Our project began just over a year ago. We had plans to add on a garden room to our house and also more plans to rework our small utility room into a larger space. When Shona came to visit she drew up some ideas as we asked, but also made the suggestion that we were mad! Why would we spend lots of money on a beautiful new oak framed garden room, and a new utility room without doing the kitchen?
It was a very good point. So last year, we undertook the garden room project and whilst all of this was going on, considered our options on the kitchen and utility room.
Taking Shona’s advice we opted to shelve the big utility room project and spend our budget on the kitchen instead. Having made this decision, we needed to do all of the design remotely as Covid restrictions meant site visits were not practical. It’s amazing how much you can get done on-line. Using all of the tools we had at our disposal, we talked design, storage options, lighting and so on. When restrictions were lifted, Susie and Shona visited site to get absolute final measurements and draw up accurate plans. The 3D representations are below.
There is a huge amount of detail that goes into a kitchen design and so much depends on your own preference. There is literally no right answer, it all depends on what you like! The kitchen planner does a really good job of helping you think about what you want to achieve and what is important. Once completed the experts can get on with the ‘how we are going to achieve this’
The joy of having your kitchen handmade, is that you can have essentially ANYTHING you want! The slight drawback to this is that there are a lot more choices to make. Everything from the wall colours, unit colours, unit styles, drawer styles, floor style, the worktop material and colour, the style of cooker, sink, taps, tiles, splashbacks, smart storage, pan drawers, handles, switches, lighting. The list seemed to be never ending – Having someone that knows exactly what-works-with-what is invaluable.
The worktop we went for in the end is a Caesarstone Quartz worktop 30mm in organic white with a pencil edge and a polished finish. We had samples of all sorts of different options, but the Caesarstone gave us what we wanted. We had set about ‘testing’ our sample by using it as a chopping block, leaving red wine on it overnight, rubbing turmeric in it, leaving lemon juice on it, placing hot pans directly from the oven and any other general mistreatment we could think of. The sample cleaned up perfectly every time, so we have high hopes for our worktop, although it will be more carefully looked after.
We have also moved away from our aged Esse all electric range to a Stoves Range with a Gas hob and 3 ovens. Whilst the Esse was a great looking we wanted something more practical, with a gas hob. We opted for a butler style sink to replace the very small sink we had, We have open shelving at one end of the kitchen and a custom built piece of furniture at the other end. Everything is smart storage, we have 2 magic corners and even the cupboards have sliding shelves inside so we can make the best use of space. This is so effective that we are ending up with far more usable space without the overhead cupboards than we had previously.
We got paint samples and tile samples. The units themselves will be London Stone which works with the walls which are a combination of Dimity and All White. The tiles are Marlborough Vintage Organza which being handmade have a really lovely natural colour variation to them. We have our fingers crossed we have got all of these decisions right!
So our plans were agreed, a mountain of choices have been made, and the start date of May 3rd was agreed – that’s today!
As I write a skip has been delivered and our old kitchen is being put into it.
Progress report tomorrow !
Simon C
If you are considering remodelling your kitchen, utility or boot-room, we have lots of ideas in our brochures as well as the galleries for ideas. Get in touch with us for more information
