a lot of dirt. Speckled or patterned would be better.

Double or 1.5 sink.

Have the cooker and fridge relatively near each other as there is a lot of traffic between them and you dont want to be crossing the room.

Double bins - recycle & other.

Plenty of sockets.

Plenty of worktop space. Conceal microwaves in units for example.

Consider the lighting in the room. Will units be right up against a window and impede incoming light? If a dark room, go for light coloured reflective units (bearing in mind the above comment on high gloss), tiles etc

Extra wiring for lights under counter, in cupboards and kickboard if necessary.

"Pelmet" (dont know the exact name) over the sink from cupboard to cupboard. Make sure you have room for window dressings.
 
I too have an Ikea kitchen and am delighted with it - even the carpenter fitting it complemented the quality of it and how well it went together. Also all the bits that I was supposed to get I did get, and they all matched. And I don't see how it would any more expensive to install than any other kitchen.

This was my first new kitchen and some of the things I never had before but am delighted with are:

A peninsula unit - would never go back to an L-shaped kitchen. Not ever losing stuff off the edge of those carousels for corner cabinets, and being able to face into the room while you're preparing food is the best (especially if you have guests or you have a TV in the room). Obviously you'd also get this if you had an island unit.

Deep drawers in the base units instead of a door with shelves inside, you get so much more useable space.

Those larder units with pull out-drawers inside, they're great because you can customise the placement of the drawers which you can't with a normal drawer unit where the drawers have fronts on the outside.

An under-sink pull-out unit that has four bins for sorting your rubbish, saves so much floorspace and looks much neater.

The handle of the unit under my sink doubles as a towel rail for a tea-towel, which I like but if you don't like that you may want to make sure your unit handles aren't suitable for hanging stuff off.
 
dubgem said:
Deep drawers in the base units instead of a door with shelves inside, you get so much more useable space.
Click to expand...

Seconded, drawers are considerably more practical. They will be more expensive so be prepared for that but I believe they are the only way to go.

Don't put one of those holes in your island open to a bin below. These became popular in the more traditional hand painted kitchens. They are a filthy feature.

Do create a press in a wall of units where you have your kettle, toaster etc. plugged in. You open the door(s) to use them and close the doors to hide them away. It's effectively a section of worktop behind a door. Regardless of how much you spend on kettles etc they all started to become shabby over time.
 
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- Try to have your draining board at a good slope to the sink.
- If you are having 2 sinks beside each other, make sure the kitchen top between them is cut lower too otherwise water overflows from there.
- Make sure you have a bin location if no utility rm- it can seem like nothing but then afterwards can be awkward to fit into an already designed area.
- You can never have too many socket locations

Larders are brilliant for storage. Oven stack is great for no bending/lifting.
Hope that helps
 
Here are the things I hate about my kitchen:
Built in appliances need replacing, will probably wreck the kitchen when taken out
Boiler guy can't access boiler as cabinet is odd shaped, we had to take it apart, its never looked right since
Cupboards unpractical, I have clear containers in them all so thy work like drawers
Wood trim on worktop, aged badly
Wine rack, plate rack waste of space, give me cupboads
 
sas said:
Do create a press in a wall of units where you have your kettle, toaster etc. plugged in. You open the door(s) to use them and close the doors to hide them away
Click to expand...

sas, does the steam from the kettle not wreck the inside of the cupboard? (because this sounds like a good idea othewise)
 
Have a food disposal unit next to the sink if you can, they are really brilliant, it's quite amazing how much less refuse you have, and how much less messy it becomes.

I wouldn't put too much money on the kitchen units themselves, I think it isn't necessary if you plan carefully and use good quality worktops, taps and appliances. Besides they can date quickly.

If you have enough space a big island is great with seating.

Personally dislike cupboards fixed on the wall with other units below. I prefer just units on the ground, none on the wall and/or full height units.

Like large fridges with ice dispensers and larders, these are very practical.

If possible a separate utility with the noisy appliances and plenty of storage space.
 
I had a lovely kitchen installed everything was perfect - then I went and bought a larger ironing board - with regards to storage it doesn't fit width wise.

I saw a lovely "gadget" in an island recently - when you pushed down on a cetain spot - an extension thingy popped up that had the capacity for 6 plugs - neat and tidy it looked amazing.
 
dubgem said:
sas, does the steam from the kettle not wreck the inside of the cupboard? (because this sounds like a good idea othewise)
Click to expand...

When I've seen it done they literally left at least as much space above the countertop in the press as you would between the countertop and your wall hung units in a typical kitchen layout.

Sometimes its a space that could be 3 foot high with very shallow shelves with spices and knick knacks on them. It's not something you can accomdate unless you have alot of space to play with.

I've seen it in a few show rooms and in several kitchen magazines.

As you've said though, there is always a concern where water and moisture are involved.
 
Counter space, counter space & counter space.

As Vanilla said - at least some of it without wall cupboards.

Double drainer for the sink too.

Think very carefully about unit door widths - e.g. you might think you are being 'clever' by squeezing something in somewhere but if you hardly use it what's the feckin' point???

(Belive me, I know)
 
If you have space, consider a walk-in larder (possibly in a corner). If not, then definitely one full-length larder unit with pull out shelves etc.

You should also consider a separate drinking water tap with built in filter.
 
If you are going with an island then include sockets on the island - very useful !

Also large bins - hate those tiny bins under the sink !! We have two bins in one pull out press - nearly the size of the dish washer space. They hold loads but emptied regularly because of the smell but at least you can throw stuff in easily because they are large....not bending down trying to get stuff into a shopping bag near the floor !!!!

Have seen a dishwasher raised off the floor - makes it easier for loading but the space on top seems to have no use as it was a bit too high.

Also seen a washer / dryer raised off the floor in a utility - this seemed to work well as the space above was a good size press.
 
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