Need a taller / higher kitchen

[Deleted User]

Hello,

We are looking for ideas for our new kitchen.  We need a taller / higher kitchen installing as both of us find that the average kitchen height is just too low as we are both quite tall.  We are looking to raise the height by about  3-4 inches. 

We have a large, walk-in, corner larder which we are keeping.  As we get all the food and almost all of the plates, pots and pans etc. in this one cupboard we do not need any wall cupboards, or even many floor ones.  We only need about 3 x 45 cms wide cupboards / drawers, 1 double width cupboard and a large corner unit.  The other spaces under the worktops are taken up by the cooker, fridge and freezer.  As we do not need many cupboards we are thinking we may buy solid wood ones which will cost more per unit, but that would then last us forever and that can be repainted when tatty.  Also, we cook everything from scratch and so the kitchen has to cope with a lot of usage.

We have thought of either:

- Buying a pre-made kitchen and putting in taller legs and making higher kickboards (we will be fitting the kitchen ourselves and so can do this)
- Getting a cabinet maker / company to make custom-made, taller cupboards.
- Having the units suspended from the walls so no legs and no kickboards (they would be attached to the external, solid bricks walls, but I am not sure if they would be sturdy enough to cope with me blundering around the kitchen).

The one thing we cannot work out is how to cope with the height difference between the cupboards and the under counter fridge and freezer.  If we raise the height of the worktop above them there will be a gap.  So we either need to put in blanking strips to cover the gaps, or raise the fridge and freezer by putting them into a cupboard frame (they are floor standing ones not built-in ones).
 
Any ideas?

Thanks.

daivid

I would raise the fridge and freezer on blocks of wood then hide the gap using kickboard; trimed down if raising by less than kickboard height or with a colour matched pannel if raising by more. Raising the fridge and freezer is surely prefferable as it will be easier to get things out of them.

EssexExile

Be very careful before installing a kitchen 3 or 4 inches higher than normal. Being well over 6 foot and having a bad back I understand the idea but I would suggest mocking up some work surface at that height and see how it feels. I've found 1 to 2 inches higher is sufficient. Another point to think about is the sink, get one that sits in the work surface rather than one that hangs underneath. The bottom of some of those impressive looking ceramic sinks come to about knee height for me!

misswansea

Hi, we are both around 6' tall and  used the ikea extra height cabinet legs (not sure if they still do them) to give us a worktop height of 95 cm.
Good points: can use cheaper standard cabinets, and could use standard replacement doors for a quick refresh in the future, bottom shelf not so far too stoop.
Also not too high for standard height guests to use and near enough normal not to put off buyers if we had to sell. 
Love being able to use the sink without back ache
Bad points: we did find a dishwasher that reaches the surface, but that limited our choices, we have integrated fridge and freezer to solve that but the washing machine sits lower with a silly gap above, not confident of being able to build a platform sturdy enough for that. 

FreeBear

A platform made from 3x2 rough sawn timber topped with 19mm chipboard, then fit the units & appliances on top - This would give you the extra height you want and support the weight. Hanging base units from the wall really isn't a good idea - As soon as the worktop gets fitted, the whole lot would probably fall down. Worktops are heavy, and base units need to sit on a solid surface.

maisie_cat

I'd suggest a plinth made from CLS timber to sit the kitchen units on if you prefer off the shelf. Having bespoke cabinets made may not as expensive as you think. We have some worktop height at 93cm, I made the cabinets myself, the rest are the standard height we inherited and will be replaced at some point.

daivid

Floor to worktop surface in my kitchen is 92cm, all standard units (or so I thought) with a laminate worktop. May be worth carefully looking into the height your choice of unit and worktop would produce then think about if (/and how much they need raising).

twopenny

Perfectly possible it's just a matter of working out how would be best for you and deciding how you would like the finished look.

Certainly raising the appliances because they too will need to be higher to save your backs.

My friends did this and I didn't notice the difference until I went to help with the washing up. At 5'2 I couldn't so result.

GDB2222

If refitting our kitchen now, we’d go for lots of wide and deep pan drawers rather than cupboards. Even for storing dry goods such as flour they work really well. 

We fitted standard units with painted doors 22 years ago, and they are still okay. The kick boards need replacing, and the doors need repainting, but the units have lasted fine. So, I’d agree with the view others have expressed of building a plinth to raise everything up a bit and using standard units. The proportions may look wrong, so you may want a two toned kick board to disguise this.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for all of the ideas.

I think building a plinth to put the units and white goods on to raise the height of everything is probably the best idea.  If we are going to build this then we might also build the frames too and just buy pre-made solid doors and the worktops and build the kitchen ourselves.

Good idea about testing the height we want as we are not sure.  Currently, our worktops are 91 cms tall and they are too low.  As many as said the sink is the awfully low (and it is not a butler sink).  We have to assume a wide leg, squat stance to be low enough to wash the pots!

Grenage

I'd be interested to hear back when you're done.  I'm 6'5 and the other half isn't short, so I was planing on building custom frames and ordering doors to fit.