Living North Kitchen Editorial

Darras Hall kitchen feature

Living North Magazine

This months Living North Magazine contains the Interiors Guide for 2017 and Bespoke Interiors has a feature editorial on pg 30

The project was carried out in Darras Hall, Newcastle in late 2016 and comprised of a Kitchen/living area, utility room, downstairs cinema room and a walk in wardrobe

The kitchen was hand painted in Little Green Paint Co colours with silver leaf effect on the corbels and dental cornice. With fully turned doric pilasters to add to the grandeur of the design

The cinema room hand painted oak shaker with a more understated design to give a subtle elegance to the more relaxing needs of the room

The ornate theme of the kitchen continued upstairs to the walk in wardrobe

Again, hand painted in Little Green Paint Co colours mixed with natural oak veneer internals for the open wardrobes gave the classic oak/cream colour scheme finished off with gold leaf paint effect on the corbels and dental cornice

Subtle lighting on a mirrored backdrop gave the handbag wardrobe that added feature

We'd like to thank our clients for letting us take the time to take photos of their home, especially in the chaotic run up to Christmas

If you'd like to take advantage of our free design service then follow the links on our website

Bespoke Bookcases and Alcove Furniture

Bespoke Bookcases and alcove furniture in Newcastle

Struggling to find bespoke storage?

Do you have tricky alcoves that you can’t get off the shelf furniture to fill? Or a wall that is crying out for a bookcase with the wow factor? If so, Bespoke Interiors may have the answers

At Bespoke Interiors we specialise in bespoke fitted furniture. That doesn’t stop at kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. We also make fitted furniture for living rooms, alcoves and even under stairs cabinets.

Bespoke Bookcases

Because we manufacture and paint most of our furniture at our Newcastle based workshop, we are able to create bespoke sized cabinetry to create stunning storage including painted and timber bookcases

A bookcase can turn a dull wall into an enviable feature which is as practical as it is aesthetically pleasing

With the addition of lighting, you can really create a stunning look

Alcove furniture

Houses with chimney breasts invariably leave the homeowner with a tricky alcove or two to deal with. With the variation in width and depth, finding premade, off the shelf furniture to fit the space is often impossible

With bespoke alcove furniture, you don’t have to settle for gaps

With a wide choice of colours, finishes and styles. Bespoke Interiors can create the furniture to fit your home perfectly

We also work with experienced French polishers so matching in to existing woodwork isn’t a problem that can’t be overcome

Staircase storage

Staircases are often an overlooked area for clever storage solutions. Why settle for wasted storage or a standard understairs cupboard door

With bespoke angled doors in any style or finish, you can really give your under stairs space a quality finish

Why not call into our Newcastle showroom and speak to one of our designers about transforming your home

Hand Painted Kitchens Newcastle

Hand Painted Kitchens

At Bespoke Interiors we offer both a spray painted and hand painted finish to our furniture. We are often asked what the benefits are of hand painting a kitchen, so we thought it might be helpful to give a little information about hand painted furniture

Hand painted kitchens are considered to be a higher end finish within the kitchen industry and there’s good reason for this. Although spray painted furniture has a great, durable finish, the best joiners in the world can’t cut and joint painted cornice, pelmet etc without leaving a visible joint. With a hand painted finish, these joints are sanded, filled and painted in your home as part of the process, this gives a more moulded look to the furniture and can only be fully achieved by the process and gives a very distinctive look.

Depending on the style of kitchen you’re looking for, there are also paint effects that can only be properly applied to the furniture when hand painted onsite. These effects include distressing, patina and gold/silver leafing. Our popular Manor House Kitchen design features heavy corbels and dental cornice which looks great hand painted with silver leaf effect or antiqued effect.

Hand painted kitchens in Newcastle aren’t as common as in the south and north west England, so skilled hand painters are rare in the region. However, Bespoke Interiors is lucky to have one of the best painters in Anita Arris, who has vast experience and her workmanship is second to none.

We also recommend Little Green Paint Co as our preferred paint supplier for hand painted furniture. We find their colour range to be quite stunning and since Farrow and Ball have switched to water based paints, the oil based paints of Little Green give a much more durable finish to our furniture

We hope this brief explanation of hand painting gives you an idea of the process but for more information we recommend you call into our showroom to see our hand painted display and discuss things further with our designers.

