Kitchen build - Dan Kitchens Australia

We decided to spoil ourselves by over-capitalising on our PPOR We spent a few months getting designs and quotes from a few kitchen builders in Sydney (SBK, Kastell, Emanuel, Nobby's etc) but settled on DKA.

Our house was designed by Chenchow Little Architects who did a great job wrapping the floorplan around a central courtyard. The kitchen however appears to have been a Friday afternoon effort and was a sticking point when we bought the house off its original owners 3 years ago.


Additionally, the kitchen housed the laundry behind failing bi-fold doors. I moved the washing machine to an upstairs bathroom (in place of a shower, as that bathroom had 2 showers) and the bench/sink out to the courtyard for washing up during construction:


Day 1

This area has now been torn out and will become the new tea/coffee/drinks area:


The old kitchen was torn out in a matter of hours. It will extend along the right wall and into the old dining area to form a combined kitchen/dining zone. Most of the wiring for the new kitchen appears to have been done:


As we wanted a completely plain island as a central workspace, the sink is being relocated from the middle of the floor to the right wall. Concrete right under the floorboards means the existing downpipe can't be easily relocated, and instead the downpipe will run along the right and back walls then through to the adjacent bathroom.

Some lumber and board have been delivered for day 2, which should be the start of the construction of two nib walls that 'frame' the new kitchen.

 

Day 2

Just 2 guys over today (vs 6 yesterday) constructing the frame for the nib walls and bulkhead.


A couple of downlights will have to be shifted away from the left bulkhead, way too close atm. There'll be additional downlights in the bulkhead itself, but I don't want obviously uneven lighting from the main kitchen lights.

 

Exciting!! Can’t wait to see the progress!

 

Day 3

Downlights moved very easily... clever re-use of gyprock here


Nib walls and bulkheads have been mostly put up:


Rangehood ducting and remote motor (Sirius SEM1) installed:


Main sink downpipe can't be run to the bathroom anymore as they discovered that the pipe in the floor was reduced from 50mm to 25mm, so using it would require chopping up marble tiles (for which there are no replacements.) Instead they will install a pump to push the water over to an overhead vent pipe which runs across to the main sewerage line for upstairs... sounds tricky but we knew we would have to choose the lesser of two evils once we decided to change the sink location.

 

Day 4

All bulkheads and nib walls have been plastered up, builders have done an awesome job blending in the new construction with existing walls and ceilings.


Plumber and electrician have worked their magic, getting power to the middle and water to the wall where it was the opposite before.

Day 5 will be sanding and finishing of the whole area, which necessitated cleaning out the study. View of the TV in the living room is slightly hampered now....

 

Nice work following your progress.

We are just finalising plans for a complete house renovation for our PPOR.

 

Day 5-6

Builder came around to help me move the fridge so that the whole kitchen floor can be sanded properly. Half fell on me, that was fun

Floor sanding today, gyprock sanding and 2 coats of floor polish tomorrow. No photos as we were advised to vacate the premises for the sake of our lungs...

 

Love what they did with this
Skylight House

Ahh, if money was no object.

Side note, how much is Dan Kitchens quoting you? I get blown away by how much kitchen companies charge. The markup is huuge.

 

@chylld lookimg forward to seeing the end result! Your original kitchen is nicer than our current one lol

 

Day 6

Pretty early start today, first guy in at 6:30am (on a Saturday!) to sand down the ceiling, bulkheads and walls:


Next guy is now doing 2 more rounds of floor sanding, to be followed by 2 coats of tinted polish. We're looking forward to the floor being a touch lighter than the rest of the house

The skylight house is awesome! Ours was a very early project (built in 2000) so is only moderately fancy (but with plenty of potential to add architectural accents.)

DKA is charging quite a lot, their average kitchen build costs $80k + trades and ours is "above average" Add in a few new appliances and you're easily in overcapitalisation central.

 

Day 7

Floor was finished today, 3rd and final coat of polish applied and brought back to a matte finish. Looks a touch lighter than it used to be before sanding, which is exactly what we were aiming for to complement the new kitchen colours we've chosen.

Sanded vs 2 coats vs 3 coats/finished. Lights off in the last photo, couldn't reach the light switch and the smell made me want to hightail it out of there asap

 

Day 8

House is much less smelly after leaving all the doors and windows open overnight. Floor is looking great:


Today was painting day. Not sure if I used my best judgment when deciding to do this ourselves; I've painted walls before, how hard can it be? All of the new bulkheads made for LOTS of up ladder, cutting in, down ladder, roller, detach pole from roller, up ladder, hand roller, down ladder, refill paint, etc. Running out of paint at afternoon peak hour traffic time wasn't fun. Nonetheless, all the surfaces adjacent to the new cabinets are now painted so the transitions between cabinet and wall/bulkhead should be flawless.


