kitchen recommendations

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kitchen recommendations
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wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 7:27 pm Post subject:
Yep - its absolutely marvellous. I wanted one so much, I insisted on buying the gubbins and our carpenter making a front for it, as they kitchen supplier himself gets discounts through didn't do them. It's great, and I'm having two in the next kitchen - they ought to do mini ones for spices too. That'd be worth having......

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 12:30 am Post subject:

When I do up my kitchen i'm going to dispense with the wall mounted eye level units altogether and have some of those nice tubular steel shelves and rails from Ikea, the ones that you can hang things from, and mounted at a shorta*se-friendly height.

There's no point opening a cupboard door only to have things fall on your head 'cos you couldn't reach to put the things in there properly in the first place! Even with a step I can't get things on the top shelves

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 6:44 am Post subject:

nettie wrote:

a shorta*se-friendly height

I always thought you were tall. Must just be the way you type

We've only room for one set of cupboards in the kitchen (perhaps we should do pictures too

) so one wall has several tall wall cupboards, not even TD can reach to the top of them without a chair (must get a step ladder thingy) but they are reasonably handy for keeping rarely-used things stored. Unfortunately because Ikea were the only place with appropriately fitting units we bought the carasses (is that the right word?) from there, only to now discover that no other place sells doors to fit 'em. And while Ikea is famous for "paint your own" wood stuff, do they do unfinished cupboard doors? Go on, guess. So we've either got to wait till we settle for another one from their range or til TD has time to make some

Till then it's an open plan easy access look....

ele

Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 814
Location: Derby

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 11:48 am Post subject:
I like the cupbboards that go right upto the ceiling because otherwise stuff starts getting put on top of the cupboards, thinking about it most of my commonly used pans are actually up there, ... courtesy of my hubbie's emptying the dishwasher technique, I could post a pic to demonstrate but it ain't pretty luckily I'm 5 ft 7 and good at standing on tip toes

tawny owl

Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 12:27 pm Post subject:

bernie wrote:

A bit of an update - popped into B&Q late yesterday afternoon and the design man came out at 5.30. He has quoted us �6300 for the kitchen

of which �2800 is fitting

Ouch! That sounds very expensive. If he's given you a plan, try pricing it up yourself with some other shops rather than getting a salesman in. Don't use their fitters - you should be able to find a decent carpenter through personal recommendation to do that. It's only a flatpack, for goodness sake!

tawny owl

Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 12:33 pm Post subject:

nettie wrote:

In theory, that's a nice idea. In practice, unless you use the stuff on the shelves all the time, you will end up having to clean that nasty black sticky mixture of dust and grease that gets on the top of cupboards in pretty much any kitchen (unless it's not used for cooking) off everything on the shelves, and it's a much worse job than cleaning the tops of cupboards. If you don't like the solid look of cupboards, you could put glass doors on, and there's nothing to stop you mounting them a bit lower down.

tawny owl

Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 12:34 pm Post subject:

[quote="Bugs"]

nettie wrote:

only to now discover that no other place sells doors to fit 'em. And while Ikea is famous for "paint your own" wood stuff, do they do unfinished cupboard doors? Go on, guess. So we've either got to wait till we settle for another one from their range or til TD has time to make some

Till then it's an open plan easy access look....

Couldn't you get some place like Just Doors to make them? Or a handy carpenter?

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 12:57 pm Post subject:

tawny owl wrote:

Couldn't you get some place like Just Doors to make them? Or a handy carpenter?

All we want is wooded, i.e. cheap pine, shaker style doors that we can paint. Having a good look at the various offers it would be cheaper to get the solid birch doors from IKEA and either keep them as they are or paint them than it would be to buy MDF doors from some of these door companies.

As for making them, it doesn't seem like we would save too much this way and then there's the time.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 6:45 pm Post subject:

tawny owl wrote:

and there's nothing to stop you mounting them a bit lower down.

Yes, there is - things won't fit underneath them! Mind you, if your one of us (ie a shortar*e!) you could always mount the worktops lower down too.

Ri

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 05 9:20 pm Post subject:

Most kitchen carcasses come with legs approx six inches long and adjustable to take up any slight uneveness of the floor. If you need to set the whole thing lower then the legs can be disposed of. The only concern with doing that is that the carcasses will pretty soon blow if they get wet. Shorter legs, say 1.5 inch long could easily be fashioned out of hardwood/etc to lower the whole kitchen by a required amount. Then the wortops would be lower, hence even if the standard gap between worktop and wall units is adhered to the wall units would obviously be lower.
If you are clever and plan well the space which is usually wasted ontop of the wall units and decorated with cornice can be utilised by using say 300/400mm doors(Dependiong on the height of your ceiling) turned sideways as fronts for extra, seldom used storage space on the condition you choose a design which has relatively plain fascias so turning through 90 degrees will not look out of place. If storage space is at a premium it is worth considering.

tawny owl

Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 563
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Fri Dec 02, 05 2:22 pm Post subject:
I think Ikea do a choice of leg heights.

ejc-free

Joined: 19 Jan 2005
Posts: 117
Location: Near to Cerizay in la Belle France

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 05 2:20 pm Post subject:

Swoping with friends can also work well - we bought a " job lot" of slate tiles for our kitchen floor - we had too many for our needs - so swapped our spares with a friend who made me the most gorgious oak butchers block type table to my design for my height (I'm only 5'4") with a rack underneath for bottles etc and hamgers for my towels / team towels - we were both really pleased with our trade.

I also have re-used the wooden work surface piece cut-out for our sink to be fitted as another wooden chopping block - we just got the carpenter to round the ends off for us.

bernie-woman

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7824
Location: shropshire

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 05 3:18 pm Post subject:
Well we are all ready to order the kitchen - just waiting for the time to be right (i.e sale time ) Now onto the job of finding someone to fit it and finding a builder for the extension

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 05 8:03 pm Post subject:
Good idea about the cupboards - could probably use drawer fronts, if you vould get a carpenter (ie a proper one!) to put hinges on the bottom, so they flap down. Bugger. wish I'd thought of that.

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 05 9:37 am Post subject:

bernie wrote:

Well we are all ready to order the kitchen - just waiting for the time to be right (i.e sale time

)

Now onto the job of finding someone to fit it and finding a builder for the extension

Sale starts Boxing Day usually

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