Kitchen Renovation Prep

[sworthen]

We recently bought our first house, complete with a kitchen which we will be remodeling right away. The cabinets are due for manufacture in September, but we still have a lot to decide - and many kitchen aspects about which we keep changing our mind!

(Size of stove and oven is the current one. We were originally thinking a 90 cm range cooker. Now we're thinking a 75 cm hob with 60 cm oven + warming drawer to allow for a little more cabinetry. The second oven would have been mostly for plate-warming anyways. Oh, how I wish I could justify an oven big enough for my American-sized baking trays though! We lived in the US and Canada before moving here. But storage space takes priority given the space we're working with.)

Anyways, my first question is this: Is there anywhere in the UK (ideally in the Greater London Area) to go and look at lots of kitchen sinks? A kitchen sink and tap showroom of some sort?

B+Q have them high on the walls so they're hard to see up close. Catalogues just aren't the same as knowing what they feel like. Kitchen display places have a random and limited selection of whatever happens to be installed.

[Dave Hatfield]

We recently bought our first house, complete with a kitchen which we will be remodeling right away.  The cabinets are due for manufacture in September, but we still have a lot to decide - and many kitchen aspects about which we keep changing our mind!

(Size of stove and oven is the current one. We were originally thinking a 90 cm range cooker. Now we're thinking a 75 cm hob with 60 cm oven + warming drawer to allow for a little more cabinetry. The second oven would have been mostly for plate-warming anyways. Oh, how I wish I could justify an oven big enough for my American-sized baking trays though!  We lived in the US and Canada before moving here. But storage space takes priority given the space we're working with.)

Anyways, my first question is this: Is there anywhere in the UK (ideally in the Greater London Area) to go and look at lots of kitchen sinks? A kitchen sink and tap showroom of some sort?

B+Q have them high on the walls so they're hard to see up close. Catalogues just aren't the same as knowing what they feel like. Kitchen display places have a random and limited selection of whatever happens to be installed.

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Try IKEA. 

[sworthen]

Try IKEA. 

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IKEA has about as good a selection as any other kitchen design showroom. Indeed, they show a complete set of their own range, which is proportionally more than I can find elsewhere in a range of sinks right now. We've also looked at John Lewis, in addition to B+Q and IKEA. Also, the sinks which happened to be on display at the Miele Experience Showroom.

In addition to IKEA's complete range, however, it would be lovely to have a chance to handle and compare all, or at least large numbers of, sink and tap ranges by, say, Franke, Blanco, etc. We're looking for stainless steel, as it happens, but it's the generic search of kitchen sink and tap showrooms which seems a gap in the market if they don't exist. Surely there's enough business for one to exist?

Edited August 1, 2008 by sworthen (log)