Dear Auntie Milestone

Ey up my faithful blogworms, there .. that's better.. words in the right order after last weeks blog.

Sitting here doing my blogs, week after week, feels a bit disconnected from real life !!

I get lonely ... Aaah, Bless ! ... there is a comments box on here but I never get any ! 

I'm here to help with any questions you may have...... Yes, really ! .... I appreciate that the world of the internet is a massive one and I can't hope to get to a lot of you to help out but I can answer any queries you may have ... free of charge .. over the ether, then why not ?.


Why would I want to do this? .... To save a lot of you making the mistakes I talked about in last weeks blog, that's why. AND because I'm a nice guy !

NOT, as the more cynical of you may think, so I can grab your details and bombard you with spurious advertising and other general annoying detritous that you get so often over the internet !

I feel that if by answering any questions you have about the crazy mixed up world of fitted kitchens, I can save any of you from making stupid mistakes, then I will have made a little bit of the world a better place.


I can appreciate that some of you may think there's a catch here somewhere ... WELL, THERE ISN'T !

I'm not even close to the biggest authority on kitchens in the world but I've been doing this for 27 years now and believe  me, I've seen pretty much all there is to see and feel qualified to pass on any valuable tips and tricks that I can. 

Like a lot of skills that are dying out, if you're knowledge isn't shared and passed on, it's wasted !

All I can promise is that if you feel it's important to ask me something, then it's important for me to give you the best answer I can. It's then up to you to decide whether my advice is valid or not.


Try me, you just might learn something !!

If you need me to come out to you to solve a problem, I will, if you want a second opinion on a layout and perhaps a re-work that makes more sense, I can do that too but these will cost, I can't work for nowt, I'm a Yorkshireman !

But if you want advice that I can give over the internet .... It will cost you nothing, zilch, not a penny, sweet F.A.

Go - on , Ask Auntie Milestone, we're here to help 

Don't nip a currant in half !

Faithful up my ey blogworms ! .... What ?? You're all familiar with my opening phrase by now. This illustrates what happens when you get the order wrong ! The phrase goes wrong, it's sounds like a drunk Yoda from Star wars and it takes some sorting out !!

 Exactly the same is true in the world of fitted kitchens !! It's come to my attention this week about a project that's left people in tears because things were done in the wrong order and badly. ( these pictures are not from the project, they're just representative of the stupid things people do ! )

Aside from kitchen suppliers who just make a balls of supplying the goods wrong in the first place ... that's a whole other argument and I'm sure we all know horror stories on that one !


A kitchen where you've tried to cut corners and save money,can and frequently does, go wrong. Organising the right people at the right time with the right skills to ensure a successful project is absolutely key to the whole thing. 

You wouldn't want a car mechanic doing a kidney transplant on a member of your family anymore than you'd want a double glazing salesman fitting your kitchen BUT people do !! in a manner of speaking.

Wake up people !!!!! These pictures just represent some of the idiotic things that happen when you make bad choices. AND the last picture is completely beyond me .... did the bathroom fitter and the kitchen fitter get their wires crossed or what ???

Am I going to help out with the project that went wrong , I hear you ask .... nope !  I understand there were some bad choices and decisions made against good advice, they thought they knew better, so basically they got what they deserved ! It's down to the suppliers to sort this one out.

A kitchen is a big ticket item and you want the very best for the money you're spending ... so stop making stupid decisions and research your project properly, don't get your friends cousins mate's uncle to fit your kitchen for £20 less just because he fitted one for a relative 30 years ago... It's absolute bloody madness !!  

You need to be talking to a company who:

Employs their own fitters, not subcontractors

Takes the whole project into consideration and only uses qualified plasterers, electricians, gas fitters etc who can work to building control standards.

Has someone who can organise and place the right person in the right place at the right time during the installation work.

Get this right and it works pretty well, most of the time. Houses, new and old, can throw up challenges at the most unexpected time and you need a company who just shrugs it off, gets on with it and sorts it out. You don't need someone who says" S'not my job !" You need 'Can do' people not 'Can't do ' people.

