The kitchen is the soul of a house, so it makes sense to start in that room when renovating a home. Many kitchen manufacturers offer prefabricated kitchen designs that are flat-packed and easy to install with some basic preparation and the right tools.

Thanks to our years of experience, we have put together this list of 10 tips that you may not have considered when fitting your first DIY kitchen.

Keep it Simple
At the very least, try to keep the basic layout the same for your new kitchen. This will save a lot of money because you won’t need to hire a plumber or electrician to re-route pipes or electricity to new points in the room.

If you are stuck for ideas, there are many websites that feature kitchen remodeling ideas.

Be Prepared
At the bare minimum, you will need the following tools on hand: Drill with drill bits, Hammer, Carpenter’s level, Tape measure, Step ladder, Screw driver set, Allen key set.

[Photo courtesy of Mark McCammon/pexels.com]

Set Up a Mini Kitchen
Choose another room of the house to set up the bare necessities in a mini kitchen. A hot water jug, microwave and fridge will be enough to get you through until the new kitchen is ready.

Drop Cloths
If you don’t have any dedicated drop cloths in your DIY supplies, consider using shower curtains or bedding that may be a little old and need replacing.

Removing the Old Cabinets
Take care when removing the old kitchen fittings. If you damage the walls or floor when tearing out old cabinets, this will add extra work to the project when you need to repair any holes or scrapes.

If it’s a larger kitchen and you have flooring to remove as well, consider hiring a man and van to help with the removals. There are many dedicated businesses that specialise in this service.

Choosing Paint
There’s nothing better to finish off a new room than a new coat of paint. For kitchens, pick a latex semigloss paint. This is perfect for the kitchen because you will be able to wipe off splashes and food easily.

Prepping the Room
You may be surprised how much grime has built up on the kitchen walls, so make sure to wash the walls and ceiling with a trisodium phosphate based washing solution.

Another tip is to lay down your base coat before fitting any new cabinets, and then painting the top coat carefully after everything is installed.

Locate Wall Studs
Use a wall stud locator to mark out any studs before you start installing the cabinets. Don’t rely on the previous layout when hanging cabinets, because the previous installer may have placed them without stud support.

Assembling the Cabinets
Leave any doors or other extra components out of the cabinets until after they have been hung on the wall. This will greatly reduce the weight of the unit and make the fitting much easier.

Many DIY supply stores have online guides with advice and tips for cabinet installation.

Recycle the Old Cabinets
Don’t throw out the old cabinets because they can be used in other areas of your home. They make a great storage solution for the garage or tool shed, or you could repaint them and create a play kitchen for a children’s cubby house.

If the cabinets are beyond repair, use a man and van rubbish clearance service to take away the mess.

A big picture window in your kitchen can give you and your family wonderful lighting and a refreshing view of your garden. You also need less heating or cooling while you are cooking or preparing meals because kitchen windows can let natural light and warm sunshine in. You also get fresh and cool air. With all these benefits that your kitchen windows offer, it is only ideal to find the perfect curtain style and color for it. Many homeowners buy cheap kitchen curtains but most are not sure which styles to go for.

For kitchen windows, one of the most preferred types of curtain are the café curtain styles. A curtain made from light net material is a wonderful option for the kitchen especially during those warm and toasty summer days. These styles of window sets are quite popular in French cafes and home interior decorators brought it into residences.

[Photo courtesy of Republica/pixabay.com]

Designers suggest hanging curtain in the middle part of the window to achieve chic café ambiance on your kitchen. It should leave the upper part of the window exposed, but it will still depend on what you want. You can hang the curtain from different heights to create different effects and for you to control natural lighting. You may also tie your curtains to the window’s side to let more air and natural light in.

Kitchens are the perfect place to recreate that French café air because it can be a casual and informal place for dining. When hung in the right places, these curtains can create a lovely mood and effect. However, you must still consider the colors and styles of the fabric you are going to use. It should complement the overall design of the kitchen not stand out like a sore thumb simply because of its contrasting color or design. Go for light materials, net and Jardinière material can make small kitchens look more spacious and airy. You may also work on layering net materials over colorful patterns during the colder season.

Vintage interior design refers to the furniture, fabrics and other elements that create a nostalgic feel in a room. Generally speaking, vintage designs may draw from a number of periods, including the Victorian and Edwardian periods; the 1920s and Art Deco era; the post-WWII era and the 1950s and the psychedelic 60s and the 70s disco era. More specifically, vintage refers to design elements and style that recalls the look and feel of the 1940s and 50s.

Incorporating vintage design into a room, for example the kitchen, may begin on a small scale. Simply adding in vintage canisters, an old-fashioned bread box or advertising imagery can create a vintage 50s look in a modern kitchen. There are a great variety of furniture pieces and accessories to be found in specialty stores, antique stores and even at local sales and flea markets, to help create the look. With the addition of popular paint colors and finishes from the era and some simple window coverings, a vintage-style kitchen is easy to achieve.

