A new kitchen is one of the best investments that your church or community group can make. It is a social hub, an engine for your outreach, and a revenue-generating asset. Of course, when planning the kitchen you need, the budget has to be achievable too. Here are our tips for planning your investment to get the right kitchen at the right price.

Choosing design and materials for your budgets and goals

The whole point of your renovation is to get a kitchen that serves your needs, and that will last. When you research kitchen with those goals in mind, it is very easy to find the proposed costs mounting up by looking at commercial-grade stainless steel kitchens. On the other side of the coin, cheaper domestic-style designs often end up costing more in the long run, because they’re not capable of enduring the heavy use of a group kitchen, and deteriorate quickly, sometimes in a matter of months.

The ‘sweet spot’ between those extremes is a semi-commercial design. The most durable and hygienic semi-commercial kitchens feature a Zintec polyester powder-coated mild steel carcass, and a stainless-steel worktop, which are wipe-clean and can easily withstand the typical volume of use in a communal kitchen.

If the mild steel option is still out of budget, there are wooden designs that are still suitable, but you must be discerning, because not all wooden kitchens are created equal, especially in methods of construction. The normal screw fastenings of wooden kitchens create points of vulnerability that weaken under sustained use. A semi-commercial wooden kitchen should use tongue and groove fastenings along all assembled sides, like robust wooden kitchens from Woodplan.

TIP: A quick way to tell if a wooden design is suitable is to check if it is certified for heavy use by the Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA).

Look for savings on remedial work

If the renovation requires any structural changes or repairs to the kitchen area, you may not know exactly what a fair and realistic price would be for those works, and you risk overpaying if you accept a quote without comparing it. This is the ideal area to approach several local professionals and choose a competitive price.

Get more for less with a flexible and modular design

You might look at all the activities that you need your kitchen to host and worry that it will require a complex design and come with an unachievable price tag. That might not be the case, though.

Smart design does more with less, and modular solutions like mobile islands can create a flexible space that adapts the layout to different uses, without demanding excessive investment.

To find the solution that would work for your needs and your kitchen space, speak to one of the Steelplan designers, who are always happy to help you define the kitchen that you need, and can even provide a free 3D visualisation of the proposed design in situ. Call 020 8254 0900, or email [email protected] for a no-obligation chat with one of our friendly team.