Posted by Lizzy Van Lysebeth on May 11th, 2009 in Case-studies

I though I would share the following project. It was a very low budget kitchen transformation for a rental property I did in January.

I have looked at the various low budget options, Ikea, Howdens, B&Q, etc. and came to the conclusion that if you go towards the higher end of Ikea you get a good balance between quality and price. I found the quality of hinges, drawer gliders and fittings that Ikea uses to be considerably better and refiner than their competitors. I made a selection on doors with solid veneer and not with paper backed veneer or some vinyl or lacquer finish. Aesthetically and structurally paper backed wood like finish is no match for real wood veneer. The doors have considerable edge lippings to protect the inner chipboard from getting damaged. The most venerable part of a low budget kitchen is always the chipboard material, and consequently the deterioration of this board is often the reason to renew a kitchen. So if you like to expand the lifetime of your kitchen taking measures to protect the board material will get you a long way. Chipboard gets damaged due to dents or ruptures in the protective or decorative layer of the board material (often melamine or wood veneer). Chipboard is most venerable on its edges so protecting those is crucial. Choose doors with decent edge protection and try to positions corner cabinets so they are less likely to get hit by vacuum cleaners, chairs, toddler toys, etc. Humidity is another enemy of chipboard. Chipboard will suck up water like a sponge and when it dries out it will remain, swollen, brittle, and will have lost lots of its structural strength. Protect edges truly where contact with water is likely (around basins, floor edges, dishwashers, etc.

I didn’t go for an Ikea worktop since the quality was not what I was looking for. The quality of the worktop is another determining factor for your kitchen life time. Melamine works but again the joints between the different worktop parts and the ends are often the first points of failure. Solid wood may look good but unless you really take care of it and protect it and maintain it rigorously throughout its live may become a nightmare to keep clean and good looking. Fungal attack, mold, stains and water marks especially around the basin and hob are well known problems with solid wooden kitchen worktops. Stone or composite materials are the better choice. Composites like Corian will produce seamless joints and can be aesthetically more pleasing than stone but they will stain more easily. Both are however more expensive than the fore mentioned options but are nevertheless well worth the investment. In this particular kitchen there was no budget for the later 2 options nevertheless did I make an unconventional combination. I got in some sheet of 6mm Corian and laminated this on a 25mm MDF sheet. I protected the MDF edges with a white painted 5mm solid oak strip. I know that over time the white paint may get damaged but since it is solid oak it will be very easy to touch up. Having seen the kitchen in use for 4 months now I am confident it was structurally and ecstatically the best choice with the budget available.

If anyone is interested I could post a budget breakdown of this project.

Below I posted some before and after pictures (there is quite some distortion due to the fisheye lens.)

The kitchen before it was renovated

The renovated kitchen

The cabinet in the corner is custom made out of Ikea parts to host the boiler and piping work.

I have placed floor boards on top of the tiles. This helped me to get a clearance height for the gas and water pipes you can see running along the wall. It also helped to give the 11mm floating engineered flooring a more solid sound.

For ease of installation the upper cabinets are installed first

This is a detail of the Corian, MDF, Oak edging combination.
A way to avoid an ackward joint between 2 different materials is to make a feature of it. In this case I highlighted the seam by making a V-grove bevelling either edge of the corian and the oak by 1mm.