Do I have awful taste in kitchens.

I love modern streamlined kitchens without nooks and crannies. But that doesn't make my taste better than yours, just different. My friend has a lovely big kitchen but it's used as a family room where her GC and family and friends gather for chatting and homework while she makes drinks and meals. A different lifestyle, that's all. I don't have room in my kitchen for anyone to gather.

My kitchen is the size of some of the islands I see in the brochures! However it has been 'newed up' and the lovely shiny surfaces are an incentive to keep it tidy. That'll do me.

Most modern kitchens look like operating theatres to me, with the ‘ island ‘ in the middle the operating table!

I like a cosy, farmhouse-style kitchen. It should be a proper living room - not a science lab!

My kids think that our kitchen is dreadful because it's quite old but I am happy with it. Just before Christmas the corner cupboard doors fell off. This resulted in mutterings of us definitely getting a new kitchen now - unfortunately I think it looks ok - it makes it look more 'Country Kitchen' which is to my taste!

So many people have kitchens now that look like my dentist's surgery! So cold and unwelcoming. A friend of mine had her kitchen re-done, at great expense, but it looks so clinical. Not what I'd choose at all, but I guess it wouldn't do for us all to have the same taste.

My ideal would be something along the lines of 'Modern Country Kitchen'. I do like new/modern units, but none of these plain/shiny/clinical designs. Something warm and welcoming, that's a great sociable place ... the heart of the house.

A lot of new kitchens are more about style than practicality.. Two friends have massive open plan kitchens but cook in a utility room. Another friend’s new kitchen is beautiful, lovely central island, stream lined looks but a sink that is in a corner with no space next to it to stack dirty dishes and so small it can only just take a dinner plate!
I’ve stopped looking at makeover programmes as they made me feel disillusioned with my house. People would spend £20,000 and get an extension, a new kitchen and new furniture and fittings. We spent £10,000 on just updating our bedroom with new carpet, wardrobes and curtains. The only thing we paid someone else to do was replaster the ceiling. So how they can stretch their money so far is beyond me.

Yup - me too. It seems a huge waste of money for people to pull out perfectly nice kitchens and create these space-age monstrosities!

The kitchen-diner in my new build is large and light and airy and has lovely views. But it has white tiled floor and grey units - not at all what I would have chosen myself. But in the scheme of things it is insignificant and I just live with it.

They look like they never want to be messed up with food or life

I agree with you. I hate these sterile kitchens that look like some sort of laboratory.