kitchen advice -What is on your must have list

mysk_girl

We have one of these for the corner unit. The shelves in the corner slide into view when you open the door. Much better than a carousel, in my opinion any way!

http://liveimageserver.dlf.org.uk/mee//products/full/bandq223.jpg

Moomum

We had a new Kitchen put in when we both two years ago. We have pull out larders, I love them! Also have pan drawers under the 5 ring hob, can get 5 pans on there. Had a plate warmer to fill the space under combi microwave oven so it was same size as two other steam ovens but never use it, maybe once or twice in two years. We have handleless gloss and soft close which is great as no banging! Have a quooker tap next to out mixer, love it and we are in a very hard water area and no scaling up yet (touch wood).

MrsE_2

chocolatepennyfarthing wrote: »

Looking at purchasing a new kitchen and coming across so many optional extras that I did not even think of. Would love to hear your opinion on things that you purchased that were useful and worth the money and things that have not been so useful. Things to start the ball rolling that have been mentioned are;
Warming drawers
Magic Corners
Pull out larder
Boiling water tap
5 hob burner
2 single ovens over range cooker
Are deep pan drawers better than cupboards
All advice much appreciated.

I would def have a built in EYE LEVEL oven (double one & a half or 2 singles) over a range style cooker - any day.
yes to the magic corners.
Something you haven't mentioned but might like to consider, wall cabinets that reach the ceiling (maximum storage - top shelf all around for things you don't used often) & most importantly no nasty dust trap, it gets sticky & horrible up there.
Coloured glass panels are very trendy now instead of tiles on the splash back.

chocolatepennyfarthing

Has anyone got any pictures of the larger cabinets, think i have seen in showroom but would be good to see in situ. its a really good idea, plenty of gadgets etc that could be put on top shelf.
Decided not going to go for hot water tap.
Re coloured glass, have been advised that you would only get this behind hob normally if you have up stands. I thought it would be ok to have it everywhere along wall instead of tiles. Once again this is something that's very hard to visualise so would be great to hear what people have done.
Like your corner unit mysk_girl seems a lot sturdier than baskets.

notanewuser

mysk_girl wrote: »

We have one of these for the corner unit. The shelves in the corner slide into view when you open the door. Much better than a carousel, in my opinion any way!

http://liveimageserver.dlf.org.uk/mee//products/full/bandq223.jpg

That's what I meant by a magic corner.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Gran did not need magic corners or other trinkets. She had a larder that kept cheese like cheese should, was full of shelves and things. No fridge, but the bacon, you took the green one off the top and gave it to the cat, raw. The others tasted so different you thought you were in heaven.

I still distill our cheese from the fridge, try it, it will seriously blow your mind.

Now where was I.

Grandmasu

I am moving soon and am loving this thread as I will need a new kitchen. I have been playing with the idea of a BIBO water filter/cooler/heater that is plumbed in. Not very money saving but very useful.

I also really love my Panasonic combination oven and use it daily in preference to a large convection oven. I would love to have it built in so that it did not take up so much work surface, but not sure if this is possible.

craigywv

slow cooker, gas cooker, singing kettle, kenwood chef and rice cooker are my favs

jackomdj

joolsybools wrote: »

Actually, someone mentioned those taps that you can pull out and use as a hose - just remembered when I was living in London Thames Water sent us an attachment that turns your tap into a shower spray which I loved. I took it with me when I moved but sadly it didn't fit onto the new properties old-fashioned mixer tap.

This is the one although looks like you can get it cheaper on eb@y http://www.savewatersavemoney.co.uk/products/view/id/317/item/water-efficient-tap-miracle-black

Reading the thread I was going to say we got this fitted free too.

Emmala

I have a range cooker which is great, but my tips would be to get one with a lid or it will be even more frustrating to keep clean! (the one in our last house didn't have a lid and it showed EVERY speck of dust/crumb/cat fur and drove me mad!) Also, look for one with a separate grill so you can use both ovens plus the grill - I use my grill for warming plates when I use the oven below it.

We had a pull out larder in our old kitchen and I don't miss it at all - we now have an extra tall larder cupboard from Ikea which is fab, and I have some pull out wire drawers in it which are really handy.

My advice would be not to worry about what other people think your new kitchen would be like......when we had our new kitchen built, everyone kept saying I should get someone to design it for me. Why??? They just want to sell extra bits you don't really need and want everything to be symmetrical!!! I know how I use a kitchen and in my head I could visualise how I wanted to use the space. Only you know what you like to cook etc in your kitchen, so think about this and accomodate your needs.....I have a bakery cupboard with all the tins etc in so it's all in one place. The corner cupboard has things we don't use much in the bottom, but the top shelf has the kids lunchboxes and a basket with all their plastic pots/boxes in.

Also, you know what style you like...we have shelves instead of all wall cupboards (we bought the Grundtal shelves in Ikea and then swapped the long rods for shorter ones to fit the spaces we had). BUT to be fair, we reused the kitchen we already had, I just got a couple of extra doors from ebay and a couple of different carcasses from B&Q and refitted it in the new kitchen. Saved a fortune and looks really nice.

Oh, and one of my best buys was the sink.....DH won't have a belfast sink as they're too low, so we have a white ceramic 'normal' sink 1.5 bowl....as we live in a hard water area this doesn't show the watermarks! It's much easier to keep clean than stainless steel, I use bathroom cleaner on it and it looks like new everytime!

Good luck!