Tag: Kitchen materials

Sleek, Beautiful, and Highly Functional — Sandringham Kitchen Renovation
This recently completed Sandringham kitchen renovation transforms a compact second-storey space into a sleek, modern hub designed for both style and functionality. The homeowner’s vision called for a striking Kombu green and stainless steel colour palette, paired with an array of smart kitchen storage solutions, and BoxMakers delivered every detail with precision.
Overlooking the scenic suburbs of Sandringham, this modern kitchen combines clever design with practical storage. The base cabinets feature a Kesseboehmer dual-level pull-out set and Tanova Simplex dual pull-out bins, keeping daily essentials organised and easily accessible. Häfele extrusion handles and drawer runners were selected for a clean, professional finish that complements the kitchen’s contemporary look.
A standout feature of this project is the custom fridge-side cabinet, designed to match the height of the fridge enclosure. This tall pantry unit includes a combination of open shelves, mid-size drawers, and large handled drawers — 2 of each — using Harn Ritma drawer kits supplied by Fit NZ. This design allows for multiple storage options in a convenient, central location, perfect for everyday kitchen use.
The kitchen’s Melteca Green Slate Pearl cabinetry is paired with a stainless-steel benchtop from Classic Stainless, measuring 25mm in thickness. Rare in contemporary kitchens, this professional-grade benchtop offers heat resistance, durability, and hygienic performance while adding a sleek, industrial touch that complements the two-tone design.
With its combination of bold colours, intelligent storage solutions, and professional-grade materials, this modern Sandringham kitchen balances aesthetic appeal with unmatched functionality. It’s a space designed for the ambitious household chef — stylish, efficient, and built to last.
October 30, 2025
Realistic Timeline for an Auckland Kitchen Reno
Renovating your kitchen is an exciting journey that can breathe new life into your home. Depending on your scale and ambition, the process as a whole can get quite lengthy. Here’s a quick guide to get you up to speed on what you can expect out of your kitchen renovation’s timeline.
Design & Consultation
When you first begin, you’ll likely be looking for a trusted designer who can deliver everything you want out of your new kitchen. Visiting different designers and weighing their catalogues, selections, and quotes can be a great way of finding a good fit, but being reliable, experienced, and trustworthy is important too. When you’ve chosen your designer, working with them to determine the scale of work, kitchen design, layout, and more can last a few weeks but largely depends on the rate of communication between you and the designer. You can expect site visits and measurements during this phase.
Material Selection & Ordering
Here you’ll be finalising the materials used for your kitchen, including everything from the benchtop and cabinetry to fixed appliances such as the oven, cooktop, and rangehood. Once they’re locked in, the designer will order them. The ordering itself typically only takes 2 weeks, but finalising materials has the potential to drag out a renovation job. Constant communication and settling topics quickly can speed up the timeline. During this phase, you can spend the time getting your home ready for the kitchen work, such as setting up a temporary kitchen, protecting the floors, and making room for the tradespeople to move.
Demolition
When all is decided and the major components are ready, demolition can begin. This is when the old kitchen is removed, along with any other parts, such as flooring, walls, or columns. The used kitchen parts are typically dismantled and recycled, but good condition parts can be sold or repurposed for another room. Demolition usually only lasts a week, but could be longer if more than just your kitchen needs to be removed.
Fabrication
For designers that provide custom cabinetry (such as ourselves), they take time to manufacture your tailor-made cabinets in-house. This typically takes place after the design and renovation is locked in, and can take place concurrently with on-site efforts such as demolition and preparation. Fabrication involves taking the chosen cabinet materials and custom cutting them to match your home’s dimensions, leading to a much better fit compared to flat-pack or premade cabinets. This includes personalised accommodations for appliances and in-cabinet storage solutions. Fabrication typically lasts around 3 – 4 weeks.
Site Prep & Rough-in
This is when the old kitchen has been removed, and the tradespeople are preparing the room for the new kitchen. The process typically involves readying the electrical and plumbing systems with new wires and pipes. This phase can be long or short depending on the scale of your project. Notably, if your kitchen layout is planned to change, then the service connections will need rerouting, which requires more time. Complex renovations may require more than a month.
