Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 Sep 11, 2011 7:39 am I live in a house that I had built back in 2000 when I was a poor single guy. Now married and have the wife living in the house and we are looking at having children soon. One of the complaints the missus has about the house is the size of the kitchen, in particular lack of a dishwasher and low level storage space. She is vertically challenged so has trouble getting things out the overheads and the top few shelves of the pantry! The kitchen is also showing it's age and has some minor chipping due to it being treated a bit roughly when it was a rental whilst we lived overseas for 4 years. So we both think that the time has come to expand and modernise. Below is a picture of what the kitchen looks like now, along with an autocad drawing of the kitchen and the so called living room that adjoins it, which in reality is only suitable for a dining room. Pic of kitchen (excuse the mess, this pic was taken 6 years ago before I was married so is a little messy!) Layout The basic plan is to remove the wall where the cooktop/oven is thus opening the kitchen up a little, remove all the existing cupboards to the right of the sink and expand into the dining room by about 1100mm. We then plan to put in a dishwasher next to the sink, followed by a 900mm pot drawer unit, then a corner unit, a ~600mm cupboard unit, another corner unit, oven, small bin cupboard and existing 450mm cutlery drawer. The cooktop will be a new 600mm or maybe even a 750mm cooktop placed above the pot drawers. The row of cupboards down the right hand side will have a half height wall running down the side to provide a barrier between the kitchen and the hall as well as giving a location to put in a few power points. The end facing the dining room will become a breakfast bar for 3 or maybe 4 people. The working distance between the two rows of benches will be about 1200mm with a 900mm 'entry' between the fridge and the cutlery drawers. New Layout So was wondering what people think? Is this a workable design or does anyone have any suggestions to make it better/more useable? The main concern I have is in relation to the placement of the cooktop, in particular will it look unbalanced sitting where we plan to put it? The plan will be to have a nice hood above it, probably a 900mm one to fill the space better, but no overhead cupboards. If we do this what kind of splash back should we use? Does having the cooktop against the wall and the oven on the opposite side look out of place? The reason I split them was to provide a large pot drawer under the cooktop where the pots will be used. One variation would be to have the oven under the cooktop and the drawers where the oven is, but I think doing that I will need a 300mm cupboard between the dishwasher and the oven otherwise the hood will be against the window frame and no room between the sink and the cook top. The wife is concerned the half height wall running down the right of the kitchen will make the whole space (inc dining room) look too small, however I cannot think of any nice way to provide power points and a barrier for the appliances that will more than likely end up sitting against this wall such as the kettle and coffee machine. She would rather see the backs of the cupboard. I reckon if there was no wall there then the back of the appliances will look very odd and we run the risk of knocking them off, especially as the power points would need to be located on the back of the cupboards. She is also concerned about the hardness of the top right hand corner and asked if it could be angled a little bit like the existing kitchen. My opinion though is that would then throw the balance of the breakfast bar out of whack and will reduce cupboard space, as it would require 2 small 135' cupboards to acheive the 90' bend that is achieved by one cupboard. With the construction I plan to do this myself using a local (Canberra) online flatpack kitchen company to make the new cupboards as well as to make replacement panels and doors for the part of the kitchen that will remain as is. I have already used them for a wardrobe insert and a simple laundry make over with success so am comfortable with the ordering and their construction process. Main reason I am going this way is because I know my existing cupboards are not the same size as ones that can be brought at places like Bunnings, cough cough. In particular my existing units are 735mm high and 562mm deep so need to match them and get doors and panels for the old part that are 100% the same size. It also helps that I know the online products are Australian/locally made, for a price similar if not better than the likes of Bunnings. Finish wise I don't think we could afford 2 pack (I priced a fridge end panel at $400 compared to about $90 using liminate), so am looking at some of the laminex style products. Both the wife and I like the light colour oak look and we also like plain shinny colours. I am a little concerned though about using a shiny laminex colour such as white and whether it would look cheap or like a bathroom vanity, whereas with a laminate wood grain this isn't such an issue. The only issue with wood grain is will it look odd with the existing timber laminate floor? Once the cupboards are built I plan to get a pro in to do the bench tops, probably in Caesar stone or equivalent. Think spending on quality bench tops and appliances is much better than the cupboard doors and panels. Re: Kitchen Reno advice 2Sep 11, 2011 8:40 am we played with the idea of having a corner cooktop and oven, didn't end up suiting our kitchen as we've eneded up with no corners (except pantry), friends of our have one and its great use of a corner- cupboard in corners give you great space, but a pain to actually access them! http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr14 ... eroven.jpg this would give you more space for draws instead of having under bench oven Re: Kitchen Reno advice 3Sep 11, 2011 12:12 pm How much space will be left in the meals area? Is there any chance you could move the pantry down to the other side of the oven extending that wall to almost the window then open it all up into a galley style kitchen? Re: Kitchen Reno advice 4Sep 11, 2011 4:49 pm In the meals area there is enough room for a large 6 seat table with about 1500mm between the table and the breakfast bar to gain access to the deck door which is just besides where it says 735mm high cabinet. With your suggestion are you saying do away with the return on the right and just build down the wall next to the window and have an open kitchen? If so that is one of the suggestions the wife first had and oddly enough is something we already kind of have. What is not shown on the pictures is a long side board that extends from the wall behind the existing oven to the deck door. The only issue with it is it ends up being a rather long kitchen but still lacking in storage space. She also suggested having an island bench leaving it open to the dining area and to the area next to the fridge. This would work, but would mean no breakfast bar. One other option I looked at was a full U shape by moving the fridge cupboard and extending the cupboard towards the dining area. Layout wise it looked ok on paper and everything balanced ok, again lack of a breakfast bar was a bit of a killer. Re: Kitchen Reno advice 5Sep 11, 2011 8:02 pm Yeah I was meaning to do away with your horizontal half wall thats blocking off the meals area. Also extend the now island bench that runs up the centre of the room (which also doubles as a breakfast bar) If that alone wouldnt give you enough storage you could make the bottom wall where the pantry & fridge are into a WIP & just push everything else towards the meals area a bit? Re: Kitchen Reno advice 6Dec 21, 2011 6:27 am As I mentioned in another thread the new kitchen is almost finished, so have some pics of the almost finished product. All that is left is some painting, touch-up, fitting some downlights over the new bench and securing the blades wine rack properly.
