Forum Thermomix
Welcoming Center, Management and General Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: Dublin Girl in Oz on February 15, 2010, 03:34:42 am
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Hi All,
I'm hoping to get a new kitchen and at the moment I'm researching everything! Any opinions/problems on 2-Pac versus Vinyl Wrap or on Caesar Stone?
Any comments appreciated.
Sylvia - Melbourne
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2-pac looks great, yes, but if it chips, you need the whole door respraying = not cheap. It can chip off :( In the three houses that we've owned I've had Tassie Oak, 2-pac gloss (the matte looks nice, but same issue with chips) and now laminate. If I built another house, or replaced a kitchen, I think I'd choose a timber-look laminate TBH, or one of the materials that could have rounded edges, but still timber look. Not that I want to pretend it is timber, I don't. I'd want the sort that looks like laminate/floating floors so that it isn't a flat colour which looks dirty or damaged easily (like flat-coloured sofas and carpet can).
Be very careful about the door profile that you choose. Think about the need to clean some of them with a cotton wool bud and do a little assessment of your preferred style ;) Tongue and groove look is a lovely country design to me, especially in white, but I would not want to be cotton wool budding-it, like my friend had to :p This is part of the appeal of a timber-look flat surface for me :) - something really smooth that is easy to wipe over. But I have two children!
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I don't have stone but a friend does and although this sounds dumb you must be aware that it is HARD.She has broken or had broken a lot of lovely glasses when she or friends put them down. If you have long stemmed fragile glasses as she does the stem often breaks. Otherwise she loves it.
I only have laminate and am quite pleased with that. The only bug bear is that I can't roll pastry directly onto it and must use a mat.
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I had my kitchen remodelled 15 months ago & we went through the same decision torment. My old kitchen had a textured matt finish on the cupboard doors and they were a nightmare to clean. This time I went for the smooth gloss finish Vinyl wrapped doors. Very easy to clean and no seams. I went for a true granite top as I was concerned with some of the research results regarding the glue in man made products- you know the ones where they crush stone & then form it into slabs with glue/resin. Apparently they MAY leach toxins from the resin/glue. I haven't kept any of the paperwork I had - sorry. It was a little inconclusive but as I had no intention of ever changing the top once it was in, I went for the "all natural" Cookie1 is right about the glasses. We haven't broken any as I was made aware of it before it went in but I know many who have.
One tip I was given & am happy I heeded it was to put the drawer/cupboard where you keep dinner plates ect in easy reach of your dishwasher. My plate/mug drawer is right next to the dishwasher & unloading & putting away is so easy.
Good luck
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Don't know if you are interested, but I have only pull out draws below the bench in my kitchen. Plates , mugs , baking dishes are all in draws. This is the second kitchen that i have designed and find this a very convenient feature. I have laminate on the benches and doors, and the trick with this is to have a very good cabinet maker. The firm, contracted by the builder of our house was very poor, and after 7 years I am looking to replace the tops, probably with granite. I know that you have to be careful with glasses but we have a principle of only having cheap glasses so it will not matter if some are broken. Also , oil split on granite will stain . You need to work out how you want your kitchen, don't be put off by anyone. Hope this helps depome.
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I only have laminate and am quite pleased with that. The only bug bear is that I can't roll pastry directly onto it and must use a mat.
You need a thermomix bread mat Cookie ;)
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You're right Meagan I do, but they are still out of stock aren't they?
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I love my laminate top. It looks like stone, gorgeous and shiny. I also love my vinyl wrap cupboards and drawers. I too, am a fan of big drawers chookie. They're just brilliant for cookware, plasticware and plates and cups.
I LOVE my kitchen (it's a Kitcraft one)
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You're right Meagan I do, but they are still out of stock aren't they?
Yes but there have been whispers they will be back in soon 8)
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There is no hard and fast rule that says you have to have the same countertops in your entire kitchen.
I have several surfaces - butcher block, honed (not shiny) granite, stainless steel (satin finish) and a slab of marble where I do pastry and candy work.
I wasn't trying to economize but people with smaller kitchen can because any of the countertop suppliers always have "remnants" that are much cheaper than if they are supplying large slabs being cut to order.