If you've had a project go wrong from circumstances beyond anyones control then my heart goes out to you BUT if you've had it go wrong through trying to nip a currant in half to save money ... them I'm sorry but I have absolutely no sympathy for you, you are a victim of you're own stupidity !! End of. 

Your money is hard earned .... spend it wisely ! 

Rant over. take heed. Jules

Roman Engineering

Ey up my faithful blogworms, Simplicate .... strange word but when broken down it makes sense. Most things in life can be complicated, if you let them, but any project can be made simpler when you set your stall out right.

Take something complicated and simplify it .... Basically what I've said for a long time. Look to the Romans for inspiration, they created some stunning stuff with limited tools, knowledge and experience but a creative mind and an attitude that kept things simple but very effective ! .... Roman engineering .... simple and functionally spot on as the main aim, but always with an eye for design, the aesthetic followed and let's face it .... what they created lasted for centuries.

Here's some more concepts based on our 5 element 'Simplification' process showing how working with the 5 material palette can be so successful.
Wood grains can be used horizontal as well as vertical to contrast with pale / white plain colours.
It only start to look wrong if you over complicate things by using different colour woodgrain in different directions

Simplicate !


 However, same colour woodgrains work too if not overdone and balanced by single colour worktops and splashbacks. My only comment here is that I personally would have gone for a plainer floor and in this room set, I think the oven is too low !

Simplicate !

This one, I feel, is a classic where plain solid colour doors are brought to life by the framing effect of the wood grain, very simplicated, elegant standard which is still very much the main stay of the market at the moment.

A new kid on the block is the idea of reproducing a 'concrete' look into your worktops. Still keeping the natural materials feel about it, put with a white kitchen it just adds some character to the mix. 

Using a contrasting floor here, as dark as you like, provides a great platform to really show off a light coloured kitchen.


Using the ability within our 5 material simplification, to install matching, complementing or contrasting splashback / worktop combinations always makes for a cleaner, more contemporary feel to a kitchen project and is eminently more practical in terms of cleaning than using tiles.

Don't get me wrong, I still feel that tiles can play an important part in a kitchen project but it very much depends on the style you are trying to create.

Simplicating a process, I suppose, is nothing new as Roman engineering got there first, but for the modern age where life is complicated enough, anything that makes life simpler but still effective has surely got to be a good thing ???

Apart from this .... I've invented a new word .... how fab is that ??

Jules

Simplicate !

Ey up my faithful blogworms, following on from last weeks blog we are going to develop the idea further with the 5 element room set concept. Probably the simplest way yet to plan any kitchen project.

 When planning any kitchen project it's useful, once the design side is taken care of, to have a colour base in your mind as a starting point.

This start colour is typically the doors or the worktop and build from there. 

'Mood boards' have proved to be useful for a lot of people, often comprising pictures clipped out of magazines etc. 

This is where we're coming from with this 5 element concept. We have a materials palette now that provides us with all the elements listed in my previous blog: see 'Holistic calm'.

Building a picture of colour elements from materials sat in front of you helps enormously to visualise the finished project. 
In a lot of cases this involves dashing in and out of various shops / showrooms trying to carry a colour in your head to match it up to something else. 

This sound familiar ???

Yes .... thought so !

It can't get easier than having all the colours presented in different ways in the same place to fine tune your thoughts. The stress alone this saves, let alone the shoe leather in trailing round losing patience and getting increasingly annoyed.

Second huge benefit is that you don't have to source and contract seperate tradespeople and co-ordinate them, you can simply say to us ... Love that, perfect, can you crack on and fit it ... to which, of course, the answer is Yes ! All taken care of in 1 go, how much easier is that ??

Well, you may ask, "You're Milestone Eco Design" ... where's the Eco bit gone ?. 
Surely you know us better by now to know it's there somewhere ?

Yep, course it is, all the materials we have here to use are all high recycled content / Fsc mix materials. So now you can take the whole project to the Eco level if you choose.

Good eh ?

We are still looking to work closely with green builders, Eco minded retail stores, green architects etc. where this concept works brilliantly in providing reproduceable room sets as we already provide for H & M Retail Stores and Lush Stores.

We put a package together where all the elements are supplied time after time in a complete set, 1 load, 1 drop, everything's there you need, job done !