Vinyl Doors - Pros and Cons

Vinyl Kitchen Doors

Pros and cons

Anyone who’s had a vinyl door kitchen in the past 15 years will probably have had some problems with peeling doors or know someone who has. This will largely be down to a major problem in the industry which happened around 8 years ago, this coupled with the way kitchens get used with heat from toasters and steam from kettles has led to vinyl doors getting a bit of a bad press.

In this blog we’d like to take a look at the pros and cons of vinyl doors and try and dispel some of the misconceptions about the product. It’s best to start with some general FAQ’s about vinyl doors.

What is a vinyl door?

Vinyl doors are manufactured by creating a door style out of MDF, usually routed out using a CNC machine. The raw MDF door is then wrapped with a plastic vinyl and stuck with an industrial adhesive. Vinyl manufacturers have an extensive range of colours and effects ranging from high gloss finishes, flat colours and wood grain effects to imitate real wood doors.

What kind of guarantee do they come with?

Vinyl doors used to come with a 2 year warranty. This was largely down to the kitchen environment having adverse effects on the doors with heat and steam acting like Kryptonite to what is an other wise robust door. With advances in adhesives and technology used to wrap them, the warranty period has increased to 6 years with most manufacturers.

Do the doors peel?

The short answer is yes! But there are ways to prevent this from happening and we know of vinyl kitchens that have lasted 20 years without peeling. It’s all to do with the way the kitchen is used.

Why have I heard of so many vinyl doors peeling recently?

The vinyl door industry had a real problem around 2007-2009. At the time, door manufacturers were unaware that MDF board manufacturers had changed the way they manufactured MDF, specifically that they had begun using a different type of adhesive to bond the fibres together.

The new adhesives reacted with the adhesives used to laminate the vinyl to the MDF and unfortunately the reaction wasn’t instant so it wasn’t immediately picked up on. It took nearly 5 years for the doors to begin peeling and the peeling was extensive! There were occasions when the entire kitchen door delaminated with the handle being the only thing keeping the vinyl on the door. Because the board manufacturers supply most door manufacturers, the results were the same for nearly every vinyl door supplier in the industry.

Thankfully this problem was rectified and through this process the industry learned a lot and now produces better adhesives and can now give longer guarantees as mentioned above. This problem is now a thing of the past……but that doesn’t mean the doors can never peel!

You may be wondering why anyone would buy vinyl doors with these problems being inherent? Well there are as many good points as there are faults…….which brings us to our pros and cons

Cons

1. The doors can delaminate.

Now that the major fault issue is a thing of the past, the only reason a door would peel before it’s reasonable life span (at least 10 years) would be down to how the kitchen is used in relation to the doors. The most common areas where the vinyl tends to peel is above toasters; above kettles, above steamers and either side of ovens when the oven has a fault and the heat seals start to degrade. All of these issues are preventable if you use your kitchen in a different way. Make sure you pull your kettles, toasters and steamers away from any wall units prior to use, this will reduce the direct steam/heat which causes the doors to peel. Also, check the heat coming out of your oven when the door is closed. There should be little to no heat but if you can feel heat bleeding out then there’s a good chance your heat seals have degraded which could cause your doors to peel.

2. Only a 6 year warranty.

Unlike our wooden and painted doors, the vinyl doors we supply only come with a 6 year warranty.  Wooden and painted doors are manufactured in such a way that nothing can really go wrong with them beyond the obvious wear and tear from use. That is why we are happy to give a lifetime guarantee on these doors. Vinyl doors however will eventually degrade as adhesives have to break down given enough time. There’s no way to say how long this will take and we have seen vinyl kitchens that have been installed for over 20 years without issue but as a guide we would expect to see some peeling in a kitchen after 10-15 years. The worst culprit for this is high gloss vinyl doors as the high gloss vinyl is slightly thicker and has more spring to it. That is why Bespoke Interiors no longer supply high gloss vinyl as standard unless specifically requested by a client. Instead we use high gloss acrylics which don’t delaminate.

3. Lacking natural look in wood effects.

Although there are some fantastic wood effect vinyls on the market, nothing beats the real thing and imitation would effect vinyls will never give you the same look or feel as a natural wood kitchen

4. Limitations in colours.

Another shortcoming of the vinyl doors is the lack of colour choices. As vinyl is man made, it is made in huge quantities to supply the world market. Therefore, it isn’t cost effective to mass produce hundreds of different colours. This means vinyl manufacturers tend to limit the choices of colours and finishes so unlike a painted door where you can literally choose any colour with a RAL number, vinyl doors only have a small selection of flat colours to choose from.

