Kitchen Design: Do's and Don'ts

FrankGrimes

Going for a kitchen design session at http://www.in-house.ie tomorrow. I know a guy who can get me a good discount there, though I’d like to hear any advice people have on both kitchen design, and moreso, opinions on all the fancy drawers and gadgets that can be had.

It’s a kitchen dining room 7 metres long and 3.2 metres wide and we’ll be going with their Naxos high gloss cream finish modern looking doors (or possibly the red gloss ones), and the floor will be acacia (like walnut) with tiles in the U of the U-shaped kitchen part.

Have thought through the layout and have it down to two options:

1. Sink will be at window (point A in the attached image), cooker will on the right hand wall as you walk in (point , with a breakfast bar at the section where kitchen meets dining area (point C)
2. Sink will be at window (point A), cooker will be at the breakfast bar (point C).

Any opinions on the pros and cons of each of these ideas?

I’d really like to hear peoples’ thoughts on all the things like the fancy corner units with the shelves that spin, the full height larder drawer units that you pull out as one and have several shelves on them, fancy flexible hose taps, and things like that. I’ve seen the fancy units break quite easily so am wondering are they worth it or are they just gimmicks? So what do you have in your kitchen and love, and what do you wish you had and hadn’t gone for?

Thanks.

kadman

Hi frankgrimes,

First thing that immediately springs to mind, is the safety issue regarding the cooker location , and door swing.

As your set up stands, anyone entering the kitchen from the utility side will be brushing by the cooker. Especially with children , this is an accident prone arrangement.

Better to reverse the hinge side of the door, so that it opens back to the cooker. This protects both the entrant ...and the chef;)

Of course thats if i read this correctly

kadman

mrbungle

2nd thing, try Neueks-Newmans (Sp?) they're in Finglas beside Joe Duffy BMW, their prices seem to be coming in at about half of what In-House Santry offer, also much better service when I went in there.

vallo

Sounds like your set on putting the sink at the window.
Given that we used to spend so much time washing dishes/children/food at the kitchen sink, good lighting was important.
These days the sink is really just used for rinsing things and scrubbing the odd pot, so light and a view of the kids playing in the garden while you scrub isn't so important in my view.
And to contradict myself, I have one of those hose attachments for the tap and it is fab. Also get at least one large sink that you can fit a big saucepan and handle into. A second sink is good, but can be quite small.
Hope this helps.

CJhaughey

We fitted the Naxos kitchen recently, we went for the carousel type corner unit shelves, the magic corner was just too expensive and looked like it was fragile too.
The pull out shelves are good but bear in mind that you will need to fit the rigid shelves as well to make sure that the carcass is stiff enough.
I like the finish of the naxos and with a small child it is easy to keep as well, I would tend to avoid the flexy taps as they are only something waiting to break.
make sure that you know what you want to do with the corner units doors, we were supplied with a length of piano hinge but I didn't fit it. I preferred to use a hinge each side and put a curved aluminium piece behind the middle to hide the gap.
It is my opinion that two doors are too much to fit onto the hinges that they supply.
Regarding the wall units we opted for the glass doors on the upper side of the units to break the uniformity, I also wired low voltage halogen lights inside the cabinets and slimline fluoro units under the cabinets.
Be aware that the supplied spring type door openers will struggle to hold the doors of the 900 wall units up, go for the gas strut type, I wil have to retrofit these myself as they are only good for the 600 wall units, not the 900's.
I also fitted oriental block formica worktop looks good and is waaaaay cheaper than anything else.
I will try and think of anything else.

dogg_r_69

Firstly, nice choice of kitchen It's about the only one I like from there, there was one more but I can't remember the name now.
Right, if I was puting in a tall unit, i'd place it near the door under (B) From the drawing it's about the only place it can be put. I would go for the pull-out in them Anyone i ever saw them with seems more than happy with them.
For the worktop, go with formica. They sell Getacore there but i don't think it's worth it really It sctraches pretty easily I know it can be refinished but there's work in that
One problem I do have with there kitchens is with the holes that are prebored for the screws of the hinges. They just don't hold up to wear and tear They'd be better off with normal screws not the grub type screws they have anyway
Also i think (kadman mentioned this also) cookers shouldn't be placed at the end of wortops or near doors. I think it's dangerous

FrankGrimes

Thanks a lot for the feedback, has sparked some further thoughts and discussions for us.

CJ- not sure I get what you mean by spring type door openers but I'm sure I'll find out. I do know C&C kitchen cabinets have a soft closing feature which is handy to avoid slamming.

How did you find the wiring of the cabinet and worktop lights CJ?

Kadman - we're thinking of putting the cooker at B and have the fridge between it and the door, possibly with a pull out larder between the cooker and fridge as suggested. The cooker would be over a metre from the door - is that still too near to be safe?

noby

My 2 cents:

Are you going to usually use the dining table or breakfast bar for eating?
We have two young kids, and putting the fridge closest to the dining table (C in your plan) has saved a lot of leg work, as you go to and fro for drinks etc.
Either way I would, as you mentioned, keep the cooker between the fridge and the sink.

Where are you putting the dishwasher? (presuming you're getting one)
A lot of people advised me to put it into the utility room. I wouldn't do this. We put ours right next to the sink - from standing in the one spot you can load the dishwasher from the sink; standing at the other side of the dishwasher you can unload everything straight into the cupboards/drawers. And don't worry about the noise factor - I have an open plan house, and a running dishwasher is only a background hum, that's easily drowned out by the tv. We usually put it on at night anyway.