Putting together a project as big as opening a new store or refurbishing an existing one is huge, so the reproduceable room set saves them time & stress and we GUARANTEE that everything they need will be there, on time, no excuses !

We've taken something complicated and simplified it .... and the word for this is .... 

SIMPLICATE !

For the very best in simplicated kitchens ... you know where we are, contact us now !

Jules.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside !

 Ey up my faithful blogworms, 

"Oh I do like to be beside the seaside", ring any bells ?

An increasing amount of us do, it would appear, ourselves included.
Now we may be equidistant between the west and east coast here in sunny little Ilkley in Yorkshire but that gives us easy access to both of them within a couple of hours and we love days or weeks out at the coast.

For the second of our "idea funding" topics we look to Seaside inspired kitchens. Light, airy, welcoming, sunny places to be be giving us a permanent reminder of balmy days on the beach. Cheers you up in the depths of winter and keeps you going 'til the summer comes round. The splashback in the picture shows a seaside scene and is something we can reproduce using our fabulous recycled roadstone splashbacks from your own photos. 

We know from various magazines that seaside themes are very much in vogue at the moment and lots of people embrace the concept. If you're one of them and would like to have your concepts brought to life in our showroom, then the idea funding process could well be for you. Let your 'inner designer' loose and contact us for your moment of fame !!

We find that light and airy kitchens are always talked about, certainly where natural light is not great if your kitchen faces that wrong way to take advantage of it.

Light colours, white, pale blues and Aqua colours always work well contrasted with darker floors and worktops as seen in this picture.

This image is one we couldn't resist, that floor looks awesome !! How weird would it be to walk around your kitchen on your own 'beach' ??

It's a little bit like these trick pavement artists that you see where their work really blows your mind creating images that you can't quite get your head round !!

Our 'idea funding' seems also to have captured your imagination, although no-one has yet to be brave enough to approach us with a view to working with their ideas. Don't forget that this is a huge opportunity to make money from your ideas and have your name promoted as the concept designer !!

I can't believe that we are a nation who would rather say 'we can't find what we like' rather than do something about it !  This is your chance .... don't waste it !

I will cover another topic next week and judge whether I'm barking up the wrong tree ... or pier !

Let me know your thoughts. Jules.

Steampunk: Future & Past at the same time !

Ey up my faithful blogworms,

 My "off the wall idea" about idea funding seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people, so here goes for a suggestion:

Steampunk Kitchens ! .... What the hell are you talking about ? I here you say.

For those of you not familiar with " The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" I will explain. 

Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction and sometimes fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.

Steampunk seems to have spawned a whole new genre of fashion, furniture, gadgets and even beer !  It's certainly inspired the movie industry with it's creative use of reclaimed materials and metals set against new technology and modern thinking.



The concept of using reclaimed materials in a way not before associated with furniture certainly fits with our thinking about Eco friendly materials being used in kitchens.

To produce a kitchen in this style would be brave, innovative, complex and probably, a hell of a lot of fun !!

 

 We have used odd choices of materials before and this would really stretch our creative ability. We are, however, extremely confident that this could be made to work with input from some of you out there who are already embracing Steampunk as a way of life. 

It's potentially the most interesting concept I've come across in years and one that, with your help and design input, would be something we'd be really excited to consider. 

The thing is .... we're brave enough to tackle it .... are you ???

With this being so diverse a subject, we'd be looking for part funding from anyone wanting to join us and participation in ongoing design with commission based rewards on every kitchen sold.

This could be a massive first for you and us together and very probably the first ever Steampunk display in a any kitchen showroom in the the whole country. !!!!!

Wow ! .... Who's up for it ???

Jules .... ( as in Jules Verne .... maybe ? )

A 'Radical' approach: Idea funding !

Ey up my faithful blogworms, I need your help this week, with an idea I've had kicking around in my head for a while.  I know there are a lot of you out there that read my mutterings from week to week I would value your opinions, so here goes !!

I read about several 'crowd funding' projects lately and while we're all familiar with how that works, I'm looking at it from a different viewpoint.

Below you will see examples of different styles and colours of kitchens to study.

