PPOR Kitchens

We often talk about how to do a neat kitchen Reno on the cheap, but I want to know what you do for your own home where the budget is probably a bit bigger and bells and whistles are more common.

Our new PPOR has a pretty dated kitchen that more than being a bit ugly is also really impractical. Hubby is the cook and after 3 weeks cooking in it he's getting frustrated so it looks like the Reno we had to have will now be a little sooner than originally thought.

We'll be adding a bifold servery window on the left of this photo, making the pantry bigger with pull out shelving/drawers and doing some feature tiling/paint to set it off. Simple white cabinetry, gas cooktop and under bench oven, ceiling height cabinets along the right wall and some timber open shelving in the right hand corner. Black paint, because it's not my house without some black . It's very white in here ATM. Also some nice thick white timber window frames.

Looking forward to seeing it come to fruition but the concept isn't quite finished yet. I love design - I'm glad there's a few small projects in this house!

 

My considerations for own kitchen:

Bench space (lots),
premium counter tops,
Plenty of storage incl. pantry (soft close),
lighting - lots (led strip - hidden),
appliances (ie. I prefer induction cooktop)
Sinks (deep with rinse/spray mixer tap)
Splashback (not too boring)

 

I'm building our ppor kitchen at the moment. First lot of cabinetry in with a benchtop being installed Wednesday.

We haven't gone all out.. saving a few pesos using Ikea (matt black cabinets).
Smartstone benchtop - Petra Griggio.
Carrara marble splashback
Miele appliances.

Lots of black similar to this

 

@Jess Peletier I'd think about putting an island bench at the front (well opposite the windows) in yours - so mr Peletier can prep and chat with everyone

Our new kitchen is being installed soon but I got to see pictures of it at the factory when I was choosing handle placements.

It's white, black and oak - the splashback will be a bronze mirror.

This end with the oak open shelves is a desk area which will be the family command centre - newsletters, invites, rosters, phone chargers etc area





We went with Siemens appliances. I have a 3/4 size oven which is also a microwave on top of a normal oven. Then a 800mm induction hotplate at the back.

Splurged on a new fridge that has a compartment that can be a fridge or a freezer.

 

My next kitchen will have a butlers pantry and a large island bench with nothing on it no sink, nothing.
I hate dishes clogging up the sink and benches so I even toyed with the idea of making all my lower cabinets integrated dishwashers so that i never had to unstack a dishwasher again. I just keep rotating the dishes back and forward and everytime one gets full turn it on.

 

@Westminster We toyed with an island idea but decided it would be too cramped - it would slice the room in half and take away the lovely open feel too much - the feng shui wouldn't work.

As it is, the back bench will be big and completely empty so there's heaps of prep area, and we chat just fine with me at the dining table (I took the pic sitting at it).

Your bronze splash back sounds very sexy - pics?

@vbplease I love black too - are you having black overheads? That's always a little risky I reckon, it can be a little overwhelming. That said, we're painting our walls black so fingers crossed it'll pull off.

 

No room . All the houses we've built have one, but with this one we just have to cope with a normal one. Am making it as practical as possible though - at the moment we've got one single pantry and we're managing so I reckon we'll be okay

 

The bronze mirror should look something like this

 

Wow - that's gonna look amazing with the black white and oak. Better in yours than in this one I reckon.

 

Strangely enough the starting style of ours is 'modern hamptons/country' so we'll see how it turns out. We have quite pale floor tiles so I wanted the warmth of the oak plus the mirror splashback to warm up what could be a very cold black and white kitchen.

 

I started off with a hamptons vibe in mine too, but the decided it wasn't 'me'. I like things a little less pretty but this house would not support the industrial style I really like so a compromise was needed.

Really struggled against a white kitchen, but I think this will look good because of the black and timber. Open shelving adds so much character, where most white kitchens make me want to cry with sterileness and boredom And like you say - there has to be warmth! Make sure you post some pics when yours is installed and finished.

 

If I had a sack of money, I'd demolish the wall between our kitchen and laundry and push the kitchen back a bit so we'd have room for an island. I'd keep the cupboards white but change the benchtop to a grey stone one (it's white at present). Something like the below:

 

Our kitchen is the weakest part of our PPOR too; it seems like an afterthought. The layout is currently like this:



and I had plans to renovate it to be more like this:



however ultimately we weren't happy with it so we are now commissioning Dan Kitchens to come up with something truly unique that maximises the utility of not just the kitchen but the surrounding spaces too.

 

@chylld you've got some great flair there! I think Dan Kitchens will have to be very good to beat that.

 

Make sure you get the layout right, I spent bit of time with this when I did my PPOR Kitchen - makes it really functional. 'Kitchen Work Triangle'
Soft close draws are great, make sure you have deep draws for pots, hate getting pots out of cupboards.
Utilty draw under stovetop is great, that way can keep your nice bench/window looking clear from clutter.
If you're having overheads ontop of the bench make sure you get lighting underneath, I didn't do this given I had an island benchtop - but still find myself under there without light every now and again.
Work out what you're doing with your fridge before you design the kitchen, can be a bit of fun if left until the last minute.

 

That must be a big kitchen company, Westminster, to do full constructs before going to site. As you can see from my avatar (is that what it's called?). I like a bit of colour in a kitchen.
I'm hoping I won't need to make another kitchen, but if I do I'm going to have two ovens. One great thing I did with that big green kitchen bench that was put a food scraps bin in it. You can see it just to the right of the sink. Plates get scrapped off into it and every morning it goes out to the chooks. Another brilliant idea I had was a shallow drawer for Tupperware lids. It sits above the drawer for Tupperware containers.

 

Great idea. Did you do it as a drawer inside a drawer, or 2 totally separate drawers?

 

Drawer inside a drawer.
We have a lot of people pass through our house and many admire the kitchen. My wife tells them, 'Yeah, Scott made the kitchen. It's okay. But come and have a look at this drawer...'

 

DIAD works well for compound uses like that... you're never going to need the lids without the tupperware, and you save a lot of space being able to stack containers up without the lids.

Also seen it done well as a small drawer above the main pull-out bin drawer... inner drawer was for holding bin liners etc.