Kitchen Project, Easton

“We would just like to say a huge thanks for our new kitchen. The whole process from the initial inquiry to completion was amazing.  We fully understood the schedule of works which was supplied prior to the works commencing along with a detailed breakdown of the quote. Each and everyone of the contractors that we dealt with were great and the standard of their workmanship was first class. “

Previously the kitchen was separated from the dining room by a wall, which existed through the middle of the breakfast bar area. We’d done a similar project for friends of our clients, and they were very impressed with the standard of workmanship and wanted to create a similar space in their home.

The existing kitchen actually offered more than sufficient storage space for our customers, as by their own admission they weren’t huge hoarders and as there was only two of them in the property they had plenty of cupboard space for their needs. In fact, at the very early stages of discussing ideas they felt that irrespective of whether they ended up with a large open plan space or a new kitchen within the existing room, they didn’t want any wall cabinets in the new design. To be sure of this, they actually took down their existing wall units whilst we went through the design process, allowing them to live without them. Doing this proved that they could manage with the reduced storage which helped them to decide exactly how many units they needed in their new kitchen.

There were a few challenges finding a design that offered our customer the right balance between storage space, worktop area and ensuring the kitchen didn’t encroach too far into the dining room end of the room. The challenge was made tougher due to the large amount of doorways in the space.

The room featured doors to a utility , hallway, living room, double doors to the second dining room and French doors onto the customers patio area. The multitude of doorways meant that we had more limited choice of layout, and our client had expressed concerns as to whether opening up the space would in fact be achievable. Although they really wanted to achieve an open plan area they couldn’t really visualise the best way to do it, and they had questioned whether it would actually be possible to create a ‘good enough’ kitchen with the implications the space presented.

We visited our customer with an open mind and suggested that if they wanted to consider designs showing both an open plan arrangement and one where the existing wall was left in place we’d be happy to do this for them. After discussing various ideas we suggested it would be best to start out drawing what they really wanted, so concentrated our efforts on showing them a unified space first.

They eagerly arrived at showroom for their first design unveiling appointment, excited to see what we had come up with. We sat down together and loaded up the CAD images on our large display screen. As soon as the images started to appear in front of them illustrating how the room would look opened up they were instantly blown away! In fact so much so that they couldn’t believe that their space could look like this impressive! Any concerns of opening up the room were completed allayed, and we worked with them to tweak these initial ideas to fit their exact needs.

We started looking more closely at ranges and colours, and our customers indicated their preference for something with a smooth finish rather than a woodgrain texture. We showed them our Kitchen Stori Georgia door which was exactly what they had in mind. They wanted a definite strong grey colour, but were worried about it being too dark. The existing kitchen wasn’t particularly bright, as it only had one window and all of the other doors off the space were to other rooms. Whilst the hallway door was glazed it didn’t really pull much light into the existing kitchen. However, once the wall was removed, they had the benefit of the large double glazed French doors to the garden, and glazed doors to both the living room and second dining room. With our experience we reassured them that light would flood this space, so encouraged them to stick with the colour they really wanted!

Whilst they would ultimately end up with a table in the dining end of the room, they really wanted some less formal seating incorporated into the design, so we proposed seating on the back of the peninsular to achieve this.

The tall bank of housings accommodated a Neff double oven and Neff tall integrated fridge freezer. We also managed to make space for a larder cabinet for dry food storage.

Once all of the designs were finalised, and the mechanical and electrical drawings for the room were all agreed we moved to the next stage of planning the works. We organised a structural engineer visit to calculate the steel beam size and specification needed to support the load from the room above. We notified the local authority of the works and organised a building notice for the customer. We then produced a detailed schedule of works for our clients, demonstrating how we had planned the works to unfold.

The work began with the strip out stage. The existing kitchen, floor coverings and wall tiles were removed. We carefully took down the existing blockwork wall whilst supporting the load above on acrow props. Pad stones were installed in the nib walls as per the engineers specification and the steel beam was inserted above.

At the appropriate stages of the project we organised the building inspector to visit site to ensure we had followed building regulations correctly and that access and egress was maintained. We actually received a glowing review from the inspector, who was extremely impressed with the workmanship - testament to the hard work we put into these projects!

All of the electrical work was completed to suit the new layouts and the plumbing was altered to suit the new design, including completely replacing the under sink plumbing to accommodate the customers existing water softener. After boxing in the beam with the required Fireline plasterboard and repairing the existing soil pipe boxing was completed, we proceeded to plaster skim the entire room out, including the ceilings. We fitted new cornice style coving in both rooms, as previously the kitchen and dining room areas were mismatched.

The kitchen was decorated throughout by us, we used a durable matt white emulsion for the walls and ceilings to help keep the kitchen bright and light, this also helped to contrast the beautiful Dust Grey cabinets! We supplied 600x600 square Porcelain floor tiles which were installed throughout the entire space and ran through into the customers utility room. We supplied and installed an anti-crack decoupling membrane under the floor tiles as this customer had a wet underfloor heating system within the concrete screed below, so we wanted to ensure that floor tiles could expand and contract independently of the screed - which is a belt and braces approach.

We installed the kitchen units to agreed layouts and these were capped off with Cosentino Sensa Granite worktops in a 20mm thickness. We installed an upstand along the back edge of the worktop and increased the height of this to meet the windowcill, which we also changed to the matching Sensa Granite.

During our initial site visit we noticed the customer had some beautiful bright artwork around the house, so when we presented our initial ideas we included a custom printed glass splashback with a bright abstract wave image by artist Ashley Phillips. As soon as the customers saw an example of this at the showroom they loved it, so we had this sized to suit the area under the extractor and fitted this as part of the project.

We fitted new skirtings throughout the space, and these were decorated with Dulux Satinwood White paint. It was our clients preference to leave the architraves in a stained finish as this is the way they had decorated other areas of their property.

All of the new appliances were tested and commissioned, all of the relevant Gas safe certification and Electrical certificates were obtained and finally the project was signed off by building control and a completion certificate was sent to the client.

We are extremely proud of the transformation, and we trust this will offer our customers many years of enjoyment!