Coloured kitchen

 My different slant on crowd funding, for a start, it costs you no money. Well how is it funding, I hear you ask ??

OK, we're 'idea funding' instead...... What ??

Here's how I see it working. Have a think about your ideal kitchen in terms of colour, style, door design, worktop choices. All the things you would think about when choosing your new kitchen, it helps if you're thinking about a new kitchen anyway !!


Submit your ideas to us as if you are an outside freelance designer, looking to design showroom displays. This is the object of the exercise. You don't have to draw the kitchen or plan it in any way, just 'storyboard' it to show us your concept, if chosen, we'll plan a display around it and give you the final say on how it looks.

A lot of you out there, we know, are talented people in terms of design and style and now is your chance to show what you can do to the general public at large. We will choose the design we feel has the most merit and is in tune with todays times, put it on display and tell people, with your permission of course, who is the creative designer who came up with the idea.

Grey kitchen

It's your chance for your '15 minutes of fame' so to speak.

This will cost you nothing and if you are thinking about a new kitchen for yourselves, we will provide you with the kitchen itself at cost price !!

You will then have access to the display to show it to your friends, family, relatives, in fact anyone you want to bring along to look at your masterpiece. Show off a little, you will have earned it !!

Country kitchen

Our showroom will become "your showroom". You will get the chance to talk about your inspiration, how you came up with it, why you made the choices you did etc. AND for all the people who buy into your design, we will produce their kitchen for them on your behalf .... and ... give you a commission on every one sold, just as any freelance designer would expect !!

White kitchen

This a very radical approach to the way showrooms are run. Designed by kitchen buyers for kitchen buyers where we do all the technical bit in the middle and you potentially reap some of the benefits. 

We will give you access to all our product choices here in the showroom, if you wish, and we need you to think about 5 elements for your concept:

(1) Cabinet choice and colour
(2) Door colour and style, to use seperate handles or not ?
(3) Worktop choice, material and colour
(4) Tile or wall clad colour and materials
(5) Flooring type, colour and materials.

Now with this being so radical an approach, we don't even know if it will work but if you are serious about giving it a try and using it to earn some extra income, then get in touch and let us know your thoughts. 

We will need quite a few people to get creative for it to work and give us the ability to decide on the merits of one concept against another. So the opportunity is there for as many people as possible, you will all have an equal chance of fame !!

It's over to you now to get in touch to see if this idea has a merit at all. It's never been done before and even I don't know if it will work.

I'll keep you posted as to how this progresses week to week. 

Thinking radical thoughts. Jules

Good looking no stress eating

Ey up my faithful blogworms, had a couple of people ask recently ... why blogworm ? So if you're new to following my blogs, it's a term of endearment ... bookworms like books, blogworms like blogs ! Simples.

I've been asked just this week, you say you can make anything, can you make me a dining table to go with my kitchen. Strangely, we were only talking about this the other week so I thought I'd feature this week, tables we've made for other people.

One thing that's always puzzled me about dining tables is that you see so many where folk are scared to really use them properly.

A nice table sitting in your dining room permanently covered up with either a padded cover or a tablecloth, to me, is largely pointless. Some of these tables folk are so scared of marking that you never get a chance to use it in all it's glory.

If you're going to keep it's beauty covered up then it might as well be made of some nasty chipboard !


Well ..... like a lot of other puzzling dilemnas in kitchens, we've found an answer to that too !

Here's a couple of examples of two tables we've made which are designed to be used and abused and definitely not covered up !

By making basically a big frame out of hardwood, these two are Oak, and dropping a granite panel into the centre, shimmed level on battens, you get the most desirable and practical table top you could ever imagine. If you've been following my blogs lately, you'll understand our approach to oiling hardwood worktops properly and these tables are no different. 

You can serve hot pans etc. directly onto the granite panel .. no worries, no covers, no mats for your pans or any of that malarky ! Brilliant for a good family get together where everything is served directly on to the table and you all tuck in. No stress or anything to be scared of concerning your precious table top !

Our next cunning plan, to move this up to the next level, is to use Dekton as the entire table top for a more contemporary look, as shown here. 
(See my earlier blogs to learn all about the amazing properties of Dekton)

This will really raise the game for the future of the ultimately practical table top.

