Thread: kitchen questions.

This is the sort of question that will get you answers driven primarily by personal preferences...and here are mine:

Soft close drawer runners - yep, they're not cheap. If you like them then they're worth it if you could go either way then save yourself some dollars; you are looking at about $100 per drawer if you go with the Blumotion...no real tips except for the obvious one of marking up drilling and fitting the runners before you assemble the carcasses.

Drawer Layout - in terms of effective storage you should be considering drawers wherever possible.
Conventional formats are 2, 3, 4 and 5 equal then 1 small two large, 2 small and 2 large and so on.
Mixing and matching heights is quite simple as there are a range of different height drawer sets to accomodate all the sizes.
I like to put in lots of 1 small 2 large, with the top drawer about 142mm High and then two pot drawers 286mm hingh underneath.
If you have enough of these you can do away with a set of 4 small drawers altogether - again very much to do with personal preferences.

Bin location - all of your options are good, hole in the benchtop does mean sacrificing some benchtop real estate though.
There is a reliable slide out dual bin system from Kimberly, the KR08, which sits in it's own frame with integrated lids.
One of the advantages of this particular model is that it is low enough to either go under the sink or behind it's own door with a small drawer above it; perferct for holding garbage bags and so on... a bit like the drawer set under the sink in your existing kitchen, except with a door below.

Just a little side note on your existing kitchen; I don't know how much you intend to change the layout, but is it possible to try and move the oven far enough to the left so that you don't have a blind corner next to it? Blind corners are a real PITA and I recommend that people do whatever possible to avoid them.

Cheers,

Thanks for taking the the time to write that Earl. Clarified a few things for me.

Especially about the oven being in a blind corner. Its worried me to. I can shift the whole thing about 500mm away from where it is at the moment. So , I'll do that, and maybe make a couple of doors that set into the corner. Forgotten what their called. Where one door hinges off the other. Opens right up so she can get to her pots and pans.

It is my pleasure Jake - and thanks for the thanks...

Bifold doors are the things you are thinking about (unless you want to get extravagant and put in a set of Blum corner drawers)

If you are using a hinging system such as the Blum cliptop range:

http://www.blum.com.au/au/en/01/20/10/20/index.php

then you will find that there are some specialist hinge formats for bifold doors.
Particularly useful is the 170 degree hinge that enables you to crank the first door of the bifold door set right out of the way allowing the second door to fold in and still give access to the cavity.

See how you go.

Cheers,

Jake i hope you take pics and do a WIP of the kitchen for all of us to see. And i must say, looking at the pic you are a lot younger looking than i had imagined

Have been tossing about these sort of questions plus a few more for some time myself. Asked lots of people also in the same situation too, (although they all have finished the job now).

As Earl said, lots of personal preferences but,... some general answers / views I got are as follows:

Drawers: YES, yes and yes. Forget cupboards. Layout as Earl said.

Drawers soft close: Yes, very nice. If you spend of lot of time cooking then I would go for them, good if you are a messy cook too, (look Ma no hands). Are safer for little kids' fingers as well, compared to the jump shut ones. Check out your pot heught dimensions when selecting drawer height so you are sure they will fit. Tis a real bumber when you have nice sets of drawers that are 10mm too small for a couple of everyday pots.

Bins: As you and Earl said for location etc. I found one, Blum I think, that is hands free and self opening, press with your knee and hey presto door slides open and lid lifts up. I really liked it and am going to have to find out where to get it. No more needing three hands to empty the scraps into the bin.

Oven location: As Earl said. Have a similar situation and opening oven door next to other doors/drawers that can clash is to be avoided, plus the dead area thing.

Anyway, is all rather personal choice and budget driven. For me it is convenience and ease of use, (am messy in the cooking department) so will be saving up for the soft closers and fancy bin door thingy.

Keep us updated. Like to see the end result.

Cheers
Pops

Just to confuse you Jake, if drawers were the most efficient way of storing things, they'd be used all the time in commercial kitchens.

With no disrespect intended to Earl or Pops, they have come in to fashion in recent years because of marketing by the kitchen people. There's a bigger margin on a more expensive kitchen, and people have convinced themselves that they are terrific. (they're not bad, and they do have a purpose, but they're not terrific and not good value as far as I'm concerned).

The best way to store stuff is to put purpose made shelves in the cupboards, and don't make them too wide. Under benches I prefer to use three shelves not one, the bottom one full width, the next 400 the top one 300.

You basically stack things on them to suit their size and you can fit an amazing amount in them. Compare the price of one piece of 300 wide MDF to making a drawer, let alone the cost of the Blumotion slides!

Yes the Bumotion are worth it IF you are going to stack crockery in your drawers. The most efficient way to store crockery is in a vertical cupboard no more than 300 deep. That's the depth of the biggest dinner plate you own, and you don't want to stack things two deep do you?

I actually have a false back in my crockery cupboard to bring it out to the face of the others. Then you need heaps of shelves, set about an inch higher than the glasses you are going to put on them, or about twice the depth of a bowl clear over the bowl stack! Our shelves range from 140 to 230 apart depending on what's on them.