I love my butcher block counters, being able to cut and chop on a large surface is much easier than being confined to a small board.
And if it gets a few cuts and nicks, it just looks better, in my opinion. Dents, as from the handle of a large Le Creuset French oven dinging into it because it slipped out of one hand, can be "lifted" by applying a damp cloth and a steam iron. Try doing that with laminate.
My old kitchen had some laminate counters (Formica) and by the time I remodeled it looked awful, pitted here and there and even some of the surface design was worn away from scrubbing and there were scorch marks from hot pans.
I have scorched the butcher block a few times but a bit of sandpaper followed up by its usual semi-annual oil dressing takes it back to its original color.
The stainless steel - which develops a sort of "patina" from tiny scratches over time - where I can set pans hot from the grill, the hot grids themselves and where I place appliances that can get very hot (electric grills, panini grills, etc.) and anything with an exposed flame. (backsplash is also SS) .
I opted for a "timeless" look in the kitchen with cabinets with solid fronts, except for the few that have glass inserts. The remodel was done in '94 and (in my opinion) it does not look "dated" to that period.
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Photos! Photos! It sounds gorgeous andie! (hope you don't mind the abbreviation, but it's a long name to type and its quicker than copying and pasting!)
My kitchen is very small, but bigger than it was before we renovated! I had a marble chopping board, but it was so heavy and cumbersome, I stopped using it. I have very large professional vinyl boards now that slide easily away into one of my large drawers.
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We built a new house last year and have an all white kitchen with Snow Caesarstone benches and white laminate (forget the official colour name) for the cupboards and drawers.
I love the stone. Being able to take things from the stove/oven and plonk on the benchtop is great. Also good for rolling out dough etc - which of course I have only started doing since Kermie came into my life! :D
Also a big fan of drawers. I have all drawers except for under the sink and a couple of narrow cupboards. I particularly love my set of three 900mm wide drawerers - top utensils, next is foil etc and all sorts of things, bottom deeper and large mixing bowls etc. So great to be able to access everything easily with drawers.
Love my kitchen!!
Jo
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Photos! Photos! It sounds gorgeous andie! (hope you don't mind the abbreviation, but it's a long name to type and its quicker than copying and pasting!)
My kitchen is very small, but bigger than it was before we renovated! I had a marble chopping board, but it was so heavy and cumbersome, I stopped using it. I have very large professional vinyl boards now that slide easily away into one of my large drawers.
This shows one end of the island that is covered with SS. The counter on the left at this end of the range is butcher block - the counter on the other side of the range is SS and that is where the "hot" appliances are used. It is very easy to clean.
(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h129/Basenjibabe91/Kitchen%20stuff%20old%20and%20new/kitchenlookingeast.jpg)
I would never use marble as a chopping block. My knives are very expensive and stone is one way to completely destroy an edge.
There are tempered glass cutting boards but I certainly wouldn't use one of those either.
The other side of the kitchen has a long marble slab for pastry and candy work under the windows next to the wood-fired oven and it is 4 inches lower than standard counter height as it is easier for me to work at that level. Beyond that is a double sink and more butcher block.
(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h129/Basenjibabe91/Kitchen%20stuff%20old%20and%20new/kitchenlookingeast2.jpg)
I may be fooling myself but I don't think it looks like it is 16 years old.
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It's beautiful Andie. Looks very useful and comfortable.
I wish I had had drawers when we built 5 years ago. Too late now and I don't think I will be getting it remodelled.
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You can get slide out shelves for cupboards, which is a cheaper alternative than drawers.
Also wanted to comment that when we built a house we had granite look laminate benchtops that were gloss. The gloss looked beautiful for the first year but then started to look very dull. It's like the mirror-like stainless steel saucepans that you daren't use, and they look like your old sink within six months.
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It's beautiful Andie. Looks very useful and comfortable.
I wish I had had drawers when we built 5 years ago. Too late now and I don't think I will be getting it remodelled.
Cookie, any half decent cabinet maker can take out your shelves and replace them with drawers relatively inexpensively!