And as with everything else at Milestone, there's always "more than one way to skin a cat" ... ( and don't get all animal rightsey on me for that, it's just a turn of phrase ..OK )

You can have:

1) A complete table built from scratch in the wood / granite combo of your choice 

2) A new table top made as a 'cover top' for your existing table 

3) Keeping your existing table chassis and making a new top to fasten to it

So really there's no excuse for not getting yourself a good looking, eminently practical, useable, everyday dining table ! There's enough sources of stress in this world without worrying about your dining  table as well.

All you've got to do is ASK !

So, right, now, pick up your phone, ring me and let's change how you look at dining tables forever !!

Jules (J2)

Lizard and Banana ???

Ey up my faithful blogworms, My topic this week is split in two. As far apart as lizard and banana. Why those two ..... no idea ! two random images that came into my head two minutes ago, is all !

First, lets think about the kitchen industry for a minute. 

1. When a company says "we pay your vat" .. no they're not. They're working to a price list that already includes vat, calling ex vat, then and they're adding it again to knock it off !! A con trick that people fall for time and again

2. When they say "free dishwasher" .. not it's not, they've hidden it in the price of your furniture and claim to give it you for nowt ! Sneaky.

3. Free Worktops ... as above !

4. free anything else .. as above !

They repeatedly get away with this because of your perception of what you think the kitchen is worth. Dress it up right and any cheap kitchen looks worth more, leaving them room to hide stuff


5. When you go to these places and they say "sign today and we can do you a better deal " they're lying ! Go next week or the week after, you will be offered the same deal. Fact !  ... Sales targets ring any bells ... this is what they are preying on.

6. Pay for the whole thing up front, DON'T DO IT !. You have no defence left if you don't like it. 

You can guarantee the more you seem to get for free, the cheaper the kitchen actually was to start with. Remember: BUY CHEAP, BUY TWICE !!


Second: At Milestone, everything we do is genuine ... nothing hidden, the value of each item is the very best we can provide for what you want to spend ! 
We are independant and rely on satisfied customers to recommend us to their friends. 
 We have a vested interest in making sure that we give you the best advice and the best kitchen we can for your budget. Don't take our word for all this ! We've been doing this for 27 years now and have 100's of satisfied customers to prove, that's why we're still in business when many others have fallen by the wayside. We learned our craft over those years and would put our fitters up against the best of the rest and still come out on top !

 When we provide you with an estimate, we do so on the basis that both you and I have understood what you want and done the best we can to provide it.

We are sick of the phrase " If we give you the job, what can you do for us ?. We already done it, so don't insult us by asking.

It would be a massive help to us to learn your budget early on in our discussions as we can then tailor products available to us to suit your requirements better. We're not in the business of jacking up prices to what we think we can get away with !

However, I can understand reluctance to do this as many other companies would simply hike up their estimates to fit what you want to spend. WE DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS PRINCIPLE. With us what you see is what you get !

One of our strengths lies in our ability to tailor individual units within a layout to make the kitchen fit properly without resorting to unsightly filler panels. Sometimes just this ability alone is enough to make the difference between a kitchen that looks wrong and one that looks perfect.




We've always said that when anyone comes to see us "the answer's Yes, before they ask the question"

We can and do, make anything !

If you went into a Sandwich shop and asked for say: A Lizard & Banana sandwich, where they would look at you as if you were stupid, we would say "Yes, Certainly, how many ? "

Still got no idea why I picked on Lizards & Bananas .... but there you go !

Just felt the need to re-iterate what we're all about after a week where I've heard of other people getting lousy service and lousy quality from big supposedly "reputable" kitchen companies.

 If they get to read this .. boy, am I in trouble, but I don't care, I hate to see customers treated badly and lied to ..... the customer always comes first at Milestone !

OK, rant over. Jules (J2) 

You can't legislate for Stupidity !

Ey up my faithful blogworms, todays tale is a tale of woe caused by stupidity and a lack of understanding.

Whatever you think of builders, when they build houses, they do things for a reason. Today I'm concerned with the dreaded damp !! Every house is built with a damp course of some sort and airbricks to allow airflow under your floors if you have suspended floorboards on joists.