[Photo courtesy of jill111/pixabay.com]

Vintage kitchen accessories and furniture

Furniture designs from the 50s made use of many, at the time, new materials; one of the most popular and iconic being chrome. A mainstay of the 50s-era diner, chrome can be used to form the base of a Formica-topped kitchen table, vinyl-covered chairs or swivel bar stools. Caned-back chairs are a slightly more formal way to go when paired with a coordinating table.

Appliances from the 50s are still to be found and some may even be in working order; however, many of the old designs for these durable metal machines have been reproduced to blend well with vintage kitchen designs, among them lever-handled refrigerators, ice boxes and Chambers cook-stoves.

Vintage 50s accessories include red and white enamelware dishes and cookware; glass milk bottles and vintage milk cans; bread boxes and vintage and reprinted art designs and advertising images.

[Photo courtesy of alluregraphicdesign/pixabay.com]

Vintage colors and finishes

The color palette in the 50s was characterized by a wide array of hues, ranging from natural stains and white to Mackinac green, a soft forest green. In addition, golden yellow, light gray, medium gray-blue, desert sand and pale mist green were also popular throughout the period. Enamel paints and finishes were widely used in 50s era kitchens, from the furniture and cabinetry, to the walls and even the floors.

Directional design was a popular and functional choice during the 50s. Using the direction in which a particular room faces as a guideline, directional design guides the choice of color to be used, based on how much natural light enters the room and its overall temperature. On account of their exposure to the sun, south and west facing kitchens tend to be described as “hot”, so cooler blues and greens are the best choice. North-facing kitchens tend to be “cold”, so choosing “warm” or “hot” colors, including yellow, orange and red, work best. East facing rooms are flexible and can pull colors from both palettes.

Vintage window dressings

Vintage 50s-era window coverings are both simple and decorative. Full window panels in gingham fabrics, with clean white tie-backs; valances featuring charming and animated motifs, such as teapots, fruit or vegetables; white curtains edged in colored bands and custom shutters painted in period colors, are all great examples of the style.

There’s nothing quite as fun as giving a room in your house a good kit out with new equipment; it gives you the chance to be creative, to indulge in a bit of retail therapy and to recreate a space that you might well have become bored with.  One of the most enjoyable aspects of creating a new room is the little gadgets and extras that give the room its unique sense of style.  Perhaps the most fun room to kit out is the kitchen, and to get you started we’ve come up with this list of five must-have gadgets for this important room.

A top notch blender

Let’s get one thing clear here: we’re not talking about those wishy-washy, twenty quid blenders!  A real, solid blender is an absolute essential for anyone who wants to keep their meals interesting.  Everything from luxury fruit smoothies to warming winter soups can be whipped up in minutes, meaning that as well as varying your diet, you can also avoid wasting food.  Excess fruit lying around? Hello, cheap sorbet.  Too many bananas?  It’s the perfect post-run milkshake.  If you’re unsure as to what constitutes a good blender, then consider whether it can easily be picked up with one hand – if it can, then it’s probably not great in terms of quality!

A good dehydrator

Lavish?  Yes.  Get one anyway?  Yes!  A dehydrator is never going to top the list of essentials, but that’s not the point of this list.  A dehydrator is actually incredibly useful for any home that finds itself frequently wasting fresh fruit and veg.   Essentially, they’re able to turn any fresh fruit into a lovely dried snack, which is a great way to stay healthy.  Fruits like pineapple make the perfect summer snack, and when dehydrated, they keep for far longer.  Marvellous stuff.

A versatile peeler

That’s right – it’s time to ditch that rusty old beast that you’ve had since the nineties and splash out.  A good peeler will come in useful time and time again, whether you’re quickly whipping up a good mash for shepherd’s pie, or simply for ensuring your fussy little ones don’t have to eat the skins on their granny smiths.  There are a variety of models available on the market that offer a three in one experience, with different blades for veg, soft fruit and for julienne-style peeling.  Like knives, spending more on a quality model will save you a lot of effort in the long run.

A slow cooker

A slow cooker is absolute heaven for a busy home-owner.  Get down to one of your local electrical stores and buy one, right now!  As well as giving you the softest, flake-off-the-bone joints of meat you’ll ever eat, a slow cooker means you can chuck your ingredients into the cooker in the morning, go to work and then return to find a perfectly done meal with a smell that’ll have you drooling all the way down the garden path to the back door.  Whether you’re partial to curry or stew, you need a slow cooker.

An automated coffee machine

Another extravagance, maybe, but there’s something really, really wonderful about an automated coffee machine, whether it’s a Tassimo or a Lavazza, a pod or a simple espresso machine.  Whilst it might be an expensive way to enjoy your coffee, there is nothing like hearing that wonderful buzz first thing in the morning, before going outside, watching the sun come up and sipping your first brew of the day.

[ Tagged In ] Choosing the Right Kitchen Appliances, Kitchen, Kitchen Appliances, Kitchen Gadgets

It was quite busy today after we came home from the public market, after cooking and eating we have to collect water. The water supply nowadays is very weak since summer months are fast approaching, they also turn-off the main switch making it having no water supply in the evening.

