Subscribe to our Mailing List

Get the news right in your inbox!

Privacy Policy
Linwood DIY-Kitchens

Kitchen Reveal – So Far!

December 8, 2017 - No Comments - 8 min read

I’ve been catching up with blog posts over the last few months and shown you a fair bit of our new kitchen, but I thought I’d do a quick ‘reveal’ post, sharing appliances, where everything is from and how the room looks as a whole. It’s not quite finished just yet; we have shelves to add, a splashback to decide on and of course – we need to do something with those lights! But generally speaking, it’s done, it’s completely usable and at least 95% finished. So as such, I felt it was about time I did a kitchen reveal!

Modern Galley Kitchen with French Door

So I apologise in advance for the lighting in some of these pictures – I was seriously battling the sun going down when taking these photos (it is winter after all!). This is what the room looks like from the front view. It’s a galley kitchen, which is now open plan with the dining room adjacent and it also has a conservatory attached to the side, which it overlooks through the window. It’s around 6m in length and 2.5m width.

This room was originally divided into two – a kitchen and a downstairs shower room and there was another wall that divided off the dining room too. We’ve taken two walls out, removed the shower room and opened up the entire space into one. We do however still have two separate areas for the kitchen and dining room, but this post is just going to show you the kitchen, so you’ll have to wait a little longer for the dining room reveal I’m afraid!

DIY-Kitchens Linwood Graphite

The kitchen units themselves are from DIY-Kitchens and are from their Linwood range in the colour Graphite. We’ve kept most of the units as high-line doors as these are the cheapest base units you can buy. Drawers, Pull-Out units and other gadgety base units cost a lot more, so keeping it simple with basic open-close doors really helps keep the cost down. We have however, opted for three ‘luxury’ units (aka more expensive!); a basket unit, a set of pan drawers and a worktop dresser. Each of these were more than double the cost of the high-line base units, so they did add to the overall cost quite a bit. However I think they add a bit more variety to the kitchen than just a full run of doors and I was prepared to splash a teeeeeny bit more if I really wanted them – which I clearly did!

DIY-Kitchens Pan Drawer

I personally think one set of drawers is a must in every kitchen. After all – where else are you going to keep cutlery? We’ve actually opted for some pan-drawers which are really deep and perfect for storing pans in, as the name suggests. Pans in a drawer are much easier to access and are easier to organise too. In fact, generally speaking, drawers are just a much better use of space overall and if I had more money, I would definitely have bought more drawers.

Basket Unit in Modern Kitchen

The worktop dresser and basket unit were something I’d always wanted in a kitchen, so we splashed out on those two as well – although yes, they weren’t really an “essential”. I very nearly almost didn’t buy the basket unit, on account of trying to cut costs, but I’m so glad I did in the end. I love how the baskets pop against the dark grey! We use the bottom drawer for vegetables and the top one for bread.

Dark Kitchen with Worktop Dresser
You’ll notice we don’t have any wall cabinets, this was also a way of keeping costs down – but, I also think helps make the room feel more spacious. Galley kitchens can feel quite narrow and claustrophobic at times and I think having no wall units really helps to avoid this.

Limestone floor in dark grey kitchen

The floor is made from these Limestone tiles from eBay (you can read about our DIY installation here) and I think goes really well in this space. It’s neutral but also a bit stand out in its different varying tones. We have this electric underfloor heating with it as well, which actually works really well and keeps them nice and toasty! (Again, you can read how we DIY fitted that here) We’ve gone for a different floor in the dining room and kept the steel beam exposed to help frame and divide the two rooms.

open plan galley kitchen
The cooker is a secondhand bargain from eBay at £350 and it had barely been used. By ‘barely been used’ I mean, one of the ovens had actually never been used. The owner claimed to have bought it ‘just for show’ and actually hated cooking! It’s a Rangemaster Toledo which retails at over £1000 so needless to say, I was pretty chuffed to bits with it. We’ve paired it with a budget £50 cooker hood, from Appliances-Direct and I quite like how they don’t match. There’s nothing particularly fancy about this cooker hood – but it does the job and it’s energy rated C, which for an extractor fan and particularly a low cost one at that, isn’t half bad (most are like E!)
Black rangemaster cooker in grey kitchen
ElectriQ Cooker Hood
The fridge freezer is from Currys and is a 60/40 Kenwood one. I really wanted a stainless steel one with a water dispenser (pretty specific!) and this was the cheapest one on the market. It was also the only one that would fit in the space underneath the top-box – and it’s a pretty darn tight fit at that!! It’s a pretty decent fridge freezer, again nothing too fancy about it – but it is a full-size one, unlike our old fridge freezer which was teeeeeeeeny. We’ve been in desperate need of a new fridge-freezer for a long time and I can’t tell you how many drawers I broke in our old one trying to squeeze a shopping load into it. (every single one!)
Kenwood Stainless Steel Fridge Freezer in Kitchen
Boxed-In Fridge Freezer
On the other side of the kitchen we have a new antique chair from a local antiques fair which cost a bargain price of £35. I’m not sure the bin should really live next to it, but for now that’s how we’re rolling. I may alter one of units on this side of the kitchen to fit a bin in, as I’m not really too keen on bins being on show. DIY-Kitchens do offer bin-units, but our budget was already stretched, so we skipped out on that one.

