Family kitchen /living rooms dos and don'ts

[supergolden88]

After living with a horrible tiny kitchen for 12 years we are finally tearing the whole sorry thing down and creating a new, large, kitchen / family room space.

This involves combining two rooms and taking up the side return to create one large space with doors out to the garden.

Any tips and ideas about what to do and, especially, what NOT to do? I would like the room to be a good kitchen space but hopefully also a space for the kids to play, to relax in etc.

I have made no plans yet and I am afraid of making the wrong choices...

edited to say any money-saving ideas are very welcome.

[buggie]

Watching with interest as this is what we plan to do next summer - we're still sorting out who to get quotes from, SG have you got builders/ plans sorted yet? ( would you pm me info? x)

[supergolden88]

We have a project manager (recommended through the forum). Project about to go underway in the next couple of weeks

[supergolden88]

oh yeah - for those who have been through this without moving out. How did you manage with the chaos and feeding young children? I am dreading it

[Pickle]

When we had our renovations done (about 4 years ago, so I had 2 kids at the time aged 2 and 3) we turned our dining room into a makeshift kitchen - 2 ring electric hob, fridge and microwave etc. Dishes were done in the bath, but I tried not to have more than the odd pasta pot.

Buy paper or plastic plates and cutlery, get inventive with the ready cooked meats you can buy at the supermarket (salmon, chicken, ham, beef). Covent Garden soups are your friend (will never eat another one, but at the time it was perfect). It's manageable, and you quickly become used to being a "lazy" cook if you usually cook family meals from scratch!

Expect to need to redecorate the rooms you use while the renovations are happening, despite your best efforts they will get ruined! We probably would have ended up decorating anyway, as when you have lovely new rooms at the back of the house, suddenly any left looking original look very tired :)

Good luck. We had an excellent project manager/designer who pushed the process along, and even though it took in excess of 3 months it was worth it!

[supergolden88]

Thanks Pickle. We have a full sized stove in the living room but will have mini electric hob too. I know this sounds insane but I want to keep blogging and can't do that without a kitchen!

The project manager has promised to move the dishwasher, washing machine and fridge in the living room as well.

I think you are right about wanting to redecorate rest of house but have feeling will be completely skint by time kitchen is done!

Do you have any tips re: doors to garden, flooring, countertops etc?

[Pickle]

We have bifold doors to the garden, love them. Make sure you have a surface other than grass between your garden and the house (we have decking), otherwise little feet will traipse half the garden in with them!

We have two types of flooring in the kitchen area - large tiles (with underfloor heating) from our front door, down the hallway, and in the cooking part of the kitchen. In the living/eating/playing area we have oak. I love the tiles.

Work surface is quartz, quite a pale colour with just a hint of sparkle. Shows fingerprints, but looks really nice. We have a little sofa in the dining area which is great, and (the designer, because I'm hopeless) tied in the colours through the two parts of the rooms using blinds and cushions. Gives it a nice finished, homely feel.

Don't be scared of colour. Small children put fingers everywhere, so on my "definitely not" list were high gloss cupboards. We went for a matt finish, and the kitchen cupboards are Granny Smith apple green. Glass splash backs are turquoise. Sounds hideous, but it works (will try to find a photo).

[Pickle]

Here we go. Must point out this photo was taken for the designers portfolio, and most of our stuff was moved into the garden to achieve this uncluttered look!

[Pickle]

This one shows the flooring. The table folds into a rectangle and is kept pushed against the wall to give more space. If I had my time again I would have tried harder to get planning for the side return as that space would be great to have.

[bobby's bear]

Your units look lovely pickle. Where are they from?

[Pickle]

We had them made by the carpenter that did other work for us (alcove cupboards etc), worked out cheaper than many of the other options we looked at. Also meant it could be completely made to fit the space and changed as he went (he added a skinny cupboard especially for my ironing board right at the end of the build).

I'd have to search out his details, all if can remember is that his name was Steve!

[njc97]

We did similar. Some of the best things about ours now:

- deep worksurfaces. We got deeper than normal worksurfaces on one half which are brilliant: means you can have cookbooks and other stuff pushed against the wall and still have space to use the surface

- underfloor heating. So nice in winter (and means we dont need radiators)

- big bifold doors to garden. Just so you can sit staring out.

