Design @MrsRA happy. Might you know how?

[ToughButterCup]

Bless her, she fainted when the salesman told her the price of her heart's desire kitchen.

 

So, being a goodun, she's off on Tinternet designing one herself using the online planning tools you can get. She's working from home today - painful shoulder. And from her office I can hear the odd growl of annoyance ("Could write a better program than this myself"), and the occasional hiss of  frustration ("Rats! session timed out, but I've been working on it for two hours")

 

Anyone know of a good bit of kitchen planning software that'll design-her-happy?

[Declan52]

I liked the IKEA one. Pretty basic but easy to use to get the basic layout how you want it.

[Clareandharry]

I was reading the discussion about 'using' kitchen firms for design and then not buying from them (lots of good points). Good for her, grasping the nettle. I'd love to know if she finds satisfactory freeware. We haven't done the construction drawing for our house yet but - chicken and egg - I need to design the kitchen first as there's a long horizontal slit fixed window at the business end of the kitchen 60cm above worktop height and - woopsie - the place for a hob was going to be against that wall. I either have to make my window smaller or relocate the hob. My friends all agree that a window anywhere near a hob would be bad news. I've asked Howdens to have a go at design (my bro. is a regular kitchen customer and may well fit ours) so I'm hoping they'll get me started and I may get the kitchen there. On the other hand, a new Ikea is opening 5 mins from here in the autumn... Will @MrsRA be wanting an island? Wondering about the pros and cons of hob on island 

[Clareandharry]

11 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

I liked the IKEA one. Pretty basic but easy to use to get the basic layout how you want it.

Is that available online? Missed that.

 

[dogman]

I used the Ikea one as SWMBO wants an Ikea Kitchen ( not me as can never get anything else to fit IKEA products) Need an account on line and look for 3D planner not the other one.

It does not work with Chrome or Oprea. I used Firefox. It is unbelievably slow but does work and produces list of what you need 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

41 minutes ago, Clareandharry said:

We haven't done the construction drawing for our house yet but

May be worth getting to grips with a basic CAD package.  You can do all sorts of designing on that.

Most of us that do use CAD packages will have our favourites, but Google's SketchUp is a good start.

 

(It may be worth the 'Forum' choosing a basic open source 3D CAD package and then giving tutorials.  Swapping ideas would be easy then  Just a thought).

Edited February 2, 2017 by SteamyTea

[TerryE]

1 hour ago, recoveringacademic said:

Anyone know of a good bit of kitchen planning software that'll design-her-happy?

 

Yup, go to Wickes, Howden's, whereever.  Costs nothing.  No need to buy their kitchens if you don't want to but all the standard suppliers use the same carcass form factors so the only material difference will be the colours, door handles, etc.

[Triassic]

Got my last one done at Howdens for free, bought the units elsewhere.

[Declan52]

2 hours ago, Clareandharry said:

I was reading the discussion about 'using' kitchen firms for design and then not buying from them (lots of good points). Good for her, grasping the nettle. I'd love to know if she finds satisfactory freeware. We haven't done the construction drawing for our house yet but - chicken and egg - I need to design the kitchen first as there's a long horizontal slit fixed window at the business end of the kitchen 60cm above worktop height and - woopsie - the place for a hob was going to be against that wall. I either have to make my window smaller or relocate the hob. My friends all agree that a window anywhere near a hob would be bad news. I've asked Howdens to have a go at design (my bro. is a regular kitchen customer and may well fit ours) so I'm hoping they'll get me started and I may get the kitchen there. On the other hand, a new Ikea is opening 5 mins from here in the autumn... Will @MrsRA be wanting an island? Wondering about the pros and cons of hob on island 

My hob is on my island and I find it better as there is plenty of room to set ingredients beside you as you cook. 

Only con would maybe be extra work and planning getting the likes of cables and ducting to it but it's not much extra. All down to how you want your kitchen to work for you. My island is 2.2m *1m as I love cooking and baking so gives me plenty of room to make a mess. Also gives me a lovely area to sit round and chat when we are having a party.

[Ferdinand]

2 hours ago, Clareandharry said:

Is that available online? Missed that.

 

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/planning-tools/

 

Or you can go and sit in their Design area and get advice from a boffin-person.

[ToughButterCup]

3 hours ago, Clareandharry said:

[...] I either have to make my window smaller or relocate the hob.[...]

 

You been talking to @MrsRA then? The pair of you could have mentioned it  during the planning phase....

[Fallingditch]

My 2c.

Have spent many, many hours on this kitchen stuff. Being on this forum, you are not going to accept the first price offered, which means that you will be taking (emailing) your design to two or three or more kitchen suppliers. There is no data standard that I am aware of for kitchens, so when you take them your design, assume you will be carrying a photocopy of what you want, and they will re-enter it (very quickly) into their software. 

 

That photcopy needs to include two key pieces of information - the plan, showing hob, fridges, sink, island etc etc, and the elevation, which shows how many drawers are under the hob, where the bins are. I started off going down the design software route, but after a while I gave that up and bought some graphpaper, pencil and rubber. Did a couple sketches and then got to a scale drawing. (Graphpaper makes it a lot easier!)

 

Note: this is an iterative process. When you take your scale drawing to B&Q or Wickes or whoever, because you have given some thought to what you want, you will find the conversation with their kitchen designer becomes a lot easier. They will make good suggestions. They will give you a priced printout. You then take those suggestions and apply them to your graphpaper :-). You can send the updates back to their kitchen designer, and you can go to get your 2nd quote. (Iterative, as I said).

 

(I have posted elsewhere btw about some independant suppliers who compete with Howdens, Wickes, B&Q etc)

 

[NSS]

We've ordered a Schuller kitchen from our local independent. Total of 25 units including 7 X full height towers (4 for appliance plus pull out larder and two fixed larder), 2 X 900 drawer units, 1 X 800 drawer unit and only two wall cupboards. Top of their range true handleless (not J handles) satin finish doors. Total price excluding worktops and appliances is £10k (which was less than Magnet quoted for a lesser spec in their January sale!).

What we really liked was that they do two base unit heights and 5 different plinth heights so we've been able to select a combination that will allow the petit Mrs NSS to have a comfortable height worktop level.