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Sadly in the summer, my brother's wife died very suddenly and unexpectedly. She had been something of a hoarder and none of the family had been to visit them for some years. They would only come to us. When we went to his flat we found it was a mess. We had professional cleaners in and then I arranged to have it totally refurbished, so that it would be easier for him to look after once he moved back in. He has been staying with my parents for the last few months. We were very worried about his health, but he is doing much better now. The flat actually smelled like someone smoked even though they don't and I think the air quality affected their health. They purchased the flat when they got married 22 years ago and it had not been touched since then. Further they refused to open any vents and properly use extractor fans so they had a big mould problem. We replaced the kitchen and an en suite, replaced all the flooring with hardwood and have had the whole place redecorated. Hardwood was expensive, but will be a lot easier to look after. The previous carpets were stuck to the floor beneath them. When the flat was built the woodwork was painted cream eggshell, it looks awful as it is so similar to the magnolia walls, that you would think someone had emulsion the woodwork. Took three coats to get it white. As well as organising everything, I did the new kitchen design and put up the light fittings. I reckon spending just a few pounds on lights massively elevates a place. The kitchen and en suite floors had to be replaced as they had started to rot due to water leaks. I also luckily discovered a leaking soil pipe just before the new kitchen went in. Just need to order some new furniture now and put up some curtains. Found a small building company to work with who were very good. Very impressed with DIY Kitchens. The original kitchen had bizarrely been installed around 50mm into the room to avoid cutting the pipes into the back of the units with the oven jutting out a further 150mm due to the soil stack. I fixed this in the new design. It was quite a bit of space to lose in a room basically only 3m square. I think the before and after pictures are pretty obvious. The before pictures are after the professional cleaning.

We are starting to look at different options for a kitchen in our TF new build. At our last house we had part of our island as a reduced height (work height approx 76cm vs 92cm standard) which was done bespoke . We are keen to repeat that and were wondering if anyone else has done so and what their experience was. I have seen that DIY Kitchens offer a reduced height option but can see on other forums here that there is a fair bit of negative feedback on them as well as positives. Nolte state in their brochure that they offer a range of heights but not specifically that they can accommodate what we need so we are contacting the local dealer. And I think I have seen elsewhere that Howdens may offer something. The other idea we have is to get our builder to make something but we’ll then need to look at how we match the door/drawer finish to the rest of the kitchen which could be a problem.

I will visit the DIY Kitchens showroom up in Pontefract next Friday. I will be stopping off on my way from my current home (Hampshire) on my way to my holiday in Scotland. It will be first visit to their showroom and the first time seeing their full range of kitchens. Given it may be only visit before I specify my kitchen for my forthcoming build, and, given how far away the showroom is from where I live down South, it may possibly be my only visit to the showroom, does anyone have any advice on how best to use the visit to best effect?