Kitchen before...

I've just got the new tiles :smt007 :smt007 :smt007 so I'm getting very excited about the prospect of the new kitchen. In the meantime, I thought I'd do some before- photos, to show you why I'm so desperate to get this done

The smallest kitchen in the world:









ps. I had to stitch 2 photos together there so you could see who's hanging about on the floor

Awww I'm sure its going to be lovely - it looks okay now See Bongo is having a good sniff around My kitchen needs replacing too its about 13 years old now

Oooooooh how exciting, I loved it when I had my new kitchen 3 years ago now though! I will be waiting in anticipation to see the pics of when it's all finished

It's not all that small, it's not much smaller than mine:
I've got seating down the other end. It's amazing what you can cram into a small kitchen I think, and I covered the walls in cabinets too for extra storage - have you thought of that?

Oh you had to post that and make me jealous all over again didn't you Mrs - I am jealous of your doggies AND your kitchen (oh and Mr Helena is okay too )

Sorry Foxy, I just wanted to give duboing an idea of how nice a small kitchen can be!!! You'll get your nice new sparkly kitchen soon I'm sure - when Tim has finished all the gardening of course!

p.s. you should have seen my OLD kitchen, it was minging!

Oooh Helena, yours looks really smart - I love the monochrome look I'm sure yours is quite a lot bigger though, ours is really no more than 3.0 x 1.8m , but we do have a separate dining room, and no kids, so not having a seating area in there isn't the worst thing in the world

We're getting loads of wall cabinets into ours. The ceiling is pretty high, so we're going to have a row of 30cm high cupboards above the main run of wall cabinets. At 5'4" I'm never going to be able to reach them without a chair to stand on , but they'll be great for the seldom-used stuff like cake tins and pasta machines.

It is gorgeous Helena - where did you get it from? and did whoever you got it from fit it as well?

Tim garden? Are you joking he spends about 20 mins a week on my garden

It certainly doesn't look only 1.8M wide in those pics???? That's only just over 3ft??? That's a good idea putting cupboards above the wall cupboards, but have you thought about getting taller cupboards in the first place and putting lots more shelves in them???? Make sure you measure from one end of the wall to the other too, as you can buy not only 500m wide, but 400 and 300 too, so that it finishes nice and neatly at the very end of the wall, that's what I had to do. When you've got your measurement, play around with the figures and see how many and what size you can have and decide which ones you then want. Personally those 300mm wide ones are a bit silly imo, but I had to have 1 of them to fit at the end on the left of the cooker hood as you can see, and the opposite wall above that drawer unit. If you can fit one of those big drawer units in on the base, I can't recommend them MORE, they are fantastic and you can cram loads of stuff in those, all easily accessible with the drawers too, nice and deep and wide?

Thanks Foxy! I shopped around on the internet, MFI for the worktops as I liked them, they're the granite shiny ones, and the splashback to match, then I used B & Q for the units and doors and handles, then back to MFI for their "clearance" stock for my oven, hob and integrated dishwasher, which I got the door for from B & Q as they did a dishwasher door in that style. I saved a packet from what I had budgeted too with the MFI clearance stock, and I actually got the dishwasher free compared to what I had in my budget coz the cooker and hob were so cheap! Lol! I'm such a cheapskate!!

I designed it all by myself too, which upset Dave a bit, coz he had to fit it, but I marked all the unit packaging with where it was going etc. to make his life easier. He was quite gobsmacked actually when he came to fit it, and found that everything, but everything, fitted perfectly, it even ends up dead in line with the wall by the back door too, top and bottom! I completely changed the kitchen as the seating was originally where that bigdrawer unit was, but now I have it down the other end by the window and back door, it works perfectly, except in the mornings when you want to sit and drink your tea with two big dogs wanting to get passed and get out the back!

There are just over 3ft to a metre, so its roughly 6 foot wide, and about 11ft long. Fortunately, there's a funny little alcove built into the wall, presumably where the original stove was, because it's got the original 1930s tiles lining it, and a little chimney thing outside , and although it's only 40cm deep, its big enough to fit in a low-profile washing machine, leaving room for a dishwasher where the washing machine was!

You sound like a woman after my own heart, fitting as many cupboards as possible into the available space! I've been planning this for a while, it's just like doing jigsaws for me I might go scan the designs in a mo so you can see what I've got planned. I've even got similar drawers to yours going in for the saucepans and plates - 2 x 50cm wide ones, on either side of the cooker - so much easier than getting down on hands and knees to access the cupboards!