Fran and Stephen were facing a dilemma many of us have had: do we move or stay put and do a big remodelling job? Thankfully they chose to stay in their beautiful flat, which now has a stunning Affordable Luxuries kitchen.
As a couple, Fran and Stephen were having that all too-familiar conversation which all home owners have at some point: ‘Do we stay and do up, or do we go?’
In the end their love of their traditional four-bedroom tenement flat in the west end of Greenock, with its high ceilings, period features and the blessing of good neighbours made them decide to stay.
Don’t move, improve!
‘One of the big selling points for me was the way the whole project was put together, something the big firms didn’t offer.’ The end result speaks for itself, we are truly delighted and couldn’t recommend Affordable Luxuries highly enough”.
“We made the mistake of thinking, ‘If we want something special when it came to the kitchen, we’ll have to go to Glasgow.”
So then they had to roll their sleeves up and set to work arranging building work, a new boiler, new bathroom suite and the all-important new kitchen.
After another fruitless trip into Glasgow they decided to call into the kitchen company on their doorstep and the Affordable Luxuries magic began.
‘It was almost by chance,’ Stephen said. ‘We live just minutes away and have been travelling past for years. We popped in on our way home and from then on it just felt right, from the minute we walked through the door – no hard sell.’
‘Nothing was too much for them. For example I wanted a drinks fridge built in and to accommodate this it left a shallower cabinet at one side but that too was perfectly fitted out to maximize the space and it now takes all my smaller groceries and dry goods. The lay-out and fixtures mean that you can see everything.’
The brief for the Affordable Luxuries team was to update an 80s style kitchen by designing a modern contemporary kitchen dining space, providing practical storage solutions, along with functional appliances and accessories.
At the first stage of the design process Affordable Luxuries helped Fran and Stephen get a clear idea of what would work for them personally and what would not. Affordable Luxuries took their design skills and interpreted the customer’s wish list, for the look and how the kitchen would work within their family life.
Fran and Stephen chose Pronorm kitchen furniture from the Y-line range, in gloss white and gloss cubanite, with the same colours in the wall panels. The wall shelves are part of Pronorm’s Integra rail system.
The kitchen worktop was in light Vesuvius from the Pronorm’s PP-edged laminate range. Light Vesuvius is an inspired choice, textured, off-white with grey particles which make it look like stone; this was finished off with a matching upstands and window sills which complement the gloss white glass and gloss cubanite wall panels.
Together they create a remarkable combination of light and texture. For the sink, an inset one-and-a-half bowl Blanco Metra was chosen, in Silgranit, in the colour tartufo, which fitted perfectly into the colour scheme with a Blanco Linus tap in chrome finishing the look.
The couple went for appliances from Siemens, always a popular choice with Affordable Luxuries’ customers. They chose the IQ700 series with two full-size ovens, one with microwave; an integrated refrigerator, freezer, and dishwasher and washing machine.
The Siemens 90 cm glass hob with a dedicated wok burner and a flush mounted ceiling extractor finished in stainless steel really impressed Fran and Stephen after decades of cooking on their old hob.
The flat now has a modern kitchen which is used far more than ever before as a living and social space and has wowed everyone who has seen it.
But what really impressed Stephen was the fact, that in the team at Affordable Luxuries, he met people who had standards as demanding as his own.
“I admit, I am really pernickety about stuff and Tom was even more so than me.”