Got around £15k to spend on a kitchen – apart from the obvious, what appliances do I need to consider? Was thinking things like an inline water filter, stuff like that.

Don’t need a coffee machine (The Gaggia Classic will take pride of place in the new kitchen) and don’t want an American-style fridge (we have a separate utility room with an old fridge freezer in so just opting for a small under-counter fridge).

Tell me how to spend my (well the bank’s) money please!

Induction hob – best thing we put in our new kitchen
Hate american style thingies, freezer section is always to small – but large fridge and large freezer

More power points than you think – then double it – pout them on a central island if you are having one
USB power points such as this
Great tap – ours was £300 but when you are buying a new kitchen it doesnt seem so bad

If it’s really the bank’s money you need to learn to love the old kitchen.

If it’s really the bank’s money you need to learn to love the old kitchen.

Why? (And I so knew someone would spout this rubbish).

15k on a kitchen ? bloody hell !

15k on a kitchen ? bloody hell !

It’s for all the work including taking out a load-bearing wall, replastering, re-routing lighting, re-routing heating etc.

just opting for a small under-counter fridge).

We did this, with a full size fridge and a freezer in a utility room. It’s not great, to be honest (2 adults, 2 young kids), the under counter fridge just doesn’t hold enough for day to day use.

We did this, with a full size fridge and a freezer in a utility room. It’s not great, to be honest (2 adults, 2 young kids), the under counter fridge just doesn’t hold enough for day to day use.

With the current set-up it’s what we are doing and we don’t mind it – and I don’t want a dirty big thing in there.

a kitchen fitter would help a lot I imagine! 😆

If it’s really the bank’s money you need to learn to love the old kitchen.

Why? (And I so knew someone would spout this rubbish).

Ask Greece. I prefer to save first, spend later.

But if you’re spending, buy stuff that works brilliantly, looks good and lasts. Miele dishwasher, Franke sinks, Pegler or Bristan taps and a Mercury range cooker.

I see where the money is going now with all that work.!

Ask Greece. I prefer to save first, spend later.

Fair enough, but we bought a property that needed work doing on it so we borrowed enough to cover the modernisation costs.

Or buy cheaper stuff so when you are sick of looking at it in a few years and want to change you are not throwing money away ?

15k isn’t a lot depending on what spec of appliances etc your fitting.
I fitted a 20k kitchen in a new build last year. £5600 for units inc fitting, £5500 for corian tops and the rest went on Miele appliances. It was bloody massive tho!

Under counter fridge works fine for us. Milk, OJ, drinks, sandwich stuff and condiment jars in there, “meals” type food and everything else in a big American style Samsung in the utility room a few steps away. Kitchen designed so I can both make a cup of tea and unload the dishwasher without moving my feet.

Russ – that doesn’t seem much for the units out of that budget. Where were they from?

Lighting in and under cupboards

Ultima furniture. Trade side of DIY kitchens. I fit kitchens and use them a lot.

I’d recommend a sink grinder; I hate emptying the food waste bin, especially this time of year.
Corian work surfaces and sinks are great if you’ve the budget for them.

I miss my old kitchen 🙁

That white kitchen looks like a dentist room

£15k doesn’t sound all that much if fairly major building work involved too. make sure you have a contingency fund for unseen problems.

I also fit kitchens for a living, I reckon our average job price this year is £25k. max being £54k!!!

Spend a good long time on the design to make sure everything works before committing, I’d look for drawers for base units rather than cupboards, they make access much easier. Good quality but not OTT appliances, I personally like Siemens at the moment, rather than Miele, especially for the budget. 2nd the induction hob, I love ours but make sure you have the juice to run it.

I prefer ovens and fridges in towers if poss but that’s personal preference.

Silestone worktops are our current most popular, but are approx £350/m which is still a lot cheaper than Corian.

My favourite kitchen gadget is my Quooker, saves a lot of time and faff but you’d be struggling to justify one on cost alone.

while I can sort of appreciate them, those blank white kitchens do nothing for me, too space aged.

Gas hob surely?

It’s for all the work including taking out a load-bearing wall, replastering, re-routing lighting, re-routing heating etc.

How much of the budget is left for the kitchen after that then?

£15k doesn’t sound all that much if fairly major building work involved too. make sure you have a contingency fund for unseen problems.

Max of 20k, allowing for contingency. Allowing £4k for other works.