Without resting my mother already started taking out the ingredients for making ice candies, my younger sister helped her in tying since she is the strongest one. What I did? Well I collected water for the bathroom since our father uses almost all the water in the large container, and I sold ice packs too while creating a blog post, honestly I should be the one cutting the extra plastic after Luke tied the ice candies but since I started pestering them by asking where to put them after cutting the extra plastic, and asking for a chair since I don’t want to sit in the small chair in the floor they became impatience to my demands and they “happily” says I should just leave them (lol). Well, I just planned to cut them while standing since I am not feeling well sitting, it makes me feel dizzy, and I just throw up all the food I ate after fetching water without resting after meal so I really don’t feel like sitting below the table.

Anyway, almost 3 hours after eating and them done making the ice candies I heard my father’s voice outside mentioning a fire, when I look outside the bedroom’s window our makeshift/dirty kitchen outside is in fire, I immediately helped my father stopping the fire, it was said that maybe an incandescent coal flew to the sacks of charcoal just in front of the wood stove and since it was a charcoal it took time before it creates a big fire. Anyway it was stopped easily since the fire was just starting eating the walls, was not able to take photo anymore because before I came down to bring my phone my mother already took all the residues and charcoal in the crime scene in my disappointment.

We have modern kitchen inside our house but since it is cheap to use firewood and charcoal than using gas and electricity they created a make-shift kitchen in our old house. This is going to be second time that our kitchen is on fire, several years ago in our old house it happened too and it was just lucky that someone saw it right away.

Lesson not been learned yet huh?

You are unique and you deserve the best, especially when it comes to something as routine as coffee – it’s easy to enjoy custom coffee at home or at work when you have an on demand coffee maker that uses Nespresso pods or a similar style of coffee inserts. The Keurig mini-plus coffee maker is ideally suited for home or office use because it s compact but it gets the job done just like the full scale models.

If you are not familiar with an on demand coffee maker you are really missing out – they afford you the opportunity to enjoy custom quality coffee any time you’d like at a price of just pennies per cup. No matter the maker, the way they work is foolproof and they only need an electrical outlet and a water source.

[Image courtesy of Thomas_G/pixabay.com]

All you do is insert your coffee packet, position your cup or mug and press a button; in less than a minute the machine issues a piping hot, fresh and flavorful cup of gourmet quality coffee that rivals anything you’d get at a coffee shop, donut shop or convenience store. The machines produce a great cup of coffee each and every time, in part because the water-to-coffee ratio is pre-set and there can be no mishaps.

There’s also no need to scoop or measure coffee since it comes in individually sealed personal portions; there are no flimsy filters to fuss with and no messy coffee grounds to clean up. Cleanup consists of discarding the spent coffee packet and cleaning your cup or mug when you are done drinking the delicious custom brew.

With a variety or sampler pack it is easy to try out all sorts of unique and exotic coffee flavors, blends and roasts.

The installation of electricity in our new house was finished and the power outlet were already installed so they finally moved the fridges in our kitchen.  It was good but seeing how our kitchen looks like after moving the appliances, it was not what I expected. Our kitchen looks very small and as if you can’t moved around anymore,  this is not what I have planned or what I want to look like.

Well, we can’t do nothing anymore because the lot where we built our house is not that wide that’s why we are planning to construct second floor, my mother planned to move the second fridge in the second floor too.

Some of the thing you can see around like the television, books and other small items on display are just temporary on their location while we are not yet done with the construction.

The kitchen is one of the essential parts of the house and a good kitchen design can provide efficient and good area to prepare meals and do related tasks.  Designing and choosing the right countertops of your kitchen depends on your personal taste, class and style. The two most popular choices for countertops are granite and marble.

We used granite in our kitchen, they are a bit expensive compared to tiles but they are the best choice for  constant cooking and preparing food. They are durable stones that are more resistant to scratches, stains, mold and mildew.  Granite comes in various colors, pattern and shade we choose the brown/peach to compliment the kitchen walls and floor.

My mother and sister told me that they already requested a distant relative to made a house sketch for our house. We are all excited so we talked about what design we want and what kitchen we like. I have requested them that I want the kitchen stove to have exhaust fan and light so it won’t stench inside our house when cooking and to avoid smoke as well.

Good kitchen design is very important because having a good layout can provide pleasant and efficient area to cook and prepare meals, a well equipped kitchen can function well for a wide variety of tasks.  When planning the look of your new kitchen you should consider the kitchen design ideas that suits your taste, like the theme, colors, lay-out and arrangement of your kitchen appliances.

Our new apartment has a white kitchen designs, it is spacious than our old apartment. This one has a built-in stove and the exhaust fan works better than our previous kitchen.

If you want to enhance your backyard adding an outdoor kitchen is the best idea and becoming popular now a days.  It is a best place to cook and eat outdoor with your family, have a little barbecue party together with relatives and friends or even neighbors.

[Photo credits: concretenetwork.com]

One of the benefits of having an open air kitchen is it allows you to clean and cook easily. It also gives pleasure and entertainment for the family so if you open-air enthusiasts  you should consider building an outdoor kitchen.