Professional kitchen?

We have finished building our house and now need to furnish it - esp. the kitchen which is now just a load of old tables and a gas burner.

When we renovated the house we had tiles, drain and walls made like a professional kitchen - so that if we wanted to make condiments out of the kitchen we could have it approved. Now it turns out that the department of making you sad says that you cannot have a professional kitchen in your own home... And we would need a separate workshop to get approval. So never mind about putting in a professional kitchen.

But now we are not sure what to do. We are not carpenters, and cannot build our own cabinets. We could build it in bricks or cob or something like that - but as I am not the tidiest person I want to be able to close the cabinets - and not with curtains. We are looking at IKEA kitchens right now, but it just does not feel very sustainable...

It needs to be easy to clean, we will have many people in and out of the house - and yes we will cook for other people: homeschool group, PDCs, workshops etc. so maybe a professional kitchen is still the way to go?

What are people doing if they are building kitchens here, that are not just for family use?

Dawn Hoff wrote:We are looking at IKEA kitchens right now, but it just does not feel very sustainable...

I've had my IKEA cabinets for about 17 years and they are holding up fine.

If you are going to buy, Ikea are fairly sustainable.

We have NO upper cabinets. For the cost of a couple upper cabinets, we put in a large pantry with fancy oak doors. We have good, basic cabinets under the counters--made by a local(ish) company. Basic but built with proper cabinet construction and better grade hinges and slides.

So the cubbards are not solid wood?

What I'm thinking right now is that we could either buy industrial elements for the tables - and leave it open underneath (pots and pans only - easy to remove and clean, frequent use etc). And then tall IKEA cabinets for the pantry. AFAIK the hinges etc have been vastly improved on the IKEA cabinets (still IKEA to me is use and throw away...). Or order a steel table - one full piece - spanning the length of the kitchen (no dirt gets trapped between elements) and either build an open structure underneath, or put IKEA cabinets w. drawers. And the the full cabinet wall again on the other side. I doubt I can find an old pantry cabinet here... I have never seen one.

I have Ikea cabinets and had someone fabricate stainless steel counter-tops for me. They look awesome and were not expensive but it took a long time to convince the manager of the company that I really did want stainless steel even though it would end up getting scratched. I'll dig up a pic later.

Cj Verde wrote:I have Ikea cabinets and had someone fabricate stainless steel counter-tops for me. They look awesome and were not expensive but it took a long time to convince the manager of the company that I really did want stainless steel even though it would end up getting scratched. I'll dig up a pic later.

Our old kitchen in Denmark had steel countertops - and it continued up the wall 50 cm (~20in) - the salesguy at the kitchencenter said it could not be done and gave us a horribly expensive offer for one that was less than half that size. So we had it made at a factory that specializes in doing only kitchen counters and they made it at less than half the price. It was a work of art! we can't do the same here though since we have windows there. I was considering solid wood surfaces, as I have convinced myself that it is at least as sanitary - but steel is easier, and once there are enough scratches, you really don't notice.

Here's a [blurry] pic:


So it can be done with a window. This was not done by a kitchen company but a machine fabricator. I drew up the plans marking the folds and then the guy ignored them. I was in disbelief! When I showed them the plans they had to redo them to my specs - not what the worker thought was an "improvement" on my specs.

Ours were much tallet though. Yourself are 4 in? Ours were more like 20. You had to be really mest to male splashed snive them (I have succeded at that though, it's a talent I have).

It does look really nice!

I always wanted to do a kitchen with rolling tool carts from the hardware store that would roll under a fixed counter/bench. Then you could roll them out and hose down the place, roll them back, reconfigure the arrangement of cabinets, etc. And if I changed my mind, I could use them in the garage or sell them.

IMHO, food in a huge walk-in pantry, Julia Child's pegboard for hanging utensils, a pot rack, shelves over the bench for plates and glasses and you can cut cabinet expenses back.

Did I do either of those things in this place? No, for complicated irrelevant reasons. But I might if we ever build the "big" house which gets smaller every time I think about it.

I furnished an off grid cabin with commercial stainless steel unit I got at auction. $200 for an 8 ft section with wheels so it can move, and sliding doors at bottom. Very handy.

I sounds soo cool - if you are a tidy person, and I am not... If I have shelves for stuff like plates, I won't get to dusting them and 10.000 craft materials will end there, when I clear the table for lunch...

What I need really is a maid - she would tidy up and do the laundry - and I could be cooking up a storm and do gardening a crafts with the kids all day I hate cleaning - but I also hate dirty kitchens...