Installation
When the site is prepared and ready for your new kitchen, putting the parts together is the final phase of your renovation. This includes installing the cabinetry, benchtop, flooring, and hardware such as hinges, handles, and drawer systems. After, the splashback and fixed appliances are installed, with everything properly connected to your home’s services. Finally, the finishing touches are applied, followed by the final inspection and clean-up. Installation typically lasts 2 weeks.
Design & Consultation: Weeks to months depending on communication.
Material Selection & Ordering: 2 weeks, longer if more deliberation required.
Demolition: 1 week.
Fabrication: 3 – 4 weeks.
Site Prep: Highly varies depending on the layout and the scope of the project
Installation: 2 weeks.
Overall, you can expect your kitchen to be out of commission for around 1 – 2 months, while the whole process may last several months depending on how much consultation is required and how complex the project is. While the process itself can be quite involved, it is a highly rewarding experience and an opportunity to make your kitchen truly yours.
October 30, 2025
What Affects the Cost of a Kitchen Renovation More, Layout or Materials?
Knowing where to invest your kitchen budget can be invaluable to both cost saving and maximising performance. Two of the most significant cost-affecting areas of a kitchen renovation are its layout and materials, but in most residential renovations, it’s the materials that tend to move the price tag more.
So How Does Layout Affect Cost?
Your kitchen’s layout defines the positioning of all your fixtures, furniture, and appliances. It dictates the ebb and flow of your kitchen, making sure that everything you need is placed smartly, efficiently, and conveniently. Typical kitchen layouts include: single wall, galley, L-shaped, U-shaped, peninsula, and island.
The more benchtop area used, the more expensive a kitchen is typically going to be; as it doesn’t simply demand more benchtop material, but also the unit’s cabinetry and hardware.
However, for most home renovations, layout changes alone don’t cause dramatic budget jumps. Many homeowners choose to retain their existing layout, which keeps costs manageable by avoiding plumbing or electrical rework. Even when redesigning the space, the expense of moving services or breaking walls can often be contained compared to what premium materials might cost.
What About Materials?
Here’s where the numbers can really start to climb. Choosing high end materials can make even single wall layouts fetch hefty price tags. The two major areas that can eat up your budget are the benchtop and cabinetry, but smart selection and efficient planning can cut down costs while looking akin to more premium offerings. Elsewhere, the floor, splashback, and accessories can also vary in material price.
Chiefly among renovators’ minds is the kitchen benchtop. Often seen as the centrepiece of one’s kitchen, it comes as no surprise that a hefty amount of the budget is dedicated to the bench. Laminate benchtops are the cheapest and provide excellent value for money. Engineered stone is a popular mid-range choices that may require maintenance. Porcelain and real stone, though undeniably stunning, can easily double or triple the material cost, especially in large kitchens.
Cabinetry also has the potential to quickly drive up costs. Here, materials typically come in the form of the core material and the finish. For the core, MDF strikes a good balance between durability, price, and finish variety. At the high-end, real wood is a pricey yet premium option. For the finish, melamine is affordable with a good range of aesthetics. A shift from white melamine to real wood veneer, for example, can dramatically elevate the look and the cost.
The splashback also has a diverse number of options, with tile being the cheapest yet perhaps the most versatile. Even within tile options, price can still vary drastically depending on material. Glass, stainless steel, and engineered stone are all valid mid-range choices. Porcelain makes another appearance as an expensive choice here. Elsewhere, the little things such as handle materials and cabinet systems can slowly add to the price.
The Verdict
While layout changes certainly impact cost, particularly if you’re knocking down walls or moving plumbing. In most residential kitchen renovations, it’s the materials that make the bigger difference.
A change from laminate to porcelain, or from melamine to real timber veneer, can easily outweigh the expense of reworking your layout. That said, the final cost always depends on your project’s scale, style, and priorities.
The best approach? Start with a clear vision of what matters most, functionality, finishes, or both, and plan your renovation around that balance.
