Harrogate Kitchen Designers – A Beautiful Kitchen when Lock down is over !

The Harrogate lock down means we are all at home, and most likely spending more time in our kitchens than ever before. Eating, Cooking, Baking and Dining suddenly become rather important when stuck indoors. However as well as planning your meals you may be thinking about how your current kitchen and how it works or does not as the case may be ! The kitchen is the hub of the home. Many Inglish Design kitchens are muti purpose rooms. In the Harrogate homes we work on, if you are lucky enough to have the space, the kitchen provides the place to cook, dine, relax and entertain. With the time to look at your home and how you use your space, Inglish Design latest “Mad About The House” Blog provides you with a guide on how to design your perfect kitchen. Our “Mad About The House” Blog started from the day we began lock down. Hopefully our clients and readers are not yet “Mad About The House”, but like us are using the time to reflect on what we love about our homes and about designing them.

The kitchen can be one of the most expensive spaces in your home to renovate. A well planned kitchen not only make it an enjoyable space to use, but it will in turn help to sell your home should you put in on the market. Generally with kitchens you get what you pay for. Of key importance is cabinet build and materials, as these are the aspects which need to provide longevity. Here is a guide to planning your kitchen so you can create the very best kitchen design, and make the process easier and less stressful !

Building Work

If you are building an extension or simply removing an old kitchen and redesigning the space, it is likely that you will need a builder. Often 40-50 per cent of your budget will go on building and labour costs. By being realistic about affordability at the outset, you will avoid costly mistakes (not to mention disappointment) later on.  By employing a builder this often means that the building, plumbing, electrical, tiling and decorative work will be provided under the one umbrella. This is useful in terms of managing the project, as you builder effectively controls the project roll out for you. Some kitchens companies will offer all trades as part of their kitchen supply, however beware of this. In general when a kitchen company does this, the trades will not be directly employed by them, so you are at the mercy of sub contractors who are generally self employed with other jobs to work on as well as yours. This can cause problems with reliability and control.

Of key importance when planning a new kitchen is to meet with the builder and explain with the kitchen design in place what is required. Always get a written quote from your builder, and always follow any meetings up with an email which confirms in writing what you have discussed. Decide on a date which he can work to. Establish a completion date and work back from this realistically with the time he suggests is required to undertake the works. Always allow at lease one extra week than your builder suggest – 9/10 times this week will be absorbed by something, whether this be a supplier issue or an installation issue. A spreadsheet is an ideal way to block in each week and understand what will be happening and who will be due to do it.