The salvaged kitchen

Rule number one of eco-DIY: re use. In renovating our kitchen I recycled as much waste as possible. The old kitchen lived on as shelves in the loft and the cupboard doors became a new fitted wardrobe.

Our major recycling brainwave was to build a new, solid wood kitchen out of cheap furniture from car boot sales. We scoured local salvage yards that we found on Salvo (salvo.co.uk) and bought a sink and timber. Regular visits to a local junk shop yielded a sideboard, desk, cupboard and huge glass-fronted wall unit - all for just £110.

The beauty of solid wood is that it's easy to work and maintain; when damaged it can be sanded and oiled, and it ages beautifully. Chipboard kitchens, by comparison, are disposable fashion items - after a couple of years the doors fall off, the laminates start to scuff and there is nothing to do but chuck it out. There's a cost to this: chipboard is very energy-intensive.

But whatever its eco-credentials, our salvage kitchen could have looked a total dog's dinner had I not followed three basic rules:

1. Buy simple-styled furniture in matching colours

The 1950s is the golden age for cheap furniture. The styling is simple and modern, the timber good quality and it predates today's stapled chipboard junk. I have found that furniture of this period is often in good condition, with an attractive light stain, and can be used without stripping and sanding - a coat of danish oil will bring out the colour. And it is still surprisingly cheap.

2. Jiggle it to fit a standard fitted-kitchen profile

Kitchens are a challenge to lay out: appliances need to be lined up with the services and, ideally, there should be a triangle between the sink, fridge and cooker. In a recycled kitchen, the variations in size and shape of each unit adds extra complexity. To work out how to fit it together, I made a scale model of the kitchen out of a cardboard box with cut-outs of all the furniture components and appliances.

The trick to unifying the different parts was to follow the model of fitted kitchens and step everything back twice - once from the worktop and then again for the kickboard. I levelled all the units at 85cm tall with a 2.5cm thick worktop to make it a comfortable height for Annie (the standard worktop height is 90cm). The units were set back horizontally from the edge of the worktop by 5cm. The kickboard underneath the units was 18cm high and set back a further 4.5cm.

The main difficulty was getting everything to the same level. This took a bit of planing here and splicing there; one unit had to be raised on a sub-frame of wood, but it wasn't too demanding.

3. Add a new worktop

A new worktop is crucial because the eye reads the horizontal surface of the worktop as the dominant feature, making it look like a "fitted" kitchen. I bought our beech butcher's block worktop from Ikea. Although it marks and scratches easily, it has the huge advantage over a laminated top that it can be sanded and resealed.

The total cost for this entire kitchen, including the worktop, sink and new taps was less than £700. A similar size Habitat kitchen would have cost £4,000.

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