October 22, 2025
Saving Your Kitchen with Smart Storage
Nobody enjoys seeing bottles, boxes, and pans taking up precious benchtop space. A crowded kitchen isn’t just a practical nuisance – it can also be embarrassing when hosting guests. If you’ve fallen victim to loss of space – fear not! In 2025, it’s easier than ever to find advanced, yet affordable solutions to tackle clutter and tidy your kitchen to make it good as new.
Over time, you may have experienced seeing less of your benchtop and more of your sundry kitchen goods. Gradual mess can become the bane of a kitchen’s existence, but kitchen planning and storage solutions can handily remedy that. Cabinet tech has been one of those silent innovators that have evolved quicker than people may realise. It used to be that going custom was the only way to get pull-out pantries, hidden bins, and intricate corner systems. Today, these capable kitchen add-ons are available from numerous retail and hardware stores, thanks to advances in materials, manufacturing, and global supply chains.
One of the biggest misconceptions about amassing storage space is that it’s all about having as many cabinets as possible. In truth, it’s all about making the space you have work for you, and using it as efficiently as possible. Now, pull-out pantries, integrated bins, and modular shelving are all easy to obtain and install, providing multiple levels, divisions, and angles of access.
BoxMakers have worked with trusted brands such as Häfele, Fit, Blum, Enko, and more to deliver high quality kitchen solutions that look good, feel good, and have plenty of room for everything. Cabinets and drawers can all be upgraded with smooth operation mechanisms such as soft-close hinges and runners, and modern corner units can feature revolving shelves, multi-level operation, and advanced retraction mechanisms.
Using smart storage isn’t just efficient – it’s trendy. Pulling out your pantry solutions is a fast way to impress guests and retrieve kitchen essentials, all without obscuring your benchtop. You already have the space – now make the most of it.
Resources: https://linkmix.co/45465289
October 17, 2025
5 Forms of Kitchen Lighting and How They Enhance Your Space
It comes as no surprise that the kitchen sports incredible potential for diverse lighting arrangements. Often the centrepiece of one’s home, it’s vital to get the right lighting setup if you want to make the most of your kitchen.
Each piece contributes to layered lighting through a trinity of purposes: ambient, task, and accent. Ambient lighting provides general light, task lighting provides more focused light for particular roles, while accent lighting highlights details and adds drama. Here are five popular kitchen lighting fixtures, and how they contribute to your kitchen.
Pendant Lights
Typically hung over islands or dining areas, pendant lights provide both accent and task lighting. Perhaps the most eye-catching form of kitchen lighting as the focus isn’t just the light itself but the fixture in which they reside. They can come in any form: from simple bulbs and globes to intricate crystal arrangements and stylised clusters that are more akin to chandeliers.
Toe Kick Lights
Installed at the base of cabinets, toe kick lights highlight the profile of your cabinets and provide nuanced illumination in dark environments. An elegant form of accent lighting, it provides a subtle complement of light that doubles as a navigational aid while also adding drama and complexity to your cabinets.
Under Cabinet
Mounted just under overhead cabinets, these provide lighting for your benchtops and workspaces – a convenient form of task lighting. Under-cabinet lights are ideal for food preparation work and often work well independent of general ambient lighting. Another effect of this lighting is that is highlights your benchtops and splashback, which is perfect for showing off gorgeous arrangements,
Recessed Lighting
One of the many forms ambient lighting can manifest in a kitchen, recessed lighting resides within the ceiling cavity itself, and offers a flush, uniform look to your ceiling. It pairs well with modern themes and low-ceiling kitchens to provide general illumination for your kitchen. A 3000K colour temperature is typical for a warm and inviting kitchen.
Cabinet Interior
Primarily serving as accent lights within glass cabinets, these inner-cabinet fixtures can come in a surprising number of forms. From LED strips, to puck lights, to mini spotlights and more, this diverse genre of decorative lighting serves perfectly to accentuate and highlight your displays.
Whether you’re after bold new pendant lights or practical and reliable ceiling lights, find the perfect balance between ambient, task, and accent for a smart, layered kitchen.
October 8, 2025