Travelling On

Suffolk_lass

When my DH was training to be a teacher, he worked as a kitchen designer, often going out to people's houses and designing solutions to fill their spaces. He used to talk about the magic triangle of features - the sink, cooker and fridge and how the three of these need to be placed first in workable space (i.e. with some work surface). They are the most important things to site - then everything else around them. Of course things that cannot move (doors, windows, monster boilers, tables that can only be in one place) are set out first.

Can I chip in with consideration of the reconciliation between your storage needs and the feel of space. Maybe a drawer that is on casters instead of a plinth at the bottom of any floor cabinets - ideal for tins of food or for cookware, and we put cupboards designed to hold an extractor fan (hinged along the top and half height) over wall-cupboards in our high-ceiling Edwardian house kitchen, to maximise wall storage. Just check out the width of each so the lines align vertically (they don't have to but they look aesthetically better). We also mixed work surfaces, so that some was end-grain wood block from a factory type place, and one was a slab of granite (real and composite) so we could chop and roll things on them.

How exciting. We are considering taking all the door and drawer fronts off (well I am, I haven't told DH yet :shhh::shhh:), sanding off the veneer surface, then painting and replacing handles to give the 14 year old kitchen an up-dated feel. Layout wise it has stood the test of time with only a domino hob (stacking pans) and a single combination oven (microwave, grill, fan, single shelf) - with the range in the dining room for the winter and a BBQ outside for the summer!

Karmacat

Thanks SL! I remember hearing about the magic triangle - it's pretty good right now, one is on each wall, and the fourth wall is blank other than having that little dining table snugged up against it. Fancy your OH being a kitchen designer that's really something!

Replacing a plinth with a drawer on castors is an idea of genius, I seriously love that. Such a lot of space goes there ... and I get what you mean about the extractor fan thing - that might work above my fridge/freezer, actually, though longer wall cupboards by the cooker would probably be for the best, I think.

Mixing work surfaces is also a brilliant idea - I seriously like this whole thing of people gradually listing what options they've chosen in the past.

There's one more bit I'm going to do before I'm *really* stopping the kitchen design currently, the only place in the whole kitchen to hold any tins of anything is a CD rack I bought specifically for this place - there's an alcove thats too wide for solely the f/f, but not wide enough for anything else. The CD rack fits nicely. Now that I've discovered narrow, tall kitchen cabinets, I'm going to measure that space and see if one of those will fit, and maybe double the storage space there too :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

the_cross_rabbit

logging and pinching ideas from you all.
CRx

Karmacat

Woo hoo! Ikea does a thing - a floor-standing bathroom cabinet, 30cm wide, 38cm deep, 1.8m tall, it has a door, even more woohoo. The CD rack I'm currently using is 16cm deep - so on its own, this cupboard would double my storage space for tinned food :rotfl: since I do like to have a good stock in, because of illness, and only get a delivery once a month anyway, this is fantastic!

I might buy this before I get the rest of the kitchen done :j
Stopping now before I buy it without thinking.

badmemory

Oh I love the idea of shelving with sliding doors, that sounds perfect for the wall opposite the window. I need to do a major rethink! The place I am thinking of using does kitchens, bathrooms & bedrooms so I could put it to them as the shelving side of a fitted wardrobe. I can now tell myself that my procrastination may well have paid off. Ta muchly everyone.

themadvix

I'm not very good at picturing things KC, so I'm completely lost as to what your kitchen looks like, sorry! I will say that we used to have a u-shaped kitchen but turned it into a galley one - the difference has been revolutionary and we've not lost any storage space (we had loads of unusable corner cabinets before). Also, drawers! I love, love, love my drawers! (Behave! :P ) No more bending and scrabbling around in the back of cupboards!

Karmacat

Isn't this amazing, the importance of chatting with others, even though its about something we use every day, our kitchens! Madvix, I'm awful at translating words into visuals if the words are spoken, so I absolutely understand, never fear Badmemory, I'm glad something pinged for you, thats great.


I was just about to finally close down the computer, when I popped on to MrMoneyMustache, oops ... and it turns out he wrote this last month: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/11/29/how-to-retire-forever-on-a-fixed-chunk-of-money/ which is very apt for me! Can't focus on it right now, I'm going to bring in the washing as its completely clouded over in an ominous sort of way, then faff about with the laurel.

apple_muncher

Did the Romans use laurel wreaths as champion head dresses at the Olympics? Your comment of 'faff about with the laurel' has me imagining you making wreaths now!

Karmacat

They did, apple, you're right! :rotfl: I couldn't quite do the faffing I meant to do - I wanted to saw a trunk bit off that was stopping me getting to the stuff behind, and I couldn't actually saw through it :eek: it was too thick :eek: so I moved along a bit and did some other stuff. I think two thick branches have grown together to make one humongous trunk :eek:


Still, I ended up doing a lot, and I've even cooked a couple of portions of brownies today life is good.

greent

We had our kitchen made, so the units are odd sizes (one set of drawers are 52.7cm wide, for example - means no wasted space or filler panels) We have one corner cupboard and it has one joined door covering both bits with hinges on the inside which allow the door to fully fold back on itself, as well as fully open - keeps it all small and neat. We have shelves in but they are set at 90 degrees to each other - so each shelf does not take up the whole cupboard (so you can only out things over the whole of the bottom) - everything is easy to get to (no bits hiding) and the super-opening door means the opening is as unrestricted as possible. We also have a huge floor mounted boiler - which we've hidden in a cupboard and the kitchen co made a fake double door on it to match the cupboard next to it. Above the granite top (so practical in terms of easy to clean - but it *does* need polishing often (like at least once a day) to remove fingerprints) we have tall cupboards with double folding doors (to look like bottom cupboard) from worktop height to almost ceiling height - this is my pantry and the shelves are all adjustable heights (except for one on each side, which is the 'fixing shelf to keep the unit sturdy) Magnetic catches - nice and neat. The top cupboards are much shallower than the bottom cupboard/ boiler cupboard, so it resembles a dresser.

Oooh - worth spending on decent handles (our solid metal bars cost around £3 each from a trade place) - makes a massive difference to how doors look/ how you feel when opening them - my friends look identical at first glance, but are hollow plastic and feel cheap - and they cost basically the same as ours.

And think about things such as door designs - Shaker doors look lovely - but there's a lot of extra edges to keep clean and dust free...… And wooden worktops can need sanding and oiling. And granite regular polishing (And if you live in a hard water area - like we do - you need to remove water marks too)

We have built in drawer dividers in our top drawers - customised to what we store in them (so size/ number of divisions) We also have a while cupboard devoted to bins - looks like a very large drawer but is fab

I like kitchen planning - much more than the reality of actually having the work done! :rotfl:
xx