happy wife, happy life

Yay! we have the first 3D drawings back from the kitchen designer; and the wife is most impressed; just need to figure out how much over budget we have gone on the kitchen. It was the only room in the house we decided not to compromise on. Be it on bench-tops, appliances or funky gas lift doors.

Kitchen appears small, until you look at the floorplan..

Included in our quote from the builder was some standard Miele appliances; and even a given included upgrade. On arriving at the 'Miele Experience' we knew pretty quickly that we were going to go over on at least half of the items! Its pretty much a showcase of the equipment; and makes an easy job of making you spend more money than you had planned. As a bloke that knows how to cook baked beans on toast and considers it gourmet; i left all the decisions on what to buy to the wife.
Given an unlimited budget, Miele is the place to go. They have a select bunch of ovens and wine chillers than resemble the price of a small car... each. The wife showed restraint, and kept the order down to:

• Intergrated dishwasher
• Sunken gas cooktop
• Conventional oven 
• Steam oven

Thankfully we didn't pick the integrated fridge/freezer combo; its the price of a large fridge just to fit a box around it, and blend it into the wall; all this and its a third smaller than what we need. We also skipped the microwave, given that whatever we buy will be hiding in the pantry.

Kitchen and pantry shown apart to see dimensions

Open plan area

As shown on the plan this this is the centrepoint of the house, we upgraded and upgraded some more. Together with some create lighting, we should be able to create a great place to entertain and cook.

We have chosen the engineered stone; also known as acrylic/ freestyle/ corian and has no joins even at 3.2m. The feel of the benchtop is not as cold as natural stone or essastone. The majority of fast food benchtops are made from corian; as its repairable and non-porus (very hygienic too) the downside is cost, and plastic scratches of course.

40mm+ benchtop with slab ends

Sunken sink routed into benchtop

kitchen idea's: 

Houzz