What to Consider When Designing and Specifying a Kitchen

[Strike Team]

I'm planning to have a new kitchen fitted shortly. I'll be having it installed professionally, I don't have the joinery skills or the health to do it myself. I've learned from previous home renovation work that the more I know about the work that tradesmen will be doing for me the less chance I'll have of being rippedd off or getting a bodged job.

The question is - what issues should I be thinking about and looking out for in designing and specifying my new kitchen, and in supervisin/checking the work done?

I've come across a few so far on this site and others:

Look at thickness of cabinets.
Consider quality of hinges and drawer mechanisms.
Are the front panels solid wood, veneer or plastic?
Minimise the size of the fridge-sink-cooker working triangle.
Have plenty of sockets.
Wiring for built-in appliances should allow them to be easily switched off and unplugged, i.e. not wired in.
Flooring may be installed before or after units, latter is cheaper but may cause clearance issues with built-in appliances.

What other issues and design factors should I consider? What "dirty tricks" do unscrupulous kitchen fitters use?

 

[Deluks]

This is an interesting read:
http://www.kitchen-secrets.com/kitchen-offers.php#kitchensecret1
(You have to select the 21 kitchen secrets one by one from the drop down menu at the bottom)

The main issue seems to be one of selling empty space. Wine racks, filler panels and dead space in corners are all ways to build empty space into a kitchen, which speeds up the fitting time and reduces cost for the installer.

Also a pro kitchen fitter will use a router & jig on the worktop joints, usually with biscuits & bolts. If your bloke pulls out a jigsaw and those metal worktop corner joining strips, tell him to get his coat, or at least get a proper chippie in just to do the worktops.

 

[Scrit]

Hi Strike Team

If you don't mind I'll flesh-out some of the above:

Carcasses: Dowelled/glued construction is generally much stronger and more durable than KD (knock-down) fastenings - incidentally corner units and tall latder cabinets will still come KD as otherwise the poor fitters couldn't get them in the door! 18mm carcass material is generally reckoned to be more durable than 15mm - mainly because the screws can be a tad longer. More important is probably that the rear edges of the carcasses and the edges of the shelves are all edge banded - this increases the durability factor somewhat.

Hinges: Blum, Salice, Hettich and Grass all manufacture top quality hinges with little to choose between them

Drawers: without a doubt the leader at the moment is Blum with their Blumotion, although Hettich and Grass aren't far behind. On hand built kitchens I'd expect to see a hardwood or birch plywood drawer on a goos quality sliding mechanism

Doors and end panels: Solid wood is nice, but stained and polsihed doors tend to fade with time. Properly looked-after (e.g. don't leave boiling kettles under upper cabs) vinyl-wrapped MDF is capable or surviving 20 years or more service (recently updated a 15 year old kitchen - doors looked great). The only ones I'd avoid are the "foil-wrapped" or CPL (continuous-pressure laminate) doors as thay are fundamentally just paper wrapped! I'd avoid putting vinyl warpped doors over a hob as in an over hob cupboard - they won't last above 7 or 8 years.

Flooring: You can accommodate putting in the flooring after the units have gone-in by adding a few millimetres to the plinth height (thickness of the flooring materials) - all appliances I've seen have adjuster feet which allow you to crank the units down 10mm or so and remove for repair, etc. If makes life easier if the fitters can put a hardwood/plywood packer strip under each side to level to the floor but it isn't absolutely essential

Worktops: If going for a laminate top choose a 40mm top over a 30mm one. The best makes are probably Duropal (Pfleiderer) and Axiom (Formica), although there are many other good makes out there.

And may I say we're not all unscrupulous.......

Scrit

 

[JohnD]

This is an interesting read:
http://www.kitchen-secrets.com/kitchen-offers.php#kitchensecret1

that's an .exe and it greatly worried my firewall when it tried to communicate with its home planet.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Don't forget your working height, have your cupboards adjusted to the best suitable length of the person 'working' most on the sink and worktop. If not correct it can cause lots of back pain.
Also remember that height when selecting your floor covering: e.g. wooden flooring adds 15 - 18 minimum to the height of your floor.

 

[Deluks]

This is an interesting read:
http://www.kitchen-secrets.com/kitchen-offers.php#kitchensecret1

that's an .exe and it greatly worried my firewall when it tried to communicate with its home planet.

I had problems downloading the ebook thing, it made explorer crash. Just use the drop down menu to read page by page.

 

[Tozzy]

Here is the direct link to 'Kitchen Design Secrets 1'

This is basically just to save people from finding the download page. You just rightclick on the link above to download.

JohnD: Tell your firewall that the above file won't bite .

Enjoy your ebook .

By the way, is there is a way to alert the mods that there is a mistake in their url tag? Thanks.

EDIT: No problem I understand now, but it looks confusing the way they have 'url' after the http:// because it looks like it's part of the actual tag. No wonder I couldn't get it to work!

URL text

 

[JohnD]

JohnD: Tell your firewall that the above file won't bite .

We have sharks down here that don't bite either, but they can give you a nasty suck.

 

[Deluks]

JohnD: Tell your firewall that the above file won't bite .

We have sharks down here that don't bite either, but they can give you a nasty suck.

There's no such thing as a nasty suck.

 

[Strike Team]

Thanks everyone.