Kitchen renovation project- part two

Because my appointment at John Lewis of Hungerford was on a Saturday, Gareth was busy at work cooking lunch for all of his customers. So I took my mum with me for a second set of eyes.

Enrico, the designer, didn’t use a computer program to put our kitchen together. Instead he used a good old fashioned pencil, paper and a set square to draw the space to scale before asking me questions about how we used the space and how we wanted it to change. He came up with a layout that was completely different to the ideas Gareth and I had in mind and I loved it! He created a tall larder-style run of units with an integrated fridge-freezer in one alcove, positioned the range cooker in the chimney breast with a decorative mantel around it and ran a work top from there, turning the corner of the room and along the next wall with the sink and integrated white goods. The wall that currently has the cooker and sink along it would be entirely free, apart from the radiator that we would have to move, and we had our island unit in the middle of the room.

Enrico’s idea was that it’s not ideal to have the hob and the sink on different sides of the room without a worksurface between them – it would prevent us tripping on something with a hot pan of water in our hand as we crossed the room, which was particularly important with a child on the way.

My only concern with the design was that the dishwasher and washer/dryer would be on the other side of the wall to our baby’s cot and the noise might disturb him. But Enrico assured me that up-to-date white goods are much quieter than they used to be and I didn’t need to worry.

That night I did my best to sketch his ideas on a piece of paper to explain them to Gareth. He loved the design too so I made a second appointment to go and see Enrico on one of Gareth’s days off so he could look at the kitchens in the showroom and Enrico could put together some costs for us.

In the meantime, I pulled off an MDF cover that had been screwed to the opening in the kitchen chimney breast to see whether there was enough space behind to fit the range cooker into. Unfortunately, the hole behind was no wider than a filing cabinet, and half the height. If we wanted to fit a range cooker into it we would need to knock out a lot of brickwork, install a lintel to support the floors above and rebuild the floor. It was going to cost thousands of pounds and we just couldn’t afford it. So, days before our second appointment, I emailed Enrico to tell him he would have to redesign the space all over again.