[Closed] New fitted kitchen - who did you use? Where did you buy it? Did you haggle?

In our last place we used Diy kitchens dot com for carcasses,doors, drawers ,end pieces and the like. Decent quality imo. Worktop bought separate.
There was a problem after 22 months with some of the doors - they sent replacements the next day.
Our builder likes Howdens too.

Magnet do a Trade range which is significantly less spendy and "designery" than their retail offerings.

Howdens branches operate as separate business units and you can often play one branch off against another to get a discount.

Used Howdens. Decent middle of the road stuff

The price is really set by the builder, he can charge a mark up. I used a mates brothers account to avoid this.

We used ikea mostly because there isn't haggle room. You spec up what you want and that's the price you pay. No fake discounts or having to speak to a salesman over every issue. If you want to swap a component its easy to work out the price difference. Its also easy to buy extra bits or take back bits it turns out you didn't want. Very good to deal with. The quality is great backed up by a long warranty. Easy to DIY if you fancy. I'd go back and have another look

I did homebase, b&q, magnet, IKEA and howdens. Went for a howdens as they had the look I wanted, their stuff appeared good and everyone i spoke to spoke highly of them. Now a month into living with it and very happy, it all works nicely.
As above, downside is they won't negotiate with you as they are trade only

Got one from Matthew Charlton in Hexham last year good quality, choice and price, they are part of Jewsons so will be a branch near you. And yes we did haggle!

We used one in Yatton so possibly close enough for you. Cheap (relatively...) and provided a decent finish but needed to manage closely and check everything was done properly but happy with the finished product.

Drop me an email if you want the details.

Howdens. Paid them direct via the builder's account (so no mark up). Probably could have haggled, but didn't, price seemed reasonable, stuff seems decent quality.

Neptune. Solid wood and oh so lovely. Not cheap though- but weirdly cheaper than John Lewis which was MDF

[i]We used ikea mostly because there isn't haggle room. You spec up what you want and that's the price you pay. No fake discounts or having to speak to a salesman over every issue. If you want to swap a component its easy to work out the price difference. Its also easy to buy extra bits or take back bits it turns out you didn't want. Very good to deal with. The quality is great backed up by a long warranty. Easy to DIY if you fancy. I'd go back and have another look [/I]

+1

I fitted ours (except worktops as there was a couple of mitre's so got a joiner in for that), just follow the instructions, looks good.

We also bought one for our recently built granny annex and the builder/joiner fitted it. He struggled (it didn't build like Howdens was his complaint), otherwise known as, he didn't RTFM!

Another vote for DIY kitchens. Part of a larger group.

[url= https://www.youtube.com/user/diywebmaster ]DIY Kitchens[/url]

Hth
Marko

We've had units from Howdens & Jewson, both very similar, but Jewsons just edged it last time.

I'll be looking more closely at IKEA next time, there wasn't one nearby before but there is now.

Yes, haggle. Especially the likes of howdens etc. Get your builder/fitter to haggle as they will have trade accounts at a number of places for you to play one off against the other.

Ikea and self-fit with my dad. As long as your fairly competent with DIY then it’s doable.

Ikea and self fitted. NO issues at all with the supply of parts and its lasted well

Our last two kitchens were both self installs from DIY Kitchens - easy to deal with and good quality.

As an aside, it is fairly easy to set up a trade account with Howdens as a self builder - even if you aren't a self builder. Tell them you are planning a self build or a renovation and they will be happy to set an account up - but your discount may not be as large as one your builder has access to. Howdens also have a team of designers who visit your home and plan efficiently.

Online suppliers - both of these offer good discounts against showroom prices and I've had good service from both of them.

http://www.alarisavenue.co.uk/ sell Mereway kitchens (amongst others). John Lewis sell Mereway as their own label kitchens. Very solidly built cabinets. Last really well. Way better quality than Howdens - I'd defitely use again.

http://www.pricemykitchen.co.uk/ sell Schuller. Much more 'designer' than Mereway with a lot more features and different styles of cabinets on offer. Not nearly as solid but a very different look. Too early to say how long it will last.

At the end of the day all the mechanics (drawer and cupboard mechanisms etc) come from a small number of companies. They do have different quality levels though. Less solidly built cabinets are harder to fit well (they don't stay square and need a lot of effort to level). Once fitted well and solidly fixed it probably doesn't make much difference (although the thick backs on Mereway won't get pushed out over time like those from some makers).