That is what I had done to an existing kitchen and I've never regretted it. :)
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Andie, I LOVE your kitchen!!!! Thanks for the great ideas - we're hoping to build in the near future too. I had wondered about a butcher's block counter top - I've seen the one Jamie Oliver has and thought it was a great idea. Our counter-tops here are polished wood, which looks nice and old-fashioned, but you can't cut on them of course. Do you find the butcher's block ever gets mouldy? That's a big problem here in the wet tropics - everything goes mouldy. Wonder how you would clean it off if it did?
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Andie, I LOVE your kitchen!!!! Thanks for the great ideas - we're hoping to build in the near future too. I had wondered about a butcher's block counter top - I've seen the one Jamie Oliver has and thought it was a great idea. Our counter-tops here are polished wood, which looks nice and old-fashioned, but you can't cut on them of course. Do you find the butcher's block ever gets mouldy? That's a big problem here in the wet tropics - everything goes mouldy. Wonder how you would clean it off if it did?
I routinely wash the butcher block with hot water then scrape it with a bench knife (dough scraper), wipe it clean and after it dries I dress it with mineral oil, rubbing it in and letting it sit overnight and then simply wiping it with a dry cloth.
I had commercial certification for my kitchen for ten years and the butcher block is considered easiest to maintain and surprisingly seems to be naturally antibiotic. After cutting meat or chicken on it, I wipe it clean and then spray it with bleach in water (10% solution) and wipe it down and then oil it. In recent years I got a hand-held steam cleaner which does a great job and was relatively inexpensive. Bleach kills and prevents molds.
I have friends who live at the beach where the humidity is very high and they have no problems with butcher block either.
According to the scientists that test various surfaces for bacteria and/or molds, etc., the most questionable surface in a kitchen (or bathroom) is the grout between tiles. It is porous and harbors many pathogens. I had the grout in tile backsplash and in the surround of the oven in my kitchen sealed with a clear epoxy compound.
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Andie, there is evidence that bleach actually increases the colony forming units (CFU) of mould because it provides a food source. This may well be part of what is behind the urban rumour (not really a myth) that bleach merely removes the colour from mould, without actually killing it. Vinegar is considered the most effective means of killing mould, with the added advantage that it doesn't pollute the air. For what it's worth, I have kept an old squeezy sauce bottle and filled it with straight white vinegar, and I now pour a little of this onto bench tops and chopping boards to wipe them over. I only use timber chopping boards because they're nicer on knives than anything else, and much more hygienic than plastic. They can't go in the dishwasher though, obviously, but then I don't have one anymore ;)
For those interested, here is the conclusion from an episode of What's Good For You (Australia) that I remember seeing:
So on our chopping board scorecard, plastic comes a definite last and that's because bacteria are able to breed in the cuts left by knives.
Marble came in second because bacteria spread everywhere. Marble also loses points because it's tough on knives.
In the final wash-up, it was wood that blew the competition out of the water. This is no surprise to Professor Cliver. In many similar experiments, wood's always been a winner.
http://health.ninemsn.com.au/whatsgoodforyou/theshow/694161/which-chopping-board-is-worse-for-spreading-germs (http://health.ninemsn.com.au/whatsgoodforyou/theshow/694161/which-chopping-board-is-worse-for-spreading-germs)
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Amanda I don't think I would dare suggest it at the moment. When I do I'm sure DH could do the job as he used to teach woodwork etc.
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I use a fresh bleach solution made with distilled water because that was mandated by the L.A. County Health Dept. when I had a certified commercial kitchen license.
I use vinegar (distilled white) for cleaning and it works quite well but there are other organisms that like an acid environment, particularly some that affect cheese and I make cheese in my kitchen. I have a separate refrigerator for the cheeses because I want mold to grow on some of them.
I don't have to worry too much generally about molds because this is the desert and the humidity is usually quite low.
Besides being an x-ray technician, I also trained as a medical laboratory tech and know how to avoid the nasty pathogens that can hang around homes. I routinely clean my phone handsets - something that most people ignore - because they can harbor some things it is better not to think about - especially if other people use them. I am not a fanatic about it but I do use one of my disposable gloves when I have to touch the keypad on an ATM. A local news station did a study a couple of years ago and the number of pathogens one could pick up there was scary.