Pros

1. Cost effective.

One of the biggest pros the vinyl door has is it’s cost! It is one of the least expensive doors on the market and with impressive styles and colours you can achieve a wow kitchen without a huge price tag.

2. Uniformity of colour.

One persons con is another persons pro! Although vinyl doors can never look the same as a natural wood product….sometimes that’s exactly what our clients want. Natural woods come with shakes, sap marks and knots that some clients simply don’t like. With a vinyl door, what you see is what you get which is peace of mind for some clients. Also, because we aren’t looking at a natural product, some of the wood effects vinyls have some very interesting effects to them which would be hard if not impossible to replicate with stains etc on a real wood door and there are some lovely looking wood effect doors in the vinyl ranges.

3. Easy to clean, low maintenance.

Vinyl doors are extremely robust when it comes to dirt and stains and are very easy to clean. It is the most easy to clean surface on the door market which is a big selling point to clients who are wanting a low maintenance kitchen. There are sprays available for cleaning this product which you can purchase from our online shop which is opening soon.

Because vinyl doors have a limited range in colours, it is more likely that there is a matching board out of which we can make the cabinets, ensuring a completely colour co-ordinated finish to the interior of the cabinet.

The pros and cons of vinyl doors are pretty finely balanced but the cost saving element and easy to clean nature of the doors really does give it that edge needed to maintain this doors popularity.

If you’d like to find out more and physically see the doors mentioned above then please visit our Kingston Park showroom and speak to one of our experienced designers

Fitted Kitchens Newcastle Costs?

Cost of Fitted Kitchens Newcastle           

How much does fitting a kitchen cost?

The time has come for you to invest in a new fitted kitchen. This is an exciting time with the prospect of your dream kitchen on the horizon; a place to entertain, cook for family and friends, relax in. However, it can also be a stressful time with the amount of stores now offering fitted kitchens Newcastle and the seemingly vast differences in prices you’ll be quoted.

This minefield of information can seem daunting so we’d like to help to explain the differences in costs of fitted kitchens with this blog and discuss the pros and cons for each option.

Does everyone charge the same for installation?

The short answer is no. You will find a vast difference in the cost of installation from company to company and there are very simple reasons behind this.

The installation costs of a kitchen vary mainly due to 3 factors

1. How much the tradesmen get paid
2. Whether you’re paying the tradesmen direct or paying the company
3. What services the company you choose provides

Lets go into these factors in a little more detail.

1. How much do the tradesmen get paid?

We all know how important it is to get the right tradesmen to do the job. Not only do they have to be skilled in their given trade, they also need to be warm and friendly and treat your home with respect. The installation is the most important part of a project as it doesn’t matter if your design is fantastic and the product of a high quality if the tradesman installing it does a bad job! This is why it’s important to think in terms of value for money instead of how cheap can I get this.

There are a lot of tradesmen out there who are willing to work for less but in our experience, you pay for what you get, which is why it is worth paying a little more for your tradesmen as it is always money well spent.

The consideration of the amount your tradesmen are being paid should only apply to kitchens you are buying on a supply only basis with you hiring your own tradesmen. When buying the installation from a company, there should be an expectation that the company is paying their tradesmen well.

Expect to pay an average of £1500.00 for joinery, plumbing and electrics when hiring your own tradesmen

2. Who are you actually paying……the company or the tradesmen direct?

As you shop around getting quotes for your fitted kitchen Newcastle, you’ll come across companies that effectively run as a supply only company but claim to offer fitted kitchens. This is definitely something to be wary of and a lot of questions should be asked when dealing with this type of outfit.

It is common with these companies for you to go through the entire design process under the impression that the service provided is a fully fitted kitchen but when the final costs are being discussed it is pointed out that you will actually pay the tradesmen direct instead of paying the company. This will often be sold to you as a huge benefit as there is a real cost saving to me made. To be fair, it is true that there is a cost saving but once again it comes down to cheap versus value for money.

The danger with this kind of arrangement is that you will not have a guarantee from the company as they will tell you that you didn’t have the kitchen installed by them. This should be a major concern if you want to have a kitchen that lasts and somewhere to go if you have issues in the future.