£15k is more than enough to get a really classy high quality kitchen. Don’t discount good old laminate worktops. We had granite in our old kitchen and was looking at either real wood or Corian tops or something similarly posh and expensive for our new kitchen, but when we looked at the cost and how good modern laminate worktops are we just decided to economise on the worktops and haven’t regretted it – they look great, and really hard wearing and zero maintenance. We also went for the bottom of the range Bosh and Neff appliances – very very good, not as good a Miele, but whilst Meile being at least 4 times the price they’re not 4 times as good, so again a good area to economise on without compromising on quality – dishwasher was £230, Neff double oven about £400, gas 5 ring Neff hob around £200 – £300, and £200 on a glass fronted wine/beer fridge. I’ll be very old and grey before I have to replace that lot. I think ours came in at about £9k for the kitchen all in – £7k for the kitchen and worktops, £2k for appliances – it’s a decent sized kitchen too and it looks great – high gloss white units, soft close, really classy, clean and uncluttered. Economising on that lot enabled me to spend on the areas that I would appreciate more, as it was part of a larger extension – like a chuffing big telly, a Quooker hot tap and a few other luxuries elsewhere in the home.

There are a couple of areas i wish i’d spent a bit more on – the sink and tap. I just went with the one that the kitchen people supplied, look ok but feel a bit cheap – so wish i’d splashed out a bit more on a better sink and tap – but easily replaced in the future should it begin to bother me too much.

Camping cooker, take away menus, phone, valium (could be needed depending on fitter/builder.

Ditto what blazin wrote.
A 2 drawer unit is much more usable that a standard cupboard.
Don’t waste money on fancy corner units/pull outs, put the stuff you barely use in them.
Get the best Worktops you can afford, they are what gets the most use and what makes the kitchen stand out.
And don’t try and fill every bit of space in the room with units, you really don’t need that many.
Induction hob is a must!

We have literally just finished changing our kitchen.pretty much spent £15k of the banks money (and it’s not a stupid thing to do, better enjoy it now and adds around £40pm to the mortgage ). I was hoping to get in in nearer 12k but no chance.

No actual structural work but did have to rip off horrible wood panelling and re-plaster everything incl. ceiling, all new electrics (seems Sellotape was a viable wire connector in the past 8O) take up floor and re-level etc. we also re-floored dining room. Fair amount of re-plumbing too.

We went for neff oven, gas hob (I like gas, best for cooking IMO) and also a microwave which is set into wall unit saving worktop space. This is really neat.

Just went for laminate worktop as much easier to maintain than granite/real wood and couldn’t afford coriander.

We’ve got real wood flooring which I think is much nicer looking than tile floor, got the same in dining room. All the flooring cost a grand though.

15k on a kitchen ? bloody hell !

Recently fitted some built-in wardrobes in a house. Their kitchen was 120,000€….

If you are in a hard water area then fit a water softener if you have room. Lovely silky feel water & no limescale to wreck your lovely new shiny chrome.

couldn’t afford coriander.

Only about 0.60p in tesco.

Considering using that heavy-duty lino stuff for the floor rather than wood – just worried about it staining if we use wood. And we don’t want to use tiles as the open-plan style (ie kitchen/diner) means we would have tile in the eating area which I think would be a bit cold and uninviting.

Unless anyone has any other ideas?….

Two dishwashers if you have space I reckon. Make dinner parties and Xmas dead easy.

Hmmm, interesting consideration (especially as we are designing the kitchen around having space for at least 12 people).

USB power points such as this

I’m very sceptical of cheap USB power supplied, they could easily end up reducing the life of the battery in your phone if they’re not well regulated.

it also means you need less cupboard space – if you have 2 dishwashers…..

one dirty and one clean at all times…. just use the dishes straight from the clean one…..no need for a cupboard for them.

Im sure that was a joke on dave gormans genius 😀

mean while i also know a woman whos husband banned her from using the dishwasher as it “uses too much energy” so they store potatoes in it….. – mental.

Two dishwashers if you have space I reckon

LG used to do a double dishwasher, my sister has it in Scotland – superb bit of kit – but I think they have discontinued it

Induction hob over gas anytime

Really don’t want induction – I like my wok cooking too much and like to cook the traditional way over a flame.

Can see how a kitchen can cost 15k when walls and power are being moved using contractors. I built this over 4 weeks whilst fitting new central heating. Brick built pantry came out and full rewire adding 7 sockets instead of the original 1. Came in just under 5k with all tiles and appliances.

[/url]House renovations by chris,
[/url]House renovations by chris, on Flickr}

Considering using that heavy-duty lino stuff for the floor rather than wood – just worried about it staining if we use wood. And we don’t want to use tiles as the open-plan style (ie kitchen/diner) means we would have tile in the eating area which I think would be a bit cold and uninviting.

Unless anyone has any other ideas?….

My only comment about flooring would be to avoid anything too dark – it looks great when it’s just been cleaned, but about 30 seconds later even the smallest crumb will be visible from space…