How useful can a kitchen designer be?

T

TreeTiger

Registered User
Messages
814
Hoping to get a new kitchen this summer and considering many options. I've a bunch of kitchen magazines and several articles have had new kitchen owners raving about the person who designed their kitchen.

How fine a detail will a designer get to - will they remember things like you need somewhere to keep a jotting pad and pen for your shopping list, where are you going to keep your table mats, do you want a pop-up shelf for your mixer? Or is it all a bit more general than that?

Some places I've looked at charge a fee of €150 - €250 to do a CAD drawing of a kitchen plan (taken off the price of the kitchen if you buy from them). Just wondering would everything you'd want to have in your kitchen be included? Because if it's not, then I'm happy to draw out a plan myself.

Any advice would be welcome.
 
I would say its more useful if you have an unusually shaped space which we did and we got some professional advice and how best to use the space. If you just have a standard room then i'd say its only worth bothering with if you're getting a very customisable kitchen (ie expensive) in which case its probably part of the package anyway.
 
I agree with Toby, if you just want the same kind of layout as you have presently then you don't really need one. My parents used one because they had an odd window in th ekitchen and wanted to be able to use it in the redesign.
You still need to give them guidance, not everyone wants a pad and pen handy in the kitchen, not everyone has loads of cookbooks. You would put together a wishlist and they would design ideas around it.

ad
 
I've had detailed drawings done by 3 kitchen companies in the past, all at no charge. Part of the cost of sales. None came out to visit. Worked off my own drawings of floor-plan and electrical plan.

I'm sure some still do it for free.
 
The design charge is just a means of discouraging timewasters. I wouldn't assume that anyone charging it necessarily knows what they're on about any more than any other good kitechen suppply company.

In my experience, you should be very clear about what you want from a kitchen e.g will it be just functional or a more family-oriented room in which you'll be spending a lot of time. The amount of space will limit your options but you'd be better off having a very specific set of objectives for your kitchen and ensuring they're incorporated into any design your supplier comes up with.

If you get the sense (as I did) that your supplier is not really listening, my advice would be to walk (which regrettably I didn't). This is an attitude that likely to carry through to the installation and follow-up phases of the process.
 
If you go to both Magnet and the Panelling Centre and ask for a catalogue online, you will get free kitchen design. A voucher from the Panelling Centre and a email from Magnet.

Don't know what their design services are like as yet though
 
We are in the process of getting a new kitchen after knocking the wall that divides kitchen and dining room this simple thing made the layout out of the kitchen very differnt. We visited all the usual kitchen showrooms and more and several of them gave us CAD designs. I found the computer generated designs from these places to be all the same and not very attractive as in very angular lines just filling everyspace up with a press. It was not what I was after anyway. In the end I contacted an independant kitchen designer who came out to the house, I have to say she was great we had a chat and I gave her my "wish list" for the kitchen she goes away and sends your a couple of design options these are hand drawn (very very well) and to scale We discussed them and mixed elements from two decided on a final plan which se draws in colour and black and white and she draws an elevation and plumbing/electircal plans also. for all this I was charged 350 considering the kitchen is costing 15000 I think that the 350 was money well spent
 
Thanks for all the tips. Sue97, I've gone to in-house.ie which is what the Panelling Centres new website is, so we'll see what happens. As it happens, I left in a list with them the other day of the units I reckon I'll need for them to give me a ballpark figure, but haven't heard back yet.

Other half and I are thinking of making an overnight trip to Ikea in Glasgow (we could do a bit of skiing in the snowdome there too!) to see what their stuff looks like.

Anna Lucia, we are doing the exact same thing, knocking out the wall between kitchen & dining (rsj required!). We're also making our tiny hall bigger by taking part of the kitchen into it, and then extending out the back of the kitchen but putting a conservatory roof on. So our kitchen is going to look very different from what it is now.

Have bought a load of magazines - there's a new Irish Kitchen magazine being launched tomorrow apparently - so I'm full of ideas. Was just wondering if kitchen designers were kind of mini miracle workers and that my kitchen would be a disaster if I didn't consult one. But I guess if I think long, hard & logically about what's required it mightn't be too bad!
 
Hi Tree Tiger

Firstly - in relation to how useful a designer can be - if you manage to find a good kitchen designer then i suggest they are well worth paying a design fee (normally this can be offset against the cost of the kitchen if you order from them). A good kitchen designer will be designing kitchens day in day out seeing every type, shape and size of room as well as encountering a host of different requests from different clients - in other words if you have problems or issues with your kitchen the chances are that a good designer will have encountered and solved them already on another project. Find out how much experience you designer has and ask for referrals that you can follow up.

However - a word of caution, everyone these days calls themselves a kitchen designer. I suggest that word of mouth is the best way of finding a good kitchen designer. Find a kitchen that you like and then find out who designed it. best of luck in your search

Regards
Barry
 
We've just ordered a kitchen (yesterday!). We went to 4 different places and had 4 "kitchen designers" do us a design for free. None of them produced anything that I hadn't already done myself on the B&Q website www.diy.com which is really user-friendly but it was helpful to see their showrooms and get a feeling for what we wanted (and didn't want). Then I used magazines and the In-House and B&Q catalogues to see what accessories were available. Then we finalised the whole thing with a really helpful, patient local guy who buys in the kitchens and arranges everything - including fitting units and granite worktop. I don't think there's any right way to do these things but I agree with the above posters that most of the "kitchen designers" linked to salesrooms are nothing special.
 

Before you can design something it helps to have a thorough knowledge of key aspects relating to production methodologies, functionality, form constraints, visual appeal, ease of use, compatability with interiors, how users will interact as well as when, ergonomics (which would have particular relevance for infirmed, aged etc . This knowledge should be applicable to both user and vendor.

If a gap persists it's most likely on the user side, so starting from an inferior position it will be difficult to determine what is design and what value it may have/provide.

If you write a design brief, you'll probably require a designer, and most likely the design process will probably be a useful experience.

In my experiences, people tend to be very ignorant of the design process, of working with a designer and invariably cynical of the prospects/relevance.

Seeing design merely in terms of a drawing or colour scheme is missing the key points completely.

Anyone can claim to be a designer but not everyone can.
 
I use QK Living for commercila products very good on deign (free of Charge) just give floor plan -I have no connection to them
 
ice said:
Sorry to hijack the post but can you give me an idea of the cost for getting this done ??
Click to expand...

I was surprised to see this thread appear again as it was last April when I posted it, so at this stage our job is nearly complete thank goodness.
As far as I recall, knocking down the wall between kitchen/dining rooms and adding rsj, and knocking out the back kitchen wall (which had a concrete head over the window and door and didn't require an rsj) was in the region of 3,500, perhaps a bit less. The same builder was putting up the extended part and constructing the new utility room as well so I don't have a specific breakdown.

As regards a kitchen designer, I didn't employ one in the end. I got lots of ideas from kitchen magazines and also used kitchendraw.com which was very useful, and a friend who is a kitchen designer cast an eye over my plan and made a suggestion or two. Also, anyone I know who got a kitchen in the last year or so, I asked them what was working for them and got a lot of good tips that way. There are a few small bits to be done now, but I'm delighted with the result and anyone who has seen it has raved about it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register