Block these up at your peril !!!

We were called out to a house just recently where a lino fitter had gone to lay some new flooring in a kitchen and when removing the washing machine to floor under it the floor collapsed completely nearly sending the machine into the void space.

Not just the floorboards but the joists were riddled with rot and woodworm !!

 We had to remove half the kitchen, the worktop, the tiles, all the plumbing and nearly half the kitchen floor. The first joist near the wall crumbled in to dust, the second one was nearly as bad, the third one was full of worm  and the next two were rotten to half way along. The left hand section of the underdrawings was basically a pool of mud. The drain is outside this section ... read on for how this was affected !


You can tell by the pictures that the first three layers of bricks are soaked, all the plaster fell off and the damp had jumped the damp course. Using a damp test meter, we were nearly up to the window cill before we were showing reading close to normal !! 



The only course of action is to replace all the affected timber with new, membrane wrap the new joist ends to protect against damp again, we applied 4 coats of 3 in 1 Woodworm and rot protection. 







We wiggled and fed the new joists into place and treated them again. High as a kite by the time we'd finished !

All the joist were re-levelled, bedded on slate and cemented back in place, ready for putting the new floorboards back in.

New boards going down ready to start thinking about re-fitting the kitchen.

New worktops were opted for along with new tiling to bring the kitchen back to life again.




NOW, the reason for this was that some idiot at some point in the history of the house had decided in their infinite stupidity to raise the path to the side and along the back of the house using concrete. We reckon it's been like this for at least 15 years, which is when the current owners moved in. 

Not a problem .... you think ... it bloody is when the concrete goes half way up the airbricks and one of the airbricks was contained WITHIN a little retaining wall put round the outside drain to keep to water in check !!!!! I could not believe anyone could be this stupid !

This is one of a pair of semi detached houses and when you notice that next doors airbricks are at least 4"  (4 inches)( 100mm for the metricated among you) higher than the pathway, it gives an idea of how big a clown the guy who did this really was !

The airbricks are now cemented up and a local builder is fitting telescopic vents in to wall to correct the problem, the kitchen is back together and looking splendid

BUT and it's a big but, this affected wall runs along the back of the house ..... we've sorted the kitchen out but the room next to the kitchen along the same wall ..... it is the lounge ???


We were asked just to sort the kitchen out, we've not looked at the lounge .... I'll let you make up your own mind as to what state that's in ??

Airbricks and damp courses are very important .... make sure yours are OK and clear .... if you don't want this to happen to you !

T-I-M ...B-E-R Revisited

Ey up my faithful blogworms, on the 25th April my blog was all about the bringing back from the dead of a kitchen with badly fitted and maintained timber tops, refurbish the units and doors and re-tile the whole thing.

Well, not often I revisit an old blog but we've been back the the same customer again to finish the concept off with a new floor. I thought it would be nice to be able to show you all what the whole thing now looks like, so here it is, complete.

Those of you who've read the other blog will instantly recognise the kitchen and I must admit, the family are now really looking after it well.

It's a big space of nearly 30 sq.m. incorporating the dining room. 

It was laid with a nasty laminate floor that had seen better days and they wanted to tie the room space together with a floor that was hardwearing & durable with no real maintainence required. 




The timber look was important so we chose a vinyl plank floor tile from TLC Massimo called simply 'English Oak'

Odd choice, you may think, as the worktops are Beech but using the vinyl plank idea you can get colour variances that you can't get with the natural timbers.
The one we chose has a warm of colour which just looked right with the worktops.

The other point to revisiting this particular old blog is that it also illustrates very well a concept that I always try and get across to folk designing a new kitchen project and that is :

Rule 1: Always try and blend your horizontal surfaces with each other and the vertical surfaces with each other to create workable bands of contrast.

Rule 2: Always stick to no more than 3 colours, one of which can be your metals and the room will always be elegant and stylish without becoming visually messy.

I use the work blend deliberately because they don't have to match ( unless you want them to ) but they need to complement each other in tone and colour concept.

Follow these two simple rules and whatever your colours of choice are, the concept always works.