Colour wise we have: Lower cabinets: Polytech Createc Ultra Gloss White Upper cabinets: Polytech Hazel Strata Matt. Caesarstone: Ice Snow Power points: Clipsal Saturn Ocean Mist Floor and Wall tiles are porcelin, the wall is a 300x300mm tile called Vanilla Rainbow, floor tile is 300x600 called Lumina Ash, both were from Rivoland tiles in Queanbeyan, near Canberra and cost about $35m2 Mosaic tiles are called copper and came from MMM Interiors Fyshwick ACT, cost was $190/m2 Dishwasher: Bosch PPH626B90A Cooktop: Bosch SMU68M05AUSS, semi integrated. Oven: Bosch HBA63B450A Cupboards, flat pack from cabinetsondemand.com.au (local Canberra cabinet maker). Overall I am happy with the finished product. I did most of the work myself, including design (with some advice from here), all that was left to the pros was the fitting of the stone and gas cooktop. Electrical was done by myself and a friend of mine who is a licenced sparky. The only thing I regret doing myself is the tiling. I should have listened to the teacher on the tiling class I did a few years back who said amateurs shouldn't touch anything greater than 200x200, anything that isn't press molded and shouldn't touch mosaics and porcelain. All our tiles match the don't touch list. Having said that I don't think I did too bas a job all things considered, especially with the floor and my mistakes on the wall I can live with. I made a few design mistakes with cabinet sizing, a couple are a little too shallow, especially the ones under the breakfast bar where I tried to keep the bar width to 800mm so as to not eat space in the dining room. In hindsight I could have gone another 50mm and also cut 50-100mm of overhang on the seat side to give another 50-100mm inside. I also made the return where the drawers are located 550mm deep, could have gone to 600mm here too. Most important thing is the wife is happy and must admit I am happy too. Total cost has come in at about $19000, being $7000 for the cabinets, $5500 for the stone, $4500 for appliances, plus about $2000 for tiles and bits and pieces. Sorry if the pics are too small, for some reason the camera has small like this and next size 'up' the file is about 3meg. Review of the old kitchen: You get an idea of how big the new kitchen is by noting where the window is in relation to old and new. Now for the new, from dining room Close up of hall side bench Close up of the mosaic tiles Cooktop and wall cabinets Cooktop Sink, dishwasher. This corner is more or less all that is left of the original kitchen. Floor Lower cupboards from inside. Looking back towards the dining room. Now for Caesarstone aficionados here is a look at our two joins. The joins as you can see are on the RHS of the cooktop and opposite in the corner near the half height wall. I reckon they did a good job, the join is an even all the way along, no bumps and put in a place where it is no obvious. Must admit overall pretty happy with the job the stonemasons did. com Re: Kitchen Reno advice 7Dec 21, 2011 9:04 am I remember reading this thread in sept. well done you!!! great job. must be a dream to work in, and yay for a gorgeous kitchen. now bring on the sproggs. Re: Kitchen Reno advice 8Dec 21, 2011 2:33 pm Thanks it is a good place to work, plenty of room, also plenty of room for the sproggs to be at our feet inside the new kitchen, just need to work on that. (wife has already said next year is going to be the year for that) Re: Kitchen Reno advice 10Dec 22, 2011 9:00 pm Looks great! Your wife must be wrapped with this outcome! Hello It is good to have a planned bathroom reno to suit your budget and design, living for 10 years I think you need a bathtub 4 10628 Bought in Nov 21 at the height of the market (classic). Good area, atrocious floor plan. BUT has land out to the left-hand side that we can extend out on (see second… 0 9014 The only thing to add to these comments is that where possible it's always good to try and work with people than just say "no" because you can. Having someone… 4 17447 |