Project: a painted kitchen with an island and open shelving

A painted kitchen with an island, open timber shelving and a stone top. Plain to look at, which is the point, and a useful example of where the work actually goes on a job like this.

The island is the hard part

An island carries more decisions than the rest of the room put together. It has to take seating on one side without the overhang feeling like an afterthought, which means the substructure has to carry the stone unsupported for the depth of a knee. It usually houses the deepest drawers in the kitchen, which are the drawers that get abused, so the runners are specified to the loaded weight rather than the empty box. If it takes a sink or a hob, services have to come up through the floor in exactly the right place, and there is no forgiveness in that measurement once the stone is templated.

The other thing an island decides is traffic. Too tight and two people cannot pass while the dishwasher is open. That gap is worked out on the drawing, not on install day.

Open shelving is a commitment

Floating timber shelves look effortless and are the least forgiving element in a kitchen. There is no door to hide a fixing and no scribe to absorb a wall that is out. The bracket has to be buried in the wall before the finish goes on, which means the shelf position is fixed weeks before anyone sees it. Get the height wrong relative to the countertop and the run reads crooked even when it is level.

They also change how the kitchen has to be lived in, because everything on them is on display. We say that out loud before anyone commits to a wall of them.

Painted finish, and why it costs what it costs

Painted doors are the most requested finish and the most labour-intensive. The surface has to be flat enough that a gloss level reads evenly across a run of five doors under a window, which means preparation rather than paint. Moving from melamine to painted adds roughly a third to the cabinetry line, and painting both sides rather than one adds close to half again. The boxes are identical either way.

What we would tell you before starting one of these

Decide the island first and the doors last. The island sets the plumbing, the electrical and the walking routes, and all three are expensive to change once the floor is down. Door style can change right up until the order goes to finish.

More on how a kitchen gets built is on the custom kitchen cabinets page, and what actually drives the cost covers the money side. If the project runs past the kitchen, residential cabinetry covers a whole house.