The first of the cabinets should arrive at 7am tomorrow

 

Day 9

The first pieces of the new kitchen went in today! To say I'm excited is an understatement All the cabinetry arrived on a big moving truck and now consumes all of the study, and then some.


Cabinets are scheduled to take about 5 days to install, the first day of which is all about laying a solid foundation:


From left to right, the gaps are for the bar fridge, dishwasher and main fridge. The access panel in the wall (which goes underneath the floor above) will need to be modified so as not to foul the pantry to the right of the main fridge. A lot more space around the island than we originally thought, but this means we won't have any traffic issues especially when the oven or dishwasher doors are open.

A quick peek at some of the items straight out of the DKA factory:

 

Day 10

We have cabinets!!!!


The cabinets along the back and right walls have been screwed down, the rest are just loosely in place for now. It was super important to use the correct white on the drawers and doors, as we wanted a balance of bright and warm that still worked with our off-white wall colour. We went with Resene Half Sea Fog; helps that my wife is a trained colour consultant with all the swatches


The grey you see in this photo is the internal cabinetry and will be covered. It was a free upgrade from the usual white. Close up of the pre-assembled cabinets also shows the extraordinary accuracy of DKA's CNC equipment:


Our bin drawer is also in place, it's servo-assisted so you can open it with a bump of the knee. (Not sure how to automate the bin lids themselves though.) Internal drawer above the bins for bin bags, spare wipes etc. Most of the other drawers are external, like our spice rack drawer which is freaking massive...


Upper cabinets and wall shelves will go in next week, I think the one at the front is for the rangehood.

 

Day 11

Island and drinks bar cabinets secured down:


Ooooooodles of storage! As the island will be used for final prep / plating up, all of the cutlery and plateware will be stored inside it:


Ninka cutlery drawer system to store the 2 Target $25 cutlery sets I bought back when I first moved out almost 9 years ago.


Drinks bar will hold all the cups/drinkware. All 3 drawers are the same tall height so that we can put our tall glasses in any drawer we want (DKA asked us to measure our largest items)


A minor misinterpretation of the plans meant the builders didn't finish up the left wall of the drinks area. Not sure what we'll do above bench height (could bring the splashback around) but down the bottom it will be an easy fix with some paint and spare skirting.

 

All com together nicely.

 

'Day' 12

No tradies in the house this weekend, so I took the opportunity to paint the ceiling, which was replastered all the way around the edge. 2 coats yesterday with a brush didn't yield a good result, so a 3rd coat today with a roller finished the job properly. Scotch 'delicate' masking tape worked a treat on the freshly-painted bulkheads. As always, prep is everything...


... but the result is worth it!


Box of lights that will go along the right wall cabinets (including auto ones inside the 2 big pantries)


Void in the corner that we have decided to leave empty. We've seen some cool corner drawers and LeMans/magic corner systems, but as we have an abundance of storage now we don't need any more expense/complexity. Maybe I'll hide something there for the next owner...


Also applied some sound deadening material (car audio leftovers) to the tinny access panel - now sounds substantially more solid. I used this stuff on the underside of my old kitchen sink; made washing up a lot quieter and made an el cheapo sink feel more solid than the fancy ones in the kitchen showrooms!

 

5 shades of... bulkhead / nib wall?

1. frame
2. board
3. plaster
4. paint
5. paint

 

Day 13

Solid progress today! Island and main counter prep-tops / substrates in, along with the upper cabinets and rangehood housing.


Painted more of the bulkhead around the rangehood than I needed to - didn't think we were getting a 3rd tier of floating shelves right at the top.


Heaps of storage now! Both large pantries were designed with "hidden workspaces" at benchtop level to hide the appliances that don't get used often, e.g. vacuum sealer, bread machine, mixer. The right one has a (smooooth) bi-fold door so that it can be left open during prep and serve to 'frame' the last of the working areas. We contemplated the hiding pantry door system but I tried a few and didn't feel they glided smoothly enough to not feel cumbersome.


Some storage in between these 2 large pantries, above the fridge. Perfect place for things we never ever use.


Tomorrow the appliances should arrive and allow the installation phase to end. Everything has been going like clockwork since day 1.

 

I've loved watching this unfold - can't wait to do my next kitchen! But might need to buy a house first.... I do have a bathroom on my radar though...