I haven't had the flu or a cold in more than ten years.
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Hi Dublin girl. I live in Cairns and moved into a new house 8 years ago. Overtime one by one the vinyl wrap has peeled away and the kitchen people always come back to glue it back together because they talked the builder into doing it at the time as it was a newish product they wanted to sell and this was former display home. I think it peels because of the high humidity here. The fin sh is great but I would go for the 2 pak. I have black granite bench tops which are amazing and indestructible and they do not stain. Straight from the oven go the pots on top and no scratching if I happen to slip a knife on it. Glass splash backs are easy and lots of drawers rather than cupboards. I have a friend who had a slide out shelf for her thermomix built in so it did not heat up any overhead cupboards.
Then again andiesenj'is kitchen is hard to beat.
Andiesenji I used to run the sterilising unit in a private hospital in Sydney and the rule is that 85% of most bacteria can be washed away with cold water. I live in a mouldy environment which can be a pain but most can be easily cleaned with mild bleach. You are right vinegar is a simple easy and cheap cleaning solution. Never touch the handrail on as escalator!YUK ;D ;D ;D
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I agree about the handrails. I am one of those "nuts" who carry a packet of disinfectant wipes everywhere with me and swipe everything I have to touch. I think it's one of the reasons I have avoided colds and the flu in recent years.
Now even WalMart has a dispenser of the wipes at the front doors so people can wipe the handles of the shopping carts.
I also have my own shopping bags and I don't put any produce or other "bare" food items in the upper basket where kids are seated, just in case my d-wipe misses something. I reserve that space for household items, soap, etc.
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All good advice above.
I dream of improve my kitchen too but will have to be contented with what I've got.
My advice is to not have stove/oven right next to both food pantry and fridge - at the last house, the pantry was next to the oven and we have high rate of weevils which drove us crazy. At this present house, we've got it next to the fridge which send the bill high as the it works overtime to cool down when the oven's on! >:(
I dream for this kind of kitchen done by Blum: http://www.blum.com/au/en/index.php (http://www.blum.com/au/en/index.php)
I love the one that has drawer just under the sink, perfect use for wasted space there! As well the corners - I hate the corner cupboards! lol... you can see by now that I've got the kitchen I dont really like, eh? ;)
Oh by the way, ensure you get to check how high the overhead cupboards are going to be put up - for two reasons, I'd go with full cupboards that goes up all the way to ceiling, rather than under the cornices - the cleaning up there is really painful! And that you can really reach it with a suitable kitchen ladder - some sizes requires a full scale operation to get some containers out of the cupboard... ;D
I do recommend drawers as much than cupboards, especially with the oldies complaining that they can't bend down far enough to reach the bottom under the bench. IKEA's kitchens has some great stuff too.
Let us know how you went with your new kitchen!
Cheers!
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darls I am not even going to look at that link. I have a friend who has a Blum kitchen. Sigh :'( :'( :'(.
Living in the tropics weevils are a regular problem but my second pantry is a refrigerator where all rice pasta flour and many other things are stored. Cooling these things kills the weevil eggs.I hate weevils but they can be passed off as ground pepper. LOL!
Gretchen
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Hi Everyone,
Thanks for all your advice - I'm having a kitchen designer/company come over next week for ideas of design and cost. I still haven't decided on the finish for cupboards - hearing good and bad about both 2pak and vinyl?????? Maybe I should consider laminate????
I let you all know how I go and if and when I get the kitchen will post a photo.
Thanks,
Sylvia
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Forget about laminate if you can afford 2pak.
One kitchen I built had no doors at all except on the drawers of course. Saved a lot of money and looked great but I had to keep it tidy. Well,not a bad thing.
And then there is the industrial style with everything on wheels and opened from both sides. Next time I will do that wth one big cental bench top of granite.
Gretch
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My sister has laminate in her new kitchen and to be honest it looks a little average. If you can afford 2 pac I would probably go for it. I had 2 pac in my last kitchen (in our brand new house - which we hated). You just need to be careful (especially if you have little tots) as it does chip though. In our country house we have a blackwood and cedar kitchen with laminate benchtops. It has a very rustic and warm feeling that I love. :)