SUMMARY

• Basic Price £250
• includes a consultation at your home with our designer Marion
• visualisations of the proposed plan are sent to you by e-mail (scroll down the page to see examples)
• discussion of the plan is by e-mail or telephone
• the finalised plan, visualisations and basic unit list are sent to you as a pdf file - by e-mail
• payment - is by cheque/cash on the day of the initial visit - please e-mail or phone for an appointment

   

• suitable for:
  • those of you who like to discuss your ideas in person
  • kitchens which are complicated - with odd shapes or nooks and crannies
  • rooms which are to be extended where there are several options for the position of kitchen
  • those of you who are unsure whether to extend the kitchen or not

   

• There are extra charges (see bottom of the page) for:
  • travelling times of more than 3 hours from Nottingham
  • visits to London (within the M25)
  • large kitchens - more than 25 sq.m - or designing more than one room (utility room etc)
  • sending you a hard copy of the plan with glossy pictures - by post
  • more than one or two design ideas (apart from minor alterations)
  • bespoke or inset-framed kitchen furniture - which involves tailoring individual units and doors. 

The Silver Design Service is a much more personal way to design your kitchen, since you get to discuss your ideas with Marion. When she visits your home, she can ply you with questions, give you advice, show you pictures, measure any walls that are in position (or take measurements from your plans) and be a nosey parker round the rest of your house (no, honestly - it often helps - to get a sense of your style and colour choices). Oh and she'll drink your coffee too!

An initial preliminary visit is free, if you are within the Nottingham area. You can pick Marion's brains and see if you would like further services.

If you live further afield then I'm afraid you need to commit yourself to paying the basic Silver Service fee - and the initial visit is also the design survey visit - but do have a good look round all the pictures here (including the Bronze Design Service pictures and the Kitchen Design Gallery) and have a look at Majjie's blog, to see if she's the designer for you.

We design any sort of kitchen, from a layout using IKEA units, to a bespoke inset framed kitchen with the panels, and door sizes, customised for your room. The overall look can be modern or traditional. You may already have a very good idea of what you want ... or you might not have a clue. We can help, whatever stage you've reached.

Below are examples of photorealistic visualisations from Marion's kitchen designs:

These are the sort of pictures you would receive after her visit - if you decide on the Silver Kitchen Design Service

This one is a big kitchen which has been extended - by the area of the sloping ceiling. It's a lovely big living kitchen now - but the corner was tricky - and the kitchen ended up with both an island and a peninsular area. The design used IKEA units - with a couple of modifications any good fitter would be able to carry out. The trouble with big extensions - is that they tend to eat up the budget, before you get to buying the kitchen ... which is when IKEA prices come in useful!

This is another big kitchen - this time to be hand made, in oak:

It may look fairly straightforward, in the pictures, but in fact the position of the windows was a bit of a problem for the kitchen. The hob needed to fit between the two windows - and the dresser was changed at the last minute (those of you who have visited this site on several occasions may remember some different pictures of the same kitchen!). Marion suggested two different finishes for the units, because it's such a big kitchen, but the owners are big oak fans - and it's their kitchen! We always try to give you what you want.

Handmade bespoke kitchens are, of course, the most interesting to design - from the designer's point of view. Here are a few more:

Most of the kitchens above are fairly large - although each had it's own problems and challenges - and all of them have been designed with bespoke units, except one. Can you tell which one?

Of course modern, more minimal kitchen styles can benefit just as much from good design, whether the units used are made-to-measure or standard sizes:

And, these days, there's less of a distinction between different styles:

Silver Service kitchen designs are, of course, equally suitable for smaller kitchens ... which have their own design challenges:

The room above wasn't tiny - but it wasn't large either - and it was definitely difficult to fit in all of the kitchen that the owners wanted. It could only be done with some angled units and some variations in base unit depths. The kitchen was fitted mainly with Magnet units, though ... only one carcasse had to be made specially.

Now the kitchen pictured above really was tiny.  You can just see the back door on the left and the view is through the door to the dining room (sort of) ... but there's also another door (next to the dining room door) leading down to the cellar! That's why there had to be a space to the right of the fridge (although the freezer and tumble dryer could, at least, be moved down into the cellar). This kitchen was designed with standard oak units but the two painted wall units were bespoke - to make the best use of the space.

Some kitchens are so narrow that you can't fit full depth units along both sides of the room:

The kitchen below - in a London flat - has again been designed with IKEA units. It was an unusual layout because the wall between the kitchen and the hallway was being knocked out - to make the kitchen look more spacious - and the ceilings were exceedingly high (hence the double height units):

The last of the pictures above, is a computer drawing, not a photorealistic visualisation ... it sometimes helps to see one of these, to clarify exactly which units are used where. The individual units appear more clearly.

If you're interested in a Silver Service design for your kitchen, please get in touch by e-mail or telephone, and we can arrange an appointment.

More About The Charges

• £250 covers a basic plan for an average kitchen which is within 3 hours travelling time from Nottingham. As with the Bronze Service, you would normally get one major or several minor changes/tweaks to the initial plan within this price ... you then get a specification and unit list with plan and visualisations ... all sent to you by e-mail. Sometimes, if the kitchen is very complicated - or you want to look at a couple of options straight away - then the standard fee is insufficient to cover further alterations to the plan. But, if you pay £250 - then you will always get at least one set of design ideas and a plan (with a few tweaks possible).
• some kitchens are larger and more complicated than others. If your room is larger than around 25 sq.m (5m x 5m ... or 3.5m x 7m, say) ... or it includes a utility room/garden room or other additional area to be planned ... or you already know that you want to use handmade or bespoke furniture with inset-framed doors (which take longer to enter onto the CAD system and specify) ... then there may be extra charges. Extra time is charged at £25 per hour. We can keep you updated as to how much the extra time is costing you ... or you can give us a limit as to how much you are prepared to spend.
• for an extra £25 you get a hard copy of the final plan and specification sent to you in the post, with the visualisations printed onto glossy paper
• we rely on Google to tell us whether or not you are within the three hours travelling time ... but we give you five minutes leeway ... if Google says the journey will take 3 hours and 5 minutes, then you're ok.
• For journeys that take more than three hours but less than four hours (according to Google) ... add £40 to the price. I'm afraid we don't normally travel further than a four hour journey from Nottingham.
• LONDON ... that is within the M25 ... has special rates because of the extra travelling cost or time invariably involved (which Google doesn't register!). During the week we would normally arrange to travel by train (Nottingham to St Pancras and then by Underground) although if parking isn't a problem, a weekend car journey can often be arranged. Either way, there is an extra charge of £50 for London visits.
• About half of our Silver Service designs are completed for the basic £250 fee ... and even for large, difficult kitchens with bespoke, handmade units, we rarely charge more than £500 ... except for those who want a second home visit ... but then that's our Gold Design Service.

 (Apologies if the kitchen pictures don't look great on your screen ... they look lovely on our laptop ...
but a little bit dark on the pc)