- a built in cupboard made by our builder which has a special long thing slot for the ironing board

[supergolden88]

Some great ideas here - thanks everyone. Pickle if you find the contact details of your carpenter sent me a PM : )

Is see another similar thread has resurfaced - will try to have a read through

[Convex]

We have an appliance cupboard with sockets on the bottom. So the bread maker is plugged in and you just need to pull it out a bit. It's not big enough though!

If I had my time again I'd extend out further, get under floor heating, and have more cupboards.

[supergolden88]

oooh! I have so many gadgets this is a great idea. Actually that's one of my problems - I have lots of food prep machines / mixers that need to be housed somewhere

Then there's the issue of all my (mismatched) props and dozens of cake stands due to blog... I need an extension just for them

[supergolden88]

Has anyone found a good storage solution for tupperware and baking trays? Two things that drive me crazy - and pot lids too

if anyone fancies a look at my inspiration board it's here - lots of white kitchens as you will see : )

http://www.pinterest.com/supergolden88/kitchen-inspiration/

[Mustard]

I would get as many deep pull out drawers as possible. I did this in a kitchen I had once and it was wonderful not having to get down on hands and knees to search in cupboards.

Anything can go in them, including tins and spices.

[BeccaL]

A friend of mine has just had plinth drawers put into her kitchen, among other things to address the tupperware issue. Think it's a genius idea - wasted space otherwise! think she got them from Howdens but might be wrong about that

[tarafitness]

It looks like we'll be coming to the end of our project, just when yours starts :-)

I posted about it yesterday on the awesome kitchens thread. It sounds like we're having something very similar done as we're extending into the side return and joining our dining room to our kitchen to create a family room/open plan kitchen space.

I'd recommend checking lead times with suppliers, as we're only *just* scraping in time with the bi-fold doors as we weren't told that they'd take 4-5 weeks to supply and fit.

have you decided on colour scheme and how many units? Attached is how our kitchen will look along the back wall, and in the middle we'll have an island with our washer/dryer, dishwasher and sink.

In the picture of our kitchen, both units to the right and left of the cooker contain deep drawers for things like tupperware and pan overflow (we're installing a pan rack above the island). The little lower cupboard will have a pull-out spice rack, and the cupboard underneath the microwave will also have deep drawers for things like rice and pasta, tins, etc...

our kitchen comes from Benchmarx, and was substantially cheaper than the Howdens quote. The units are very good, they're the ones that Wickes sell (but again, cheaper). We already had a tall larder unit with pull out Blum drawers so we knew of the quality. We're keeping the tall unit (it's on the left of our fridge/freezer), but changing the doors to accommodate more child-friendly handles as the ones we had on it are rather sharp edged!

Feel free to PM me if you have questions about the work we're having done :-)

Tara

[supergolden88]

Thanks for sharing Tara - I have no concrete plans at all about units etc. I think colour scheme will be mostly white or white/pale grey.

In terms of units it may end up being Ikea (or whatever we can afford!)

will take a god look at your design

[Miacis]

Just a couple of thoughts:

No TV in kitchen. You need a room to get away from it.

Plan contents of every cupboard, drawer. Pullout larders are superb.

Have sep room/place for washing machine if possible. Think about where to dry clothes.

Remember a tall cupboard for brooms etc

We have washable tiles by back door. Wood elsewhere on floor warm on tootsies in the morning

[scareyt]

This http://www.lakeland.co.uk/21071/Bakeware-Organiser in a deep drawer is brilliant for baking trays. I've got one in a deep drawer below the oven and it's replaced two cupboard shelves worth of annoying piles of baking stuff and chopping boards.

(I've never found a good solution for Tupperware though - easily the most annoying thing in my kitchen!)

[supergolden88]

That organiser looks good. The tupperware issue will remain unresolved unless they all fit into each other and lids are stored separately.

Makes me want to throw everything out and start from scratch. Which, in a way, is exactly what I am doing. Feels cathartic!

[sb]

.

[supergolden88]

Wow! I don't my house is ever that organised.

Any suggestions for decking /and or paving outside bifold (or other type) doors to garden? We are tearing down an old extension and using that space to enlarge garden slightly. So it will need to be decked or paved. And in fact the garden needs to be completely redone from scratch too...