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In 2014 we redesigned our kitchen and made our dreams a reality. We’d been saving up for this part of our home refurbishment for a few years and we were keen to get our kitchen design right. We’d previously had a kitchen refitted at our old house and we’d picked up a few pointers along the way, so we tried to use what worked well and change what didn’t.

Get Plenty of Ideas

Even if you have a good image in your head of what you want go out and see as many kitchens as possible. Look in magazines, online and get the opinions of friends. We got a few firms to draw up plans for us before settling on our final version of our layout. Kitchen design is changing and there are always new ideas and improvements out there to consider.

Consider Current and Future Needs

A kitchen is a room that is too expensive to refit very often. Consider your current storage needs and try to add in a bit of scope for the future if your space allows. If your children are small, mind they are likely to have bigger appetites at teens for example, and you will need to be able to store more food.

Get a Designer to Come Round to Your House

Some kitchen suppliers are reluctant to send someone round in the early stages of a working on a kitchen design, if at all because it takes up a lot of staff time. We found it very useful to have an expert on the ground in our house looking at our room shape, window placement, sunlight, etc. and making recommendations.

Get a Reliable Firm to Fit Your Kitchen

We were lucky here as we knew we were likely to go with the company that did our previous kitchen. They had done a good job the previous time and had a good range of products to offer. Another way to source a good kitchen firm is to ask for recommendations from other local people.
This post has been produced in collaboration with homify.

Flooring is so important to a room: it sets the tone; it provides colour and texture; and of course, it acts as a foil for everything else.  To my mind choosing the right flooring is crucial to achieving the look that you want.  Just as important though is the texture and feel of the product, because often we are in direct contact with the floor through our feet.  We all know what it’s like to step on cold, hard tiles on a chilly, wintry morning – I can just imagine that shock of that running through me.  How much nicer to step on something that is natural and warm: wood.

Engineered oak flooring is designed to be tough and durable enough to withstand many years of use without warping or shrinking.  Consisting of a top layer of solid wood with multiple layers of plywood tightly compact together, each engineered wood plank much more stability than solid wood flooring.    This greater stability is what prevents it from warping or shrinking. Once the flooring is down you can’t tell the difference between engineered wood flooring and solid wood flooring.  So you get the look of solid wood with the strength of engineered wood, which has got to be good and it’s a great hard wearing and cost-effective choice if you are looking for alternatives to solid wood flooring.

Due to its layered construction an engineered wood floor is more stable and may not be as affected by changes in the surrounding environment as other flooring products. This dimensional stability means that there’s less need to allow for seasonal movement when installing, so there’s a reduced acclimatization period and this allows most engineered floors to be fitted above underfloor heating.  In fact, an engineered wood floor combined with underfloor heating sounds like the perfect combination and a way of bringing a little everyday luxury into your life.