Shawlands, Glasgow Southside
Kitchen fitting in Shawlands
Shawlands kitchens are nearly all tenement kitchens: a room at the back of the flat with a tall ceiling, a sash window, a chimney breast and a soil stack that decided the layout a hundred years ago. The job is getting a modern kitchen into that room without fighting any of those things.
Start with what cannot move
The stack, the window and the chimney breast set the plan. Keeping the sink within reach of the existing waste keeps the job simple, and it usually still leaves room for a good run of worktop either side. Moving the sink to a far wall is possible, but in an upper-floor flat it means a long waste run with a fall on it, and we will price and show you that before you decide.
Use the height
A Shawlands tenement will often have ceilings well over three metres. Standard wall units leave a big band of empty wall above them, so we usually suggest taking tall units and wall cabinets higher, with a scribed filler to a ceiling that is rarely level. It is the cheapest storage you will get in the flat.
Keeping the character
Where the cornice, deep skirting or the original door and facings survive, we fit around them rather than cutting them back. A modern kitchen sits comfortably in a period room as long as the room's own details are left intact around it.
Closes, stairs and neighbours
Everything comes up the common stair in boxes and the old kitchen goes down the same way. We plan deliveries around that, protect the close, and take the waste away the same day rather than leaving it in the back court.