5 things I love about our kitchen….to inspire you!

Nearly two years ago we were in the process of planning our kitchen extension. We were finalising costs and timeframe with our builders, and I was beginning to put thought towards what we wanted in and as part of the kitchen. At the time I realised that I had only one shot at this, so it had to be right. Our home is our long-term home so we have spent money on it, choosing quality fittings and investing in items that make life a little easier and more convenient for us as a family.

I spent a lot of time designing the layout of our kitchen extension and kitchen, which is really important, and working out exactly what would go where. We pretty much designed the kitchen layout ourselves building it bespoke on IKEA carcasses, and if you like you can read all about that here.

So if you’re at the start of a renovation project or kitchen renovation to help you with your kitchen planning, here are 5 things that I love about our kitchen which may inspire you with your kitchen planning and design. Here goes…

Hot water tap

I totally love ours and I would highly recommend one if you have the opportunity to get one. Imagine instant tea on tap without having to wait for a kettle to boil. It is a luxury and is probably the reason why I drink about 20 cups of tea a day (no joke). However it does mean that I you don’t need to have a kettle which is good if you’re limited on worktop space.

We have the Quooker Fusion tap in black which does everything; cold water, hot water, boiling water and filtered water (this is optional and comes at an extra cost). Had we been doing our kitchen extension now I would definitely be tempted with the gold tap and the sparkling water option. These were not available at the time and have been added to the Quooker range since.

Wine fridge or wine rack

We have a wine fridge and wine rack under the island for both white and red wine. We opted to have a slim line wine fridge for the white wine, and then we had a bespoke wine rack built for the red wine, made by our builder to match the kitchen doors and drawer fronts. If you’re a wine lover and have the space for a wine fridge or wine rack it is really useful to have. It saves room in your actual fridge and stores the wine at the correct temperature too.

Larder cupboard

One of the cupboards that I really wanted in the kitchen was a large and tall larder cupboard. I would have loved a double one, however we didn’t have the space for that without compromising on something else. Instead we have a single full height larder cupboard from IKEA with drawers, and it is amazing. It basically stores all of our dry non-perishable food including tins, pasta, cereal, baking ingredients, spices and a lot of the kids stuff that I need to keep out of reach from them. One of the advantages that we found of having IKEA carcasses is all the storage solutions that come with it. I still need to get a few more bits and pieces for this cupboard including cereal containers and spice jars to organise it slightly better.

Double ovens

At the very beginning of the planning stage I always wanted a side by side oven, that both look the same and stylish. From the outset I was really keen on having the Siemens IQ 700 range that I knew would look great against our black slab handleless doors, rather than having a tower oven that would break the design. One oven is a normal single oven with grill, and the other is the same with microwave. Both look identical and work really well with the kitchen. It’s always worth considering during the design and planning stage that your on show appliances work with your design. At the same time if budget permits it is totally worth spending a little more on appliances that you use every single day as you’ll be wanting quality and a product that lasts here.

Underfloor heating

We opted to have underfloor heating in the extension. It’s a large space and with a new sub floor being laid here across the entire room it made sense to have underfloor heating here. When it’s on it heats up really quite quickly and really warms the space (and house), to the point where it is often too hot in the extension, however it is so nice standing on the floor with bare feet in the morning. I would highly recommend this if you have a big space to heat, plus it gives you wall space that would have been taken up by a radiators.

So that’s it, those are the 5 things that I love about our kitchen. Obviously I love so much more, including how the kitchen is pretty much unique to us and the chevron floor too!

If you’ve done a kitchen renovation I would love to hear what features you like the most. And, if you’re planning a kitchen renovation I hope that you’ve found this post useful?

Claire x