Most of the money goes on the door finishes. Some are more hard wearing than others. Damage and chips are far less obvious on wood grain type finishes than on high gloss.

A relative on my sister-in-law's side did mine - he got all the hardware from Howdens. The Howdens bloke even came round with a catalogue to help me choose all the bits and pieces. Very good, I thought... and their online colour config app was useful.

We used a local company Riverside in Penistone, first class in every way

I used to sell kitchens and after a lot of research went for DIY kitchens. Very good quality, the price stated is the price you pay so easy to keep track, no hidden discounts or 50% off rubbish.

Very good quality, they messed up the delivery a little so got a couple of damaged bits but it was sorted quickly with many apologies.

All come ready built, would def buy from them again.

we got an astronomical quote from wickes, ikea couldnt design the kitchen we wanted due to the limited cabinet sizes they offer, wife didnt like the magnet range and we'd heard a lot of negative stuff about wren.
we went to b&q and found a style she really liked at a pretty good price. they gave us a decent discount as well so there was no need to haggle much
its getting delivered this thursday and the installation starts next monday

I do the decorating for a high end independent kitchen firm and have to say that I was impressed by the quality of kitchens on show at our local Wickes showroom. I don't know how they compare price wise but well worth a look. Avoid Wickes off the shelf range which is thinner (15mm) and more poorly made.

I do the decorating for a high end independent kitchen firm and have to say that I was impressed by the quality of kitchens on show at our local Wickes showroom. I don't know how they compare price wise but well worth a look. Avoid Wickes off the shelf range which is thinner (15mm) and more poorly made.

i agree about the quality but their prices are ridiculous!!
we asked them to design a kitchen using 14 units to cover and area that was about 8'x9'...with their fitting charge the price came to nearly £13k!!
the same quality and style of kitchen from B&Q is costing us less than half that

Thanks all for the posts - plenty for me to have a look into there. 🙂

We got ours from Wren and fitted it ourselves. Can't remember exactly the discount but it was probably 1000% with their crazy pricing. Seemed a good deal after their multiple discounts and managers special deals. The quality seems good to me.

Ours is from Magnet, but they're designer wasn't very creative. Thankfully we were VERY specific with what we wanted and how we wanted it designed, so he just did as he was told

The thing to point out is to measure your plates, and check they fit in the cupboard you want

One of the big advantages with Magnet, at the time, is the higher level cupboards were deeper than most places. Our big plates wouldn't fit into the higher level cupboard from many outfits

Thankfully, we'll have enough space to negate the need for high level cupboards - the only thing that will be high level is the larder cupboard and double oven unit. Plates will be in a drawer under the hob.

I'm having a solid wood kitchen made - 21 units including big larders. In frame wood doors, carcasses are oak veneer on mdf for stability. 10k delivered for me to fit and paint. I've done 2 before and they are fabulous.

DD - we're also researching kitchens (well, I am: Mrs North is hiding from the whole thing - yes, role reversal).

I'd love a birch ply kitchen with painted of formica doors/drawers. 60s house, so deserves something suitably modern(ist).

I spoke briefly with [url= http://www.mattantrobus.co.uk/index.html ]Matt Antrobus[/url] and got some useful information. While he'll do a full bespoke ply kitchen, the cost would clearly be high end. One thing he did suggest was to buy Ikea cabinets and then he would make doors and drawers. He's based in your neck of the woods.

I'm looking at other options as I need to keep the costs down in the context of an extension and loft conversion, but I might still pursue this idea. I have a friend who sells kitchens (without the BS pricing practices of the big boys - how do you think they pay for those big showrooms...?) so will speak to him about cabinets and fittings. He's in the North West, so you'd have to source a fitter (let me know if interested).

if you do look at Wickes its worth checking of Travis perkins or Benchmarx both are part of the group (better products + lower prices)

Maybe we live in an unsual part of the country but we have a choice of kitchen suppliers. We used http://mhkitchens-stafford.co.uk/

They came and did one of those designery sketches and set a date. They turned up, removed the old kitchen in a couple of hours, prepped for the new one and installed it in a day or two. Everything worked and has continued to work. Brilliant.

