Kitchen

Kitchen

The kitchen was one of the most complicated jobs we undertook when doing our renovations and we were also doing it on a really tight budget. The dishwasher and oven were second hand, and we saved wherever possible whilst still aiming for a high end look. Of course with Alex in the house, it was pretty essential that we got this room done in the early stages of the project, and we also needed a properly functioning space for catering jobs too.

As you can see below, this part of the house used to be a living-come-dining area for the old owners, and was painted a v. bright lime green. The kitchen was located opposite this room.

The same view, but when we viewed the house in 2016.

The original kitchen was opposite which we changed to a dining area.

We swapped the kitchen and diner over, took out built in cupboards and widened the opening into the living room.

Aside from the bathroom, this was pretty challenging to live with, as at this point, we were still doing a lot of the work ourselves alongside full time jobs. Luckily we had helpful friends who were amazingly generous with their time and helped us loads.

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Living in a building site.

The trench you can see in the picture above is where we (our friend Ali) had to dig in order to get the services across to the other side of the house. Aside from knocking down walls, and adding in new electrics and a custom extraction system, this is one of the reasons this project was quite challenging.

Units

We were on a major budget for this project (we managed to complete this project for under 5K), so chose our units and cupboards from IKEA. The doors are Veddinge grey, and we found the minimal handle pulls online. We had to slightly shorten one of the cabinets to get it to perfectly fit in the space we had, but other than that, they were relatively easy to choose and install. We used IKEA’s kitchen planning facility where we were able to figure out what size units we could use.

Extras

We added an LED strip light below the wall cabinets for extra light when working in the kitchen. The spotlights, pendants and LED lights are all on separate circuits so that we can choose which lights we want on.

The fridge and dishwasher are both integrated for a clean finish. It’s nice having them hidden away behind cabinet doors.

The extractor fan is fitted flush to the ceiling for a minimal finish - we used an industrial extraction system and made it to our own specifications. We really struggled to find anything appropriate from a shop as our oven is in the island and we didn’t want anything overhead obscuring the pendant lights.

We sourced from:

Back splash tiles - RAK

Pendant lights - Ebay

Worktops - These are acrylic (a bit like Corian) custom built to our drawings from an Ebayer

Units - IKEA

Shelf - ordered the wood online and had it fitted by our builder

Mixer tap - MIZZO

Oven - Belling Range (second hand)

Extraction system - custom made by Alex!

Fridge and Dishwasher - Both second hand integrated

Paint - Farrow and Ball ‘Blackened’ (Dulux colour matched)