All posts filed under: kitchen design

Why consultations are REALLY important – New project time!

Published by Karen Knox

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about when to get an interior designer on board which went into some detail about what we do and why we really should be involved from the beginning of a project. If I had a pound for every person emailing me to say they’ve just completed a build and now want some help with the interior design, well i’d have at least £100 by now. Not a lot of money admittedly, but that’s a lot of people thinking I just do sofas and paint colours. Incorrect. This brings me onto a consultation I did at the beginning of July at a beautiful, five bedroom, double fronted, 1930’s house. Original ground floor-plan The homeowners had been there for about four years already and had made a brilliant start at putting their stamp on the place. With most of the messy, building works already done, I was asked to go over for a consultation for the hallway, stairs and landing. Always the last place you should decorate peeps, because they …

Vinyl Revival

Published by Karen Knox

We all know that vinyl is back in favour. But it’s not just hitting the ole gramophone again.. Nice toe tap there. It’s getting laid! Back on your floors. At home. Long gone are the days of extremely unattractive, badly fitted slip-hazard flooring. Today’s vinyl is: highly practical easy to clean none slip durable quick and easy to lay relatively cost effective warm underfoot 99% of the time compatible with underfloor heating Today’s vinyl is also extremely cool. From wood, marble, concrete, tile effect vinyl to a custom designed image of ANYTHING you could possibly imagine. The floor is your oyster. Come see. Feature Floors GRANADA BLACK SHEET VINYL FLOORING 2M WIDE: £16 PER M2 Feature Floors MARINE 2 SHEET VINYL FLOORING 3M WIDE: £16 PER M2 Best 4 Flooring MOROCCAN STYLE CUSHIONED VINYL FLOORING SHEET TANGIER 05 Best 4 Flooring BLOCK WEAVE CUSHION VINYL FLOORING SHEET FUSE 02 As you can see, vinyl in its new stylish guise can be used throughout the home, not just in your kitchen or bathroom. It’s perfect for …

Kitchen Facelift – Final Reveal

Published by Karen Knox

I told you it was coming soon! If you read my last post, you’ll know it was time for me to say goodbye to our gloss white kitchen. Feel free to have a little read of that one if you want to know the what’s and why’s… Adios white gloss! Here’s the wall cabinet layout i’ve had in my head for years and the one I think it going to make our little kitchen look hell of a lot better AND give us more much needed storage.I wanted to move the existing wall cabinets up towards the ceiling, wrap a third cabinet around the extractor hood and add two more open cabinets below, either side of the extractor. Simple no!? I didn’t want handles but I also didn’t want the traditional handle-less J profile design our original kitchen doors had. If i’d gotten my way, I would have had doors than opened by telekinesis, but as my powers of mind-control weren’t quite up to scratch, we went with push openers instead. Fair enough. It’s difficult to …

Kitchen Facelift – Goodbye white gloss

Published by Karen Knox

There’ll probably be a lot of people out there reading this blog post thinking, “there’s nothing wrong with your kitchen, love. What ya updating it for?” And one of those people is my husband. So I just wanted to say from the start, I get it. Me, wanting to update a perfectly fine kitchen might seem a bit unnecessary. Especially when it was originally like this: You can read all about the kitchen knock through we did in 2013 here. It’s still one of my most read posts as it seems a lot of you out there are still researching knock-through options, so it’s defo worth a look if it’s on your list of house jobs. And whilst i’m so happy with the new layout and extra space we created in 2013/14, the actual kitchen doors began to annoy me, more and more once i’d taken the step into interior design in 2015. I’ve been patiently waiting to get this kitchen looking more like me without making any huge changes. I didn’t want to buy new …

The Industrial Shaker Kitchen

Published by Karen Knox

When the lovely Ally of Digital Diva fame, booked me for a day’s consultation last August at their new home, I walked into a house I wasn’t quite expecting. A stunning, Grade II listed, late Georgian, early Victorian stone built property, just three or so miles away from my own home in North Leeds. This isn’t what it looked like, don’t worry. This is a photo from 2015 before it was bought by a developer. The whole place had been refurbed to a pretty good standard and whilst the developers retained the beautiful period features, some of the fixtures and fittings were not quite cutting it for the new owners, Ally and James. This was their kitchen back in August 2016, with shaker style units, range cooker, large island unit, solid oak worktop, open shelving, original Yorkshire stone floor and built in pantry by the side of the restored fireplace. So all in all, the makings of a wonderful kitchen. The layout was great. No issues with that. But these guys weren’t feeling the space and weren’t sure how …

My trip to Bert & May – From Salvage Yard to Show House #designupnorth

Published by Karen Knox

About 18 months ago, I introduced the hashtag #designupnorth to head up a series of posts focusing on good design being accessible north of the Watford gap. As a blogger/designer I get invited to stuff all the time (which is lovely) but every frickin design event/launch/networking opp is always down south. In fact, brands barely even put the addresses on for these events anymore, it’s just assumed we all know they’re down in Landan and we’ll just pop down there for a canpé and a Prosecco or four. Needless to say, I have yet to frequent one of these said events, a) because I work full time, in Leeds b) they’re always at rubbish times like 8am or 6pm and c) because a return trip to Kings Cross aint cheap. https://www.instagram.com/p/98ney5soCP/?taken-by=makingspacesnet But… a couple of weeks ago, I was invited to an event…. wait for it…. in North Yorkshire! 30 mins drive away from Making Spaces HQ. Yes, yes! We have a Bert & May, UP NORTH. Not in London. Well, yes in London too, but we …