kitchen advice -What is on your must have list

notanewuser

I usually have them all going at Xmas or big family get togethers. I have 5 burners, but what's on the middle one determines what can go on the others.

notanewuser

Pont wrote: »

I'd love a walk in pantry too! Interesting to note that others aren't particularly pleased with pull out larders - this was defo on my wish list - may need to rethink. Also really want a large (6 burner) range.

I'd estimate that half of the height isn't used because they aren't stable enough to put really tall things on, and because of weight restrictions you can't have many shelves in them.

Slinky_Malinky

I am hoping to have a new kitchen in the next few months - the only thing on your list that I want are the pan drawers. I hate fitted base units so hope to have as many drawers as possible in my base units.

I don`t like the pull out larders, but I want a larder where you open the door and have separate pull out drawers inside, like this...

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S69852667/#/S49852668

Also on my wish list are -

a wide induction hob, great to cook on and easy to clean.

an efficient extractor fan, as my kitchen suffers badly from condensation.

my new kitchen will be fitted with worktops as low as possible because I am very short.

possibly wall units to the ceiling to avoid the greasy dusty mess on the tops.

Ikea sell a lot of handy storage bits for inside drawers/cupboards and I will use lots of these.

I will re-use my existing built under single oven and combi microwave but plan to build them into a tall unit at a convenient height for me.

Lots of power points.

One of those semi pro taps with a spray head on.

notanewuser

Slinky_Malinky wrote: »

I don`t like the pull out larders, but I want a larder where you open the door and have separate pull out drawers inside, like this...

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S69852667/#/S49852668

Also on my wish list are -

a wide induction hob, great to cook on and easy to clean.

.

possibly wall units to the ceiling to avoid the greasy dusty mess on the tops.

That's the kind of unit I'd go for too.

I hate induction hobs (I'm a gas girl ) and have never been bothered about the tops of my cupboards. Why does it matter if they're dirty? The grease catches the dust!!

angeltreats

My mum in law had magic corners in her old kitchen and they were great, I was so jealous and definitely plan to have them when we re-do our kitchen.

My biggest wish when we got a new cooker was for a wok burner, and now I have it I don't know what I did without it. So useful for so much more than just stir-frying, like bringing pans of boiling water back up to the boil after throwing pasta in, or getting a griddle pan super hot.

We have boiling water taps at work and they really struggle to keep up with the constant stream of people making tea, but I don't expect that would be a problem at home. The ones we have will just about fill a big teapot before needing to boil up again and sometimes it's actually quicker to boil the kettle.

Deep pan drawers are definitely a lot more useful than cupboards, we had them in the kitchen in our old house and I really miss them and they are also definitely on the list for when we renovate our current kitchen.

Jazee

I would choose the boiling water tap and the magic corners sound great. I don't know how much cooking you do, but I find two ovens indispensable.

peachyprice

My only 'must have' would be a pull out rinser tap, but that's not on your list.

A cool pantry would be nice, but that would mean a new house, not just a new kitchen.

HappyMJ

My must have list is simple...

A stainless steel sink, mixer tap, some base units, worktop, an oven, a hob and a space for a fridge. Although a built in fridge would be nice I didn't really see the need. I did buy the soft close door thingys. I also had to replace the drawer boxes and got the soft close versions of them....much sturdier than the last very cheap ones that only lasted 6 years. Not much of the old kitchen lasted beyond 10 years at all. Only have the worktops and a few base units left. Everything else has been replaced over time.

tina_malteser

I want an old fashioned wardrobe converted into a stock cupboard just like in Nigel Slaters cookery programe....i will one day

LV_Sue

I've just had my kitchen re-fitted and decided not to have 'magic corners' in my corner cupboards. My daughter has them in her Ike@ kitchen (fitted last year) and I think they are a waste of space. They are rounded so you can't get much on them I find, and stuff can fall down the back and is very hard to retrieve. . I have 2 boxes on each shelf in my corner cupboards and I can get much more in those than my daughter can in hers.

I really wanted a floor to ceiling walk-in larder corner cupboard (saw it in W1ckes), but I didn't have anywhere it would fit and anyway my kitchen manufacturers didn't do one.

I have a 500cm wide pull-out larder, but with hindsight, I should have had a 300cm wide one like my daughter-in-law has in her kitchen. Mine is too heavy and a bit unwieldy to open - I'm always afraid I'll pull the knob off when I open it!

I re-used my 90cm range cooker as it is only a couple of years old. It has 4 gas burners & a gas wok burner (and I can get 5 pans on the hob easily), a narrow electric fan oven (which I use far more than I ever thought I would) and a full size gas oven. I'd never cooked with an electric oven, let alone a fan oven, but now I am converted. I had a cooker hood fitted, which I didn't have before, as the cooker is now fitted on an outside wall.

I also re-used my tall fridge and tall freezer and they are now in cupboards, despite the kitchen designer telling me I couldn't do it. The cupboards have hidden ventilation behind the appliances and so far are OK. My washing machine & dishwasher are both relatively new, so I reused them as well although they are not fitted into cupboards.

I didn't want deep pan drawers as I've always kept my saucepans in a cupboard and thought the drawers would annoy me. My daughter-in-law (who also had a new kitchen fitted last year into a newly built extension) has them though and loves them!

I didn't want a boiling water tap as we live in a very hard water area and I was worried it would scale up too much. No-one could tell me with any conviction if this would happen or not.

A friend of mine is having a kitchen fitted in her new (to her) flat and is having 2 single ovens on top of each other and a hob beside them instead of a standard cooker with the oven on the floor as she says she's too old to be on her knees getting stuff out of the oven! That doesn't worry me at the moment though - we are both in our mid-sixties.

One thing I would say though is get several kitchen designers in to measure & design your new kitchen ...................... and then ignore all of them and measure & design it yourself! I had 3 designers from 3 different companies and none of them listened to what I wanted and tried to persuade me their design was what I needed. Two of them didn't even measure the kitchen properly and sent me plans of beautiful kitchens, neither of which would fit in my space! These were from probably the three largest kitchen manufacturers and suppliers in the country! Obviously they were trying to sell me their appliances and extras, but I didn't want or need new appliances. One even tried to convince me that I needed plinth heaters (no I've got a big radiator thanks!) and a wine rack (we don't drink wine!)

Hope this helps .