Kitchen's Kitchen

I'm lacking the luxury of a laundry room.

Everything you need is here - exceptional:

https://britishstandardcupboards.co.uk/

Is that what you have? I have kind of given up on using a wok at home, even on the gas burner of my (outdoor) grill the flames don't go high enough for the sides of the wok to be sufficiently hot.

Nah, just flat induction. No heat on the sides but I mange ok, I'm sure my wok technique is probably terrible but no one's complained so far.

Tripple ring burner (oooh!), round bottomed wok, just about gets the job done.

At home wok technique is just flip the stuff in the air with a thin steel wok. Proper commercial wok technique you pull the wok over the ring of the burner to save your arm muscles cos proper woks are thicker steel and pretty heavy.

The few seconds after 1:34 show what I mean
https://youtu.be/aqmGp070Vj8?t=94

You can't do that at home so do whatever works. The most important part is to keep the food moving.

We got built in Neff oven, microwave, extractor and induction hob. Bosch fridge and freezer. Can't fault them. No issues three years in. Unless you're after a specific feature, I can't see a need for anything more expensive. Look good too, IMO. Slide and hide oven door is great. Induction hob is not at all noisy, hadn't even crossed my mind, and our pans aren't anything special. In fact, the hob came with a set of saucepans and frying pan. I can dig out model numbers if you like.

Also, I would really suggest you consider making everything built in.

Siemens dishwashers with the little projector that shines on the floor to show how long is left in programme is great!

Franke sink waste disposal is great and reduces the number of times we empty the bin, a lot. Also means that food waste doesn't sit in bin and start whiffing. The dishwasher outlet is routed through the waste disposal to keep it clean.

Regarding layout, we spent time considering the two triangles: 1. the cooking one: fridge, hob, sink and 2. the clean up one: sink, dishwasher, bin. Realise though that sometimes that not every kitchen has a layout or enough degrees of freedom to allow these to be perfect. We optimised these as best we could and then put the other stuff in the remaining spaces.

Wherever you choose have a look at the type of shelf supports and weights that the drawers will hold.

When we specc’d ours we (I) wanted that reassuringly expensive ‘clunk’ when you closed the door to a cupboard. I liken’d it to the old VW advert where they closed the door.

Every time I interact with the kitchen I wanted to feel where the money had gone as when everything is in place it’s tough to to see where you’ve just dropped the extra £20k for a shaker style kitchen. It needed to be rock solid...

Little things like marble on the underside of the shelf above the breakfast station to protect it from heat, makes all the difference.

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^ i quite like that idea - i hate nothing more than toaster being shut underneath a cupboard/shelf

https://www.diy-kitchens.com/

Did ours 3 years ago, also a shaker style. Quality is great. Chose the colour we wanted from a 3rd party paint supplier and they sprayed all the units for us. All in it was about 40% of the price of a very similar kitchen we modelled it on that would have cost 5 figures.

You have to be very good at measuring up, layouts and careful with making sure you are ordering everything you need. Customer service was excellent when I got some stuff wrong!

Go full Euro and have it in your bathroom.

The line up of these shelf pins tho

Ha, I use it to hang the milk jug from...

Scanning through this, I know you’re oppposed to full-height cupboards but the boiler really shouldn’t be on display. We moved ours from an upstairs bathroom (to free up space) and got it built into a cupboard with our washing machine. Access for maintenance through a pull out panel. Pic from when it was all still being finished off.

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With a larder(/pantry? What’s the difference?) next to it. Not as fancy as @Cornish_Bike ‘s (no marble) and I should have considered the spice rack earlier instead of leaving it as an afterthought, but pleased with how it came together.

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this looks awesome - could you share a few more photos/details of the whole kitchen? just beginning to gather inspiration!

This is actually our dining room - we have an awkward galley kitchen at the back of the house, and now the washing machine is here we finally have a dishwasher 🙏 this was a half step, with the thought that if we extend back I can move the rest of the kitchen into here (island where dining table is, hob in fireplace, oven stack in one alcove and worktop in the other. Plumbing and electrics for this was all put in while the room was gutted so if we see it through it should be a relatively painless second step), then we can move dining room to living room and have living room in garden extension. Wide shot of things as they were last year sometime.

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The last door on the right (under stairs) holds two bikes and a pram (and step stool for larder, hoover, whatever) easy, while the blank panel on the left is accessed from the garden for storage of bike shit/pizza oven/whatever.

I spent 6 years with the house as-was trying to work out how to shuffle everything around satisfactorily as we don’t have much space to play with (“if I move the boiler here, then I can move this there, then...”), drew everything up and specced it all and found an amenable builder.

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but the boiler really shouldn’t be on display

Seems that most agree:

Recent research undertaken by npower showed that more than half of people (57 per cent) would want to knock £5,000 off the asking price of a property if it had an exposed boiler. That amount is more than the typical cost of a new heating appliance. The research also showed that 68 per cent of Brits would be put off buying a property if the boiler was uncovered.

I shall get this changed so that it's in a cupboard.

Now wondering whether the depth of cabinets allows a cupboard door to be in front of a freestanding washing machine. Probably not, but I'll check.

Cabinets don’t need to be deeper, just further from the wall. Spec a deeper worktop to compensate. Was an option I explored before realising I didn’t want to spend any money sorting our shit kitchen out just for it to be knocked down.

the problem was one of placement... all existing plumbing and the hole in the wall for the vent would leave the boiler in a corner above the worktop.

If I put a full length cupboard in it will mess with the flow of the worktop and look a bit odd.

If I put a high cupboard in, the pipes would still be visible and need covering anyway.

Hence... it's going to be obvious what it is, just being plain about that is less visually strange.

Spot the random cupboard in the corner with the encroachment onto the worktop!

My brain is filled with #40kbathroom stress right now so I’m not going to engage any mental faculties, but if everything’s coming out, change the plumbing? Vents can be ducted, condenser pipes can be plumbed internally (mine goes into washing machine drain), pipes can go in walls.

You can get to £4ok with a bathroom!? Oh... sauna and steam room?

And yup, can change the plumbing... and the flue hole... hmm, I could add more cupboards on the other side of the hood, put the boiler next to the hood and get the pipes chased into the wall behind the backsplash... or something like that.

Hashtag used facetiously. But yes, having dipped my toe in the water, I reckon I could have done so quite easily without it even looking particularly extravagant. The room is less than 3m in any direction.

I keep being drawn back to this. It seems like a good way to de-clutter surfaces from things like kettles and toasters, and a good way to sneak an espresso machine into the kitchen with nobody noticing.

Do you have technical drawings that you could share?