Dear Marge

The kitchen buyers problem page –

(or a compendium of things to look out for when buying a kitchen- and which we at Mark Edwards Kitchen Design try to avidly to avoid)

• Poor use of space
• Illogical use of space – not enough space for drawers to pull out properly, for example, or cupboards too high for ordinary mortals to reach
• Dirt cavities – the unwitting construction of a hundred places where dirt collects and cannot be easily removed – most common and irritating examples are behind the taps, along the edges of the sink, under the oven opening, along the bottom of the units, in the crevices of drawers where joins are made by slotting machine-made components together
• Putting design before practicality – are there places which neither child nor dog can reach? are the doors easy to clean or do sticky fingers and wet noses leave residue trails that take an atomic blaster to remove?
• Recessed lights so installed that bulbs are impossible to change without calling in an electrician
• Floors under new units and the walls behind them unfinished, left bare or with the old plaster rotting on them
• The muck from the refurbishment swept under the new furniture
• The horrible realisation that the design we signed lacks the detail we really needed in the first place to make a sensible decision – so, what we're actually getting is an expensive, sometimes quite nice, but not what we really wanted, pig in a poke ..
• and then there's the suspension of normal life during construction - the incredible dirt and dust and noise and cold, workmen sweeping into the house, leaving every door and window open regardless, and treating us, the house owners and the people paying the bills, at best like ignorant tea-making chattels
• .. and finally, the bill .. aargh