I'm ripping out and redoing my entire kitchen, a rather long and narrow room. I went into Homebase in Kingston, west London, but their whole operation seemed pretty shabby. There must be a better way? Has anyone any experience of any of the different companies' design facilities?
Ikea do a half-decent bit of software, lets you put your room size in, then move cabinets, cookers etc around and visualise in 3D. Windows only unfortunately, but it gave me some ideas (as all the units are standard sizes, you dont need to stick to ikea stuff)
I couldn't believe it when furniture designer/maker son bought his kitchen from Ikea and was very pleased with it.
It doesn't look bad either.
Mary
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Have a look at these design programs.The first few being free.
Ikea
It's easier to start off with a simple scale drawing of the room layout and cardboard cutouts of cookers, fridges units etc. before ever going near a computer. Use the computer system to draw out what you have designed - if it gives 3D visualisation fine - remember that the computer's idea of 3D is only a vague approximation of reality :)
Alan
I recently had a B&Q designer round. He later posted me lots of very nice drawings of what it would look like. Seems like he was trying to crowd as many units into the kitchen as possible. He even had an island of units. All I just wanted a starting point for my own ideas.
Start with a scale drawing of your kitchen with doors and windows marked on. Then decide where the cooker,sink and any appliances are to go. Plumbing practicalities will probably dictate where they go. After you've done that you'll probably find there isn't a lot of actual design to do. Just infill the rest with floor/wall cupboards to suit.
mark
We used the Ikea software to help us buy an Ikea kitchen. Worked really well, you can save the files to an internet location so that you can access you drawings at home, at work or at the Ikea store. Choice is good at Ikea too.
It does take a while taking the design into an order at Ikea; we went on a weekday evening with three boys in tow (18 months, 4 and 7) and whilst they tried very hard to be little angels, 2 1/2 hours of sorting things out with their assistants was a little on the long side!
Wife also went to Magnet (with no intention of buying) but they do sit you down in an nice comfy chair, decent cup of coffee and design things up on a nice big screen for you. It was useful as he pointed some things out that we hadn't thought of, which we then incorporated into our Ikea plans.
Ikea also do a "cut out" kitchen design pack; so you can do the blocks moving around a grid sort of design. Again, works well as a first cut of how you might like it.
Sorry to sound like an Ikea fanboy; we had real problems with the installation service (not the installer, just the admin behind it), but in the end we've got a really good looking kitchen, seemingly well built for a decent price.
But YMMV!
Matt
i would agree. when i replaced sections of my kitchen i used the Ikea deisgn program to get a list of the various bits required then shopped around for the cheapest place to buy the units. ended up buying from Wickes, and found them most helpful. they were able to use the list of parts needed provided by the ikea program to order the whole thing for me. i assume any kitchen supplier could do the same, makes the time spent on the design more worthwhile
"lemmy" wrote
Having tried a number of the software packages , Ikea etc. I thoroughly recommend the ALNO Kitchen Planner (being a draughtsman qualifies this recommendation).
ALNO
Phil
Thanks for all the advice. Sometimes I wish there were only three versions of everything. With so much choice, you always feel you could have done better. I'm convinced that the vast choices we have now make as many people unhappy as they do happy!
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