Help with kitchen space

Dazi

When I had a tiny kitchen, and I mean tiny, the only workspace I had was a bit over the top of the washing machine, nothing else. My son knew how it bugged me and I came home one day to find a loose bit of worktop over the top of the sink and drainer, he'd popped into the local kitchen fitters and cheekily asked for an offcut for free. It was great made so much difference.

Mind you, I think he just wanted me to make a pie, I had told him there was no room to roll any pastry :rotfl:

So thats one idea, also think the dropdown table is a good idea too, we used to have one when I was little that was attached to the wall.

jay11_2

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Improving your kitchen will enable you to sell your flat for a better price.

Might also be worth thinking that the next step up the housing ladder wouldn't be from a small 1 bed flat to a 3 bed house; a large 2 bed flar,possibly with garden, is likely to be a more manageable step.

Hi ONW, if I remember correctly, OP's flat is a 2 bed, but spare bedroom is used for fridge etc,

jay

flea72

honestly as you need so few units, it wouldnt cost that much, your main expense will be worktop - i would check out ebay for 2nd hand kitchens and a built under oven

you should be able to refit that whole room for less than £100

Flea

continualdiamond

Hi again, just got in from work and been reading everyones replies.

Yes Jay11 my flat is a 2 bedroom, the 2nd bedroom has the hot water tank, boiler, pc and fridge in it. Where the ground floor and we have a back garden, well hardly a garden, more like mud.

My worry with ripping out my kitchen and trying to change it, is that i won't have enough money. I agree buying units off ebay would be a great idea, its just storing them as i probably could afford to buy them, but then have to put money away to get someone to fit it.

Plus obviously retiling as i know i have 2 sets of tiles on the walls, cos i can see the 1st set.

I think personally id rather the whole kitchen be re done, but for now i like the idea of the worktop drop down thing going across the back door. I couldn't have a drop leaf table in my kitchen, couldn't bare to eat in such a small space, much happier with sitting on the sofa with a dinner tray.

Greenbee i'll pm you with my dimensions, id love to see what ideas you come up with as i think sometimes we all need others to look into things for us and its not always obvious when its staring us in the face.

tramps

just a thought have you got an ironing board? can be unfolded to put things on (covered with some thing) then put away when you have finished we do this quite a lot when we have people round as an extra surface for things like buffet food

purpleivy

SpoonyOh wrote: »

Somebody on my local Freecycle board was giving away Ikea base units two weeks ago, might be worth a looksie to see what you can get.
This reminds me of something that sticks in my craw - does anybody know what happens to the perfectly good kitchen units that get ripped out when people go on these home improvement programs? You see them going into skips but surely they don't get junked? A long shot maybe, but I guess you could try contacting the production companies to find out. Do let me know if you do, I'm rather curious.....

Afraid the companies taking out old kitchens really don't take any care. They really are ripped out, as this is the fastest way of removing them, rather than carefullly removing every separate screw and fitting.

RAS

CD

have to say, your kitchen wins a few prizes.

Agree with PasturesNew, and Spoony. As a very basic improvement, get a right hand drainer or a single basin and a short length of worktop from www.freecycle.org and free up the space by the door for food preparation.
Consider smaller sink units as you have a dishwasher. I do not have one, but have an 80cm unit with a small sink - deeper than wide and a small drainer.

If you go for the single bowl and no drainer, add a small wall mounted drainer above the work unit in the corner with a built in drip tray for mugs and odd bits of cutlery.

Whether you keep the right hand corner as worktop or as as a drainer, look at ways of putting in some more work space near the door, if not across the door, using a drop down light weight work top or table. Does not have to be the full 60cm deep.

Regarding the wasted corners, what are the wall made of? I saw a really clever idea in a book, where someone doing a small flat had used the redundant corner of a kitchen to house their washing machine. How they did it was to box in the corner, cut a hole in the wall between the kitchen and bathroom and set the washer in the low level recess and access it from the bathroom. I appreciate that your oven corner backs onto the lounge one way, but what is the other side of the cooker wall? Could either wasted corner be used for the washer, fridge or freezer, if accessed from the other room?

For the oven corner, could you get a under counter small trolley that is just wide enought to go in the gap, to give you some extra storage space?

off topic, re dining.

have also seen dining tables made of flat surface, painted , mounted vertically on a spare piece of wall to look like a work of art and set on two folding trestles when used for dining. The same could be hidden behind a sofa. Plain interior doors, off freecycle again, work a treat. So it would only be the trestles that neeeded sourcing.

Pitlanepiglet

We have a similar problem and as we rent there are no options to refit the kitchen. We bought a cheap wheelie trolley with a surface on top and storage underneath and we keep this in front of the back door.

We find it works really well, we wheel it out of the way if we need to use the door but otherwise it gives us extra storage and worktop.

I think Ikea do a nice looking one, I'll try to find a link.

Pitlanepiglet

Ours is a bit like this http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/80035920, plus hubby added some hooks on the narrow end so that we can hang sieves, colanders etc.

greenbee

I'll have a go at this (I love a challenge!). The measurements indicate that actually the space isn't too bad (might be worth you just rechecking them in cm, as everything needs to be worked out in metric, and it's a good check to make sure they are right)... maybe you could open it up as a competition and see who can come up with the best design! Then source the bits via freecycle!

I know you said you have the fridge & freezer in the bedroom/spareroom - RAS's comment made me wonder whether your WM could be moved into the bathroom, as it would be much more useful to have your fridge in the kitchen (and after all, laundry tends to end up in the bathroom).

Ideas so far (subject to checking measurements) are to put the DW next to the door, then the WM next to it, with a corner sink. The hob stays pretty much where it is (and you need to get a cover for the sink) - although as far to right of centre as possible to give you space on the sink side. Below it you can have a cupboard with a carousel or pull & swing unit going into the corner under the sink one side, and the otherside have a plain corner unit with two fully opening doors and shelves.

That gives you a 110cm run of work surface under the window, and 90cm into the corner from the cooker. I'd mount the microwave on the wall next to the cooker, with a couple of shelves above it. I just need you to check the width of your doors as I have based my assumptions on the width of my back door.

To make it feel less crowded, I'd replace the corner units you've currently got with corners rather than angles. If the top of the unit your oven is in is level with the top of the door, then match the wall units to this, and continue with a run of shelves above the window & door. You can keep lots of stuff up here.

On the wall between the back door and lounge, you can put a metal utensil grid with hooks on. I hang saucepans, colanders, graters, ladles etc off mine. Just make sure that it isn't in the way of the door when it opens. You can also put hooks or a rail for teatowels, and maybe a spice rack on there. I'd get rid of the wall unit you've got there given that you've made more storage space under the work surface, as it makes it look crowded. The grid, and maybe a saucepan lid rack (both available from ikea I think) would be decorative & useful, and not take up much space.

I'd also go for the folding table in front of the back door, and hooks on the side of the oven housing to hang your ironing board on.

If you're gutting and replacing, go for plain white units to maximise the light, a light coloured (wood or laminate) work surface, plain handles (or even better, no handles, just moulded doors), neutral tiles and then add colour with blinds on the door and window, and maybe a red/pink/green colander and tea towels on the end wall.

Hope this helps!