[Scibby]

We have noticed that many of the New Zealand houses online do not have top kitchen cabinets. Is that generally the case everywhere? If so, is it due to any particular reason (e.g., earthquakes?)

[zardell]

We are looking into building our own home and have mentioned the lack of wall cupboards to the builders.

To answer your question, yes, they are available, but extra battens need to be put in at the time of the build to support them or something like that......

I'm sorry, but as soon as the builder said yes, we could have wall cupboards, I allowed my mind to wonder off at that point in the conversation !!

Julie

xx

[Caroline and Dave]

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q109/davros1nz/HammeringNail.gifWe are having our house built to our specification and what I had to do was to take photos of our kitchen in the UK and now the builders are planning the kitchen to include top cabinets which is not the norm in NZ as previously said.There are places available with wall cabinets but as said before the walls have to be reinforced to take the weight of wall cabinets. If you are going to have a house built then I would suggest you find pictures or take photos of the style of kitchen you want.That will then give the builder an idea of your requirements.http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q109/davros1nz/Sawing.gif

Hope this helps

Dave and Caroline

[The Hodges]

I would imagine that if the houses is timber framed, there will have to be noggins behind the plasterboard to support the cupboards and their weight. If you fix them only to the plasterboard, there may be a risk that the fixings will pull themselves out. This is probably the case for fixing shelving etc throughout the house.

You may be able to retrofit a support though, so ask you local diy store if you need advice.

[wiki]

That's weird - including my parents' houses and all the places I flatted in NZ (12 houses) I can't think of a single house that DIDN'T have eye-height cupboards installed. About 15 years ago full length pantry cupboards became popular, but most homes still had eye-heights as well.

Maybe it's just a Southland thing but they are around and certainly retro-fitable.

[Moorf]

That's weird - including my parents' houses and all the places I flatted in NZ (12 houses) I can't think of a single house that DIDN'T have eye-height cupboards installed. About 15 years ago full length pantry cupboards became popular, but most homes still had eye-heights as well.

Maybe it's just a Southland thing but they are around and certainly retro-fitable.

Snap, every house we've rented or bought here has had eye-level cupboards! Maybe it's a North Island thang! :D

[colindp]

Both houses we have had here in Dudders had eye level cupboards??? :uhoh

[KerryS]

Snap, every house we've rented or bought here has had eye-level cupboards! Maybe it's a North Island thang! :D


You may be right - I can't think of a single friend's house with them in...

I have glass shelves in my kitchen, but no eye level cupboards. I also have a huge pantry cupboard, so am not short of storage space despite the fact that my kitchen is tiny. (Soon to be remedied with a house move!)

[willowshouse]

Completely off the top of my head I can think of two friends who DO have eye level cupboards here in Auckland .. although I don't.

Dawn

[jubjub]

We have them, but our house was only just renovated when we moved into it, our rental had them as well, but the really annoying low ones over an island unit, you either banged your head, or did not bother using that workspace!

[Park City Partner]

We have them in our rental on the Northshore...actually the kitchen is one of the better features in the place...not very flash but quite functional and good cabinet space.

[Jo_b]

You can get em - our house doesn't, and has little worktop space to boot. We think this was because the previous owner was tight and didn't want to pay out for them. We factored in the cost of a new kitchen when buying!!

[nickydwuk]

As most NZ houses are built from timber - can the walls support shelves for books etc...? And if so how are they put up? Is there any preparation needed?

[willowshouse]

Because the walls here are basically just plasterboard it is not as easy as in UK to fix things to the walls .. I'm sure it can be done but I don't know how yet! When we built a wall in our old UK house using plasterboard we made sure to put enough battens in it so we were able to hang a radiator on it.

To demonstrate this point - we have had to remove the banister rail from our stairs as it was fixed onto a plasterboard wall just using 3 screws at each fixing point .. and the slightest bit of weight pulled it off the wall.:exit