A first home, bought for its faults
A young couple, first-home buyers, took the route we respect most: they bought a house that needed work instead of paying for someone else’s finish, did the demolition and the brickwork themselves, and called us for the part that has to be right. The old kitchen was a U-shape with a door stealing one corner and a raised bar nobody used. They bricked up the door; we turned that corner into pantry storage and pushed the peninsula further from the main wall, so the U gained room inside without taking any from the living space.
White, with timber where it counts
They asked for all white. We suggested timber where the hand and the eye land, and they said yes. The fronts are flat, matt white PET board (Titus OptiMatt) with slim black bar handles. The timber is Polytec Woodmatt in Boston Oak, on the peninsula face, on the rounded open shelves at the window corner, and along the underside of the overheads in a strip that carries the LED lighting. Glossy white herringbone tiles, their choice, run behind the cooktop and the sink. A slim linear pendant hangs over the peninsula and three cane stools sit on the seating side. It is the Scandinavian recipe: white, timber, daylight, black kept to the handles, and nothing that shouts.
The batten peninsula with a door in it
The peninsula face is half-round battens, Polytec Steccawood in Boston Oak, running vertically. One section of them is a door. There is no handle, no visible gap and no change in the rhythm of the battens; it opens where you would never think to press. It is the detail clients photograph most. On a budget that is the trade we look for: the one thing that makes the kitchen, paid for in care rather than cash.
A pantry with drawers they designed with us
The standard inner-drawer fronts were not to their taste, so we drew a custom profile and cut the drawer inserts from the leftover Boston Oak. Inside, a shelf for the microwave and the coffee machine, the custom drawers below, and a pull-out shelf. The dishwasher hides behind a matching white front, the rangehood sits up in the overheads and ducts outside, every cabinet was sized to the appliances they had already chosen, and the benchtop is a white stone with a soft vein, 20 mm built up to a 40 mm edge, with a waterfall end where the peninsula meets the room. In 2023 that slab was engineered stone; since 1 July 2024 engineered stone cannot be supplied or installed in Australia, so a kitchen like this today gets a crystalline silica-free mineral surface or a porcelain in the same look.
What the joinery cost
About $29,000 in 2023 for the joinery, made and installed: cabinets, fronts, battens and pantry. Stone, tiles, appliances and trades sat outside that, and the demolition was theirs. For a kitchen like this today, budget $36,000 to $52,000 for the joinery, designed, made and installed by us, with stone, tiles, appliances and the trades on top. Every band is on the pricing page, and if a budget is well under these bands we say so at the first call rather than after a site visit.
Kitchen renovations in South Guildford, Guildford and the Swan Valley
First-home kitchens are our favourite brief because they punish waste: every dollar has to land somewhere you can see. We design in 3D, make in our own Perth workshop and install with the team that made it, which is why we can tell you where your money should go before you spend it.
Questions people ask
Can I do the demolition myself to save money?
Yes, if you are up for it. These owners did the demolition and the brickwork, and we started when the room was ready. Tell us at the consultation what you plan to do yourself so the quote and the dates are built around it.
Can you build a hidden door into a kitchen?
Yes. Hidden doors work on any flat or battened face where the run is long enough to hide the joint.
Can you still do a kitchen for $29,000?
Not this one, not today. The joinery was about $29,000 in 2023 and prices have moved. Budget $36,000 to $52,000 for the joinery of a kitchen like this, designed, made and installed, with stone, tiles, appliances and the trades on top.