Lastly, get plenty of pot drawers.

tribesman

FrankGrimes wrote:

we're thinking of putting the cooker at B and have the fridge between it and the door, possibly with a pull out larder between the cooker and fridge as suggested. The cooker would be over a metre from the door - is that still too near to be safe?

I don't think you'll have room for all of this. The room is 3.2 metres wide right? The door with architrave will take up a metre of that leaving you 2200 mm. The units along the wall with the sink will take up 600 mm leaving 1600 mm. The fridge will need 600 and the larder will need at least 500 (600 preferably). This will only leave 500 best case which is not enough for a cooker. The cooker will need 600 mm to fit but even if you could find another 100mm somewhere to make it fit it would not be advisable to have a hob right up against the larder.

What about have a 600 larder at the door and using an undercounter fridge? These are a bit small on their own but maybe you could put a bigger fridge in the utility aswell for items that you need less often.

One advantage of putting the cooker on this wall is that you can hide the ducting for the extractor on top of the units. If you put the cooker at C you'd have to use an island extractor and venting it could be tricky if the house is a two-storey. You could maybe take up floor boards and route the ducting between the joists.

ifah

we have the tap with pull out hose, carousel larder unit and a tall 300 mm pull out larder unit - all of which are great. tbh you won't need a much wider unit (ie 500 or 600) - you can fit about 8 boxes of cereal on two out of 5 shelves. carousel larder holds loads of stuff - mainly foodstuffs for us - i'm not too sure how it would hold up if we loaded it up with crockery/pans.

db

For the lighting - get a light fitted under the window pelmet above the sink.
The best thing we got in our kitchen was an Insinkerator waste disposal unit. It fits under the small second sink and disposes of all your organic waste. You can get one with an air switch that fits into the front tap hole in the sink (most sinks can be fitted with the drainer on either side so there are holes at both back and front for the taps and you usually need to blank out the front one). If you drink wine, get a wine rack wall unit with units with glass doors either side where you can display your good glassware.

CJhaughey

The Wiring of the cabinet lights was very easy, I used the 230v feed from the wall and just ran the wires down the inside of the cabinet, I drilled holes and put very small square conduit with a snap on lid to cover the wiring for the slimline fluoro but you could actually run the wire down the back of the wall units if you needed too.
The halogen are 12v and I just split off the feed to the transformer, the lights are Robus white and they can be surface mount or inset.

The wall units have doors which open vertically, the hinges for the glass doors are gas strut type, the hinges for the solid mdf doors are a spring type which are not strong enough, make sure that you use the gas strut type
I don't agree with insinkerators as they increase the load on th sewage system, I compost everything it is easy and you don't have to pay for fertilizer!

joemc99

Hay, we got our kitchen there too, same doors as you are getting.

Space does not really seem an issue for you, so heres one idea that really made a differnce to our kitchen
- We got a Iroko solid wood 900mm worktop instead of the std 600mm
- Cut 150mm off, this leaves a 750mm worktop.
- Use the 150mm as a backsplash all the way around, no need for tiles.

Result is stunning, loads of worktop space, etc......you will not regret it! Floor units will need to be away from the wall a little, but not a big deal. End panels will need a little bit extra to cope with the extra depth.

beldin

God is everyone getting these doors.
What handles did people go for with these doors. The quote we got for them was for about 300 euro for handles alone for the long bar handles. I think I have found a place on ebay that does them for a lot cheaper... Am getting a couple to see how they look..

AdrianR

Re the original placement for the cooker, had you taken extraction into consideration? Probably doesn't matter now.
Try and put the fridge at the end by the door if it's a tall one.


Some tips:

Cabinet lighting: Halogens are power hungry and potentially dangerous (Get very hot) I got some suitable energy saving lights from an electrical wholesaler, they were round with low profile and only 7W each and look great, and easily as bright as 20W halogens, they don't need a transformer either. I didn't get any lighting for under the window pelmet or cornice yet but I would imagine that there are some energy saving types available now.

45deg wall corner units are much nicer than L shape, particularly if you go for a glass door with a cabinet light.

Get dampners for the doors and drawers, some drawer units may allready have them build in.

Make sure you're extractor fan is as quiet as possible.

TempestSabre

We have depp L shaped corner presses and curse ever time I have to use them. Awkard as heck to use and usually you end up wasting the space at the very back. If I had the time I'd love to rip it all out and do it ourselves.

elliebn

we have an appointment to see them on saturday morning but have already decided on the naxos fronts and iroko worktop, we have a friend who fits kitchens so it should bring the cost down slightly. out of interest does anyone wish to say how much their kitchen cost, our kitchen diner is 6 metres x 5.4 metres but the units will run in an L-shape (spanning 3m x 3.3m)and we are having an island unit about 1.2 x .66m.

TKK

For anyone installing an extractor might I suggest that the vent pipe be metal.

A guy down the road from us had a stove-top fire which went up into the extractor and continued to burn ultimately melting the pipe (which was a sewer pipe basically) and setting the wall cavity insulation on fire. Messy, very messy.

FrankGrimes

thanks again for the interesting replies, much appreciated.

I'll post up the two design plans we came up with later. At the moment I'm starting to look into sourcing the glass raised breakfast bar we want. We saw it in a magazine ad but don't know the right name or source for it. Its kinda like whats in this link but the legs would be diagonal and would bring the glass up and out from the worktop (so you can get your stool in under it). Anyone know the correct name for these or where I might find them? I wonder would it be possible to get the glass madeup from a glass company if I could find the right legs for it?

Am also searching online for deals on those fancy pull out spray/mixer combination designer taps and have found a few good prices, will post up the best we find.