Lounge Chair in Galley Kitchen

We have a dishwasher (an actual dishwasher!!) for the first time in my entire life and bloooomin’ heck I can’t believe people still live without them. Not spending an hour every night washing pots is pretty much the highlight of our new kitchen. It’s incredible. It also means we no longer have piles of dirty plates stacking up on the side either. This one is just the Curry’s Essential Range Dishwasher, which cost £179. It was the cheapest one I could find and to be fair, it does a pretty good job. I mean it doesn’t have that many settings but it cleans the pots. What more can you ask for?

Currys Essential Integrated Dishwasher

I’ve always wanted a Belfast sink (as sad as that sounds!) so to finally have one, definitely got me a tad excited. It’s super deep, fits all our pots and pans in and is just amazing. In the last properties we lived in, we had half-sized sinks, which meant nothing fitted in it and water would generally get everywhere. Not a problem any more! Our tap of choice is this Satin Nickel Pull-Out tap from Amazon for just £55. Most pull-out taps are in the region of £200+ so I was darn pleased with this one. And I don’t even think you can tell that it’s a quarter of the price!

Belfast Sink with Grey Units
Ash Worktops with Grey
Satin Nickel Pull Out Tap

The worktops are made from an Ash wood from Worktop-Express. I absolutely love the grain and how light it is – I think it goes perfectly against the dark doors. We also have matching up stands and we created a window sill from some leftover as well. You can read a full post about the worktops , with a review of Worktop-Express here.

Window Sill Made from Upstand
To the right of the sink is obviously the washing machine – this was probably the biggest appliance splurge at a slightly pricey tag of £350 – however it was in the sale reduced from around £550. It’s a Samsung Eco Bubble and it colour-matches the kitchen (not the only reason I bought it, I swear!). The best thing about this washing machine is how little energy it uses – and I mean a shockingly little amount! Our old washing machine used to go into the red on our energy monitor when it was in use, this one barely uses 3p for a whole wash. Seriously. So worth it!
Samsung EcoBubble Inox with Graphite Kitchen
The roof window is probably my favourite feature in the room. It lets in so much light, which this room seriously needed. It wasn’t cheap and it wasn’t part of the original plan, but it was so so worth the money. We opened the ceiling up and built the frame for it ourselves (which you can read about here) which saved a bit of cash, but yeah – definitely recommend getting a roof window in any room, if you can! They’re amazing at bringing in more light.
Roof Window in flat ceiling kitchen
The french doors are another worthwhile addition to this room. We actually used to have a frosted window in the downstairs shower-room here, so we had the brickwork cut out beneath and some french doors installed instead. I love having an actual garden view now and more importantly, access to the garden as well! They don’t bring in that much light as they’re East-facing but they still bring it a whole lot more than they did when they were frosted windows!

French Doors in Galley Kitchen
Another way we’ve added a little more light is by swapping the old back door (into the conservatory) for some fully glazed skinny french doors. We actually picked these up from eBay for just £20 secondhand. They fit this room perfectly and the pine even matches the roof window!

Internal Skinny French Doors to Conservatory

The hanging lights in here are yet to sorted out properly, but these were from eBay – they came with glass shades, but I’m quite liking them as they are, just as bulbs. We’ll also be having some shelves underneath the lights too, but those are on the New-Year list for now. I quite like a clean simple unfussy kitchen, so I’ve tried to keep the worktops fairly clutter-free, with just the essentials and a few little extras.

Modern Industrial Dark Grey Kitchen
Ash Worktops Kitchen Reveal
Full Kitchen Renovation Reveal
Vintage Flour Jar

So here’s a final view from the other side of the room. We still have a fair bit left to do in the dining room – but I’d say we’re about 85% there, so a reveal for that room shouldn’t be too far off. I love the exposed beam between the rooms and the red was a bold move, but I really like it. We have a lot of grey going on in the house, so a real punch of rustic colour is definitely welcomed in my eyes!

Graphite Kitchen Reveal
So that’s the kitchen – if I’ve missed anything out, or you want to know more about anything – do drop me a message! I’ll be doing a full kitchen renovation costings post at some point in the future as well as a before and after look. But that’s the reveal so far and I hope you like it half as much as I do 😉

If you’re interested in seeing more of the kitchen renovation process, you can check out all the posts right here with full costings as well.

X
Home Etc
Kezzabeth

All posts

No Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Hey!

Hey!

Hi - I'm Kezzabeth! Self-taught DIYer, Renovator and Blogger on a mission to turn our house into a home. Seven years ago I was clueless and skill-less, but since then I've learnt how to build, tile, plumb and more. This is my little place on the web where I share everything I've learnt so you can learn too. Read More

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Never miss a post - Subscribe for monthly updates!

Privacy Policy

Favourite Projects

Follow Me On Instagram: @Kezzabeth_blog

Disclaimer

DIY Content: We’re not builders or experts in the trade industry, so please take any information on this blog as a rough guide and just our own experiences. This blog relates to our home only and you should always consult a professional in you’re in any doubt of work. Please also be aware Building Regulations change often, so always do your own research as well.
×