I don't know ..... all these "Top Tips", I don't know how I do it for the money ????

Jules or J2 ( One of my faithful blogworms, in particular, knows what J2 means )

A real Eco Showcase

Ey up my faithful blogworms just to warn you, this weeks is a long one, so if you're sitting comfortably then I'll begin !

My feature this week is a recently completed kitchen that represents each and every discipline we strive for in a Kitchen Of Recycled Content. Recycle and re-use being the key !

The cabinets and doors are from our recycled content Eco2 range, customisable with soft close everything.

Recycled content stainless steel handles

The worktops are: Sustainable Solid Oak prepared and finished properly according to our developed system
A peninsular unit topped with a 100% recycled Yoghurt Pot worktop.

Some re-used appliances from the existing kitchen where their sizes are still currently to make replacement easy, a principle often overlooked when getting a new kitchen.

So without further ado, here's the pics to illustrate the principle ......

Starting here with benefit of custom making base units. We were able to sneak a small base unit in between the peninsular unit and the tall housings to usefully fill a space allowing us continuity of cabinets. The housings themselves are reduced depth to hug the angle of the wall and provide a home for a microwave & loads of dry goods storage. The mainstay of most good kitchens.




A picture showing how the base units run into the larder cupboards around a corner, illustrating the home for the microwave.

Placed at worktop height with the worktop just to the right, it's an ideal spot for the microwave for ease of use, off the main worktop run and can be used without getting under each others feet in the kitchen.

Base and walls going in now with the corner wall unit having a reduced leg on one side to make it tuck in nicely at the right hand side of the window, maximising use of the wall corner.

Most of the units in now and starting Oak worktop machining. The wall unit in the top left of this pic is 540mm wide to ensure we tuck up to the side of the beam running across the ceiling without compromising the rest of the run of units, isn't bespoking wonderful ??


Peninsular unit in place on the left, showing the run towards the fridge / freezer housing on the far end. Small drawer pack to the right with the dishwasher to the right of that.

Using Solid Hardwood for worktops has many benefits, not least of which is that you don't have to buy overwide worktop to create corner solutions and pay the premium that goes with it !

You simply join an offcut onto the back, cut it to shape, glue and bolt it into place and no-one will ever know !!

This next little group of three pics, above, I had to include as they are a personal joke between ourselves and the proud owners of the new kitchen, they'll know what I mean !!

Oak worktops machining nearing completion, all cut outs in place, sections glued and bolted together, all the backs have had 3 coats of oil, the sections joined together and ready for oiling the top surface.

First coat of oil now on the top, allowing sufficient time to dry before applying more coats. Minimum 3 coats needed but sometimes we'll give them 4 if the oil soaks in really quickly. This really is now to give the desired appearance as the real work is done by the first three.

My God ! it's starting to actually look like a kitchen, Getting goosebumps now as standing here and thinking " I don't care who you are, no-one could have planned this kitchen any better that this " We've maximised the storage while making it easy to work in .... what more could you want ?





Recycled Yoghurt Pot ! ..... Recycled Coffee Cups' often forgotten companion, which is a real shame as Yoghurt Pot has just as valuable part to play as it's more popular sister. 

It looks fabulous on here, adds interest in aesthetics and textures. Blending in with the colour scheme perfectly !



So design friendly, very tactile and, as with the Oak, can all be cut and shaped on site without paying any template and installation costs like you do with granite.
Both the Oak and the Yog Pot are practical, long term worktop solutions and by following the common sense instructions we provide will last for 'donkeys years'  

Doesn't this look fab ?? .... a damn good practical, well designed kitchen that's just such as nice place to be !

Efficient to work in, everything to hand and top of the tree in Eco credentials .... Sometimes, I love my job !!!



Needs tiling and flooring but with loads of Eco choices now for these elements, this should turn out to be a real Eco showcase, it not often we get so many eco and sustainable elements together in one kitchen. Needless to say, all the lighting is energy efficient aswell, all based on the new generation low energy / high light output, Cob lighting.

What more can I say other than all this could be yours too.  As the proud new owners of this kitchen will testify .... it doesn't need to cost a fortune either !!

All you need to do is give us a call !

Jules.