Put the crockery about one step from the sink/dishwasher and you'll be amazed at how easy life becomes at washing up time.

I don't like bins in cupboards, but built a separate carcass 400 wide and used a slide-out twin bin. It works fine.

Pantries are the other places that the kitchen joints tend to get wrong. You don't need shelves any deeper than 300 and you don't need them any further apart than 300 (a box of cornies), leave a 300 gap at the front of the cupboard and you can stick a broom in there too and hang stuff off the inside of the doors and maybe even get a tea towel rack in.

You should get six shelves in easily.

Hope you are now so confused that the project gets put off for a year!

cheers,

P

excellent suggestions BM

apricotripper, just a question.
Who does the most cooking in the kitchen. If it is (for example) your SWMBO, , does she have any preference about what she likes where, eg, cutletry drawer near the sink/ serving area, that sort of thing?

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm trying to take it all in. Its all making feel kinda tired all of a sudden to be honest. not sure what to do now.

I'll try and do a WIP Lignum. And I can't cook. My wifes right into it Tameriska.

This whole house is what you get after about 50 years of half finished renos I reakon.

Its sounding like the soft closing runners won't be necessary if each draws going to add another $100. That'll add up to a lot of money. And the misses plan is to put all the crockery up high in a cabinet on the wall anyway. With stained glass in the doors and these trendy looking knobs she bought from Byron bay. Another thing I have to make. like in that first picture.......Also wants the bench below it to extend around to form a breakfast/preparation table with stools around it.

She also wants a pantry made into this stuffy looking corner of the kitchen. In picture 2 (bad feng shui dat is ! )....There's a doorway there for some reason going to one of the kids bedrooms. So I was just going to try and block it off with a pantry with a sliding door. And on the bedroom side cover it with a built in of some sort.

And that blind corner you mentioned (picture 3).....definetly seems like particularily bad Feng shoe.... Thinking orient the bifold like this. Don't know if thats what you were thinking. Thinking to open it away from the oven.

Still seems like a bit of a back strainer for the misses really. Don't want her hurting her back bending in there for something. Maybe some sort of shelving system that pulls out ?????

Thinking to basically make the frames out of pine to keep it cheap. Spray paint it (she likes blood red, or blue grey), then have blue gum timber drawer fronts and bench tops......playing with the idea of using up my stash of silky oak, but, I don't want to use it all up, and I prefer the look of darker timber.

apricotripper, this might be an idea (absolutely, most definately don't look at the price, just the idea) for making easy accessable cupboard corners.

As long as the kid can get out of his bedroom some other way, it looks like a good spot for a pantry, dead space thats out of the way enough not to trip over other people.

Like Lingum, I will be looking forward to a WIP

Jake,
just a tip for the corner cupboards. I try to avoid bifolding the doors as the hinges always sag. Instead each door is hinged on 170deg hinges. One door closes first and has no handle, the other, with a handle, then closes and laps over the first. To operate you open the one with the handle and then reach in and grab the edge of the second door to open it. You won't have to come back and constantly adjust the hinges.

Mick

Jake I don't agree with BM...I think draws are a fantastic way to store pots and Tupperware type items.....you pull out the draw and everything can be seen. Unlike cupboards where things hide from you.

I put dual 1m long draws 2 x 270 + 1 X 175 ish draws in mine and it holds all the pots, pans, cutlery, cooking utensils, and Tupperware in less space than cupboards.

I used the cheapest metal side draws with no problems with runners after 3 years. they're not soft closing and they don't pull out all the way...but I don't need the brand names.

With the rubbish thing I put in two stackable slide out bins ..2 for recyclables 2 for scraps and rubbish. $160 all up works great.

I won't suggest design though.....thats half the fun of doing it yourself.

Attachment 62622

Attachment 62623

why dontcha spend a day out going round some showrooms

FWIW my thoughts, the product of several renovation experiences, on this subject are:

1. corner cupboards are a PITA - they are dark and are very hard to use - even with bifold doors, they are difficult to get things out of because all the space is at the back and you end up having to unpack the entire lot whenever you want to get something that isn't at the front out of the cupboard. This means they aren't used. I think that you are better off trying to avoid corners entirely - it may look like you are losing storage, but if it isn't really usable, it isn't really storage. For example, I would put the stove in the corner with no return bench, you lose a corner but you generate more usable bench and drawer/cupboard space.
2. I agree with BT that pot drawers are good, but again, try to avoid the temptation to make them high, unless you need to - try to make each for one layer of pots, not to stack pots in the drawers. As BM says, shelves in cupboards can be used, but I reckon they are a PITA because the stuff at the back is hard to get at. You can either use shallow shelves (less storage) or drawers - drawers can be deep (front to back) because you pull them out to get stuff out of them.
3. Pull out pantries are good - they operate like vertical drawers and allow you to use tall narrow spaces for storage of groceries without losing heaps of stuff up the back of a deep cupboard.
4. If SWMBO wants extra bench space, look at whether there are spaces that can have fold up flaps.