Bespoke Interiors offer a lifetime guarantee on their installation which means that any issues with plumbing, electrics or joinery work is taken care of for the life of your kitchen. It may mean that you pay marginally more for the installation than you would if you were paying the tradesmen direct but we believe the value of this and the peace of mind it provides is more than worth it.

We cannot stress the importance of clarifying your position on guarantees when you’re being asked to pay the tradesmen direct, it’s a question that you may end up wishing you’d asked if things go wrong!

Although you are paying the installers direct, you will usually pay a little more for this than if you found your own tradesmen. This is because there is usually an arrangement for the tradesmen to pay a commission back to the company for passing on their details.

Expect to pay £1500 - £1800 for this kind of installation.

3. What service is being provided?

There’s a vast number of kitchen companies in Newcastle and the Northeast and they all have their own way of providing a fitted kitchen and the differences often effect the costs. A few of the more common approaches are as follows

Flat pack and mass produced kitchens

Kitchen companies that supply flat pack units or mass produced standard sized units tend to be more expensive when it comes to installation than some of their smaller competitors. This is largely down to the fact that they’d rather not be installing and would much rather sell kitchens as a supply only to avoid the complications of installation. A lot of our clients will tell us they were quoted as much for the installation as they were for the kitchen itself and that usually is enough to put people off. 

People that do opt to pay this higher installation fee tend to find that there is little involvement from the company during the installation.  Essentially the installation team becomes your point of contact and they project manage the job. This can lead to a disconnect in service as the designer you worked with will no longer be involved. This type of installation service usually only comes with a 1 year guarantee that is given to you buy the installer on behalf of the company.

Expect to pay an average of £4000.00 fully fitted.

Fully Project managed service

A lot of small to medium sized kitchen companies opt for a project managed service. This usually entails a dedicated installation team that reports to your designated project manager who oversees your project and is your point of call during this installation.

This is not a bad way to have your installation managed as you feel the company is still involved and you have someone you can contact with any issues and should you have any issues with workmanship, you can speak to your project manager instead of having to point out any dissatisfaction to the person who has carried out the work which can be awkward!

This type of service is usually built in to your installation price but as nothing in this world is for free, you are paying for this project manager somewhere in the costs.

Having said that, the service is still less expensive than the flat pack installation package from the larger stores.

There are some cons to this arrangement however and that is largely the disconnect between your designer and the project manager.

A design process is meant to be thorough and can often take several hours of conversation and design tweaks over several weeks. With the best will in the world, it is impossible for a designer to transfer all of that information onto paper or verbally to your project manager. Inevitably items get missed, parts of the kitchen aren’t made the way you’d envisaged it and the relationship that you built with your designer has disappeared as they are no longer involved. Having experience of companies that operate in this way, we have found that this disconnect from designer to client, fosters a careless attitude from the designers as they know that they will never have to deal with any issues that arise and a “sell it and forget it” attitude inevitably develops. This can be very counter-productive and very frustrating for the client.

Expect to pay an average of £2500 - £3000 fully fitted

The alternative to this is our preferred method of installation management.

Conception to completion

At Bespoke Interiors we believe strongly in our preferred method of installation management and that is that we believe your designer should be your point of contact throughout the installation. You will have spent hours building a rapport with your designer, you will have put your faith in this person to an extent where you have agreed to place your order for a kitchen with them and the company they work for. This trust is something that shouldn’t be dismissed, it should be valued. That is why we do not hand your job over to a project manager who will have the job of interpreting the design, instead your designer will run your project from start to finish including performing a technical survey on the kitchen, ordering the kitchen and dealing directly with the tradesmen and you as a client until the project is signed off at completion, again, with your designer. We believe the continuity of vision and service can only be achieved when the installations are managed in this way.

It is a relatively unique way of managing installations as it requires an amount of technical skill and experience that most designers lack. Quite often within the kitchen industry you will come across salesmen who have been taught to design. At Bespoke Interiors we take a completely different approach. All of our designers are joiners who have learned to design over decades in the industry. This allows our designers to be hands on with the surveys and oversee installations as they have the background of having installed kitchens themselves.

From a cost perspective, you also save the project management fee which is often hidden in the installation charge of other companies.

Expect to pay £2000 - £2500 fully fitted

As you can see you can pay anywhere from £1500 to £4000 for a full installation including plumbing and electrics. We hope the information in this blog will help you make your decision when choosing your fitted kitchen.

If you’d like to read more about our company then please check out our About Us page

Kitchens Gosforth Newcastle

Kitchens Gosforth Newcastle