Restaurant Recipe Reviews

Give me a home decoration mag and I could read it from cover to cover.

I can’t get too much of those excellent lounge room chairs, the spa-inspired toilets and the kitchens that make you want to unleash that inner master chef.

I have read these types of magazines for a number of years, typically for pleasure, but always hoping that one day I’d be able to take the ideas off the page and recreate them for myself. So of course when I set out to renovate my very own kitchen last year, I turned to my loving pile of mags for some inspiration.

The options seemed endless – from chic marble worktops to retro-inspired cupboards from swish wooden flooring to rustic concrete finishes, and everything between.

I ended up going for a country, homey style kitchen.

It’s the type of look you’d expect from grandma’s place, except my version would have updated features and modern comforts. No coil stove tops or laminate flooring for me! I like to refer to it as “old college modern”.

With my dream kitchen all planned out commenced work and hired assorted professionals. I had a tapware guy, a plumbing guy, cabinet maker, and all types of other consultants doing their bit. While each tradie was bona fide and truly did the best to get the task finished, the dream project turned out to be one big catastrophe.

I didn’t realize how tricky it might be to schedule all of the different contractors, get the timing exactly right, order all the materials on time, etc, and so on. I employed everybody to build my kitchen, thinking I’d be able to relax and let them handle it. Instead, I discovered myself busy planning and coordinating all these different teams of employees, and trying hopelessly to make it all work.

To be brief, my perfect kitchen ultimately became a true – albeit a few months later than expected.

That is the best news.

The bad news is simply that it took way too much time, effort and running around to cause it to happen. This reputedly simple job ended up turning into a no holds barred bad dream. I was constantly wired, obsessing over all sorts of details, on the phone constantly and just plain unhappy. I have nothing negative to say of the contractors I worked with, however if I had to do it again, I’d definitely try and streamline the method by hiring one kitchen company to take over the whole project.

That way I can get the kitchen I've always dreamed of, minus the headaches I never required.

If you are after a new kitchen and need a kitchen manufacturer or cabinet maker in Melbourne, see what dLook has to give.