We're very happy with our Howdens kitchen.

BiL has an account and knows the local branch very well, I doubt there would be any more discount on top.

Definitely look at the cabinets/colours in the flesh. We were set on one colour looking in the brochure until we went into the showroom.

Happy with my b n q kitchen here grand fitted. Used there fitters so if any bits missing, broken they sorted it.
Worked well as one of the draw units had 2 left hand runners supplied with it.
Also no deposit credit plus interest free if paid off within 12 months

I've got an account at Howdens and we were all set to go with them until we got another quote from Wren like for like and massively cheaper.
I fitted it myself and I've got to say I was really impressed with the quality and the fact that everything was there in one delivery. Can't fault them TBH.

Over the years we have done 3. Two using local specialists who did everything, both very impressive and worth the extra we paid. The third one we did mix and match, we sourced the kitchen we wanted and had it fitted. Haggled on both sides (mostly on supply). We paid much less than single supplier option but it was more hassle with a few niggles.

Always haggle, margin on kitchen renovations is huge. Developers pay a fraction of what we are charged.

Wren 👿

Yes we haggled and got a nice kitchen at a fair price. But once this company has your hard earned that's it.

Errors in their measurements - not our problem.

Extra cost incurred due to their mistakes - not our problem.

The staff at the showroom just fob you off to the Head Office call center, neither party gives a toss once you've parted with your cash.

We ended up getting some expenses back via the ombudsman, but it ended up a very unplesant experience.

well our kitchen arrived yesterday...the oven and hob were missing. B&Q first said it wasnt on the order so that why it wasnt delivered until i pointed out that they had given us the 2 items fro free as part of their offer of getting the whole kitchen off them. had to remind the manager that she even did the manual override for the cost of them both on our order.that jogged her memory though and they're now getting delivered on tomorrow.
off to a great start already!

Howdens were a nightmare to pin down for a price, went with Ikea for the straight forward pricing. The problems with Ikea though are that there isn't any trimming room on the back of the cabinets so the wall has to be flat/straight. Undersink drain/plastic stuff is a bit rubbish. IIRC the worktops are an odd size but Ikea solid woods ones were good.

Other than that all went well and the finished kitchen looked great. Helped sell the house.

Howdens were a nightmare to pin down for a price

Indeed...we will be getting a quote from them, but when I googled them just to bring up their website, number 3 hit was: [url=www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/16/howdens-kitchen-varying-quotations-customers-confused]This from the Guardian: "Buying a Howdens kitchen? Make sure what you’re quoted fits the bill"[/url]

We used a local joiner (and MTB-er!) to do ours. The whole kitchen was ordered from diykitchens. The joiner has fitted loads of kitchens and says that DIY do better quality units than any of the other big names - Howdens, BNQ, Wicks, Wren etc. Thicker finish layers on the doors and so on.

They come delivered ready assembled so it's all very solid. He took 3 days to do the fit, including fitting some bulkheads at the tops and lots of other bits and pieces. I think the units/worktops/sink came to about £4500, Appliances £2000, bulkheads, fitting and plumber/wiring etc £2000, decorating/tiling £1100. That's a kitchen diner roughly 14x12 kitchen and 12x10 dining area.

howdens here too. cant fault them. we were in there visiting through work and when i mentioned i was going to be looking at kitchens soon they said id get 80% off if i ordered within 24hrs. 80% off? yeah right......
they sent a bod to my house 20 miles away to measure up, did all the computer graphics and emailed them for my wife to look at. i chose which design i wanted then they gave me a price. 80% off? must be bluddy expensive at full price then! 😀
did a bit of research and it still came in cheaper than anyone else so we went ahead and pleased i did, qualitys been very good for our needs.

i looked at the receipt afterwards to see where the 80% reduction was and had to laugh at a bog standard lamona(?) dishwasher being listed as £800 full price, but only £160 on offer or whatever it was, but like i said, the whole kitchen was a very good price.

I am a kitchen fitter, and can only recommend diy kitchens really. Their such a pleasure to fit, and deal with compared to any of the other brands. Plan well ahead though if you are using custom hand painted units, as there is a bit of a lead time on delivery. Plus i like the way there is no sales and different pricing bs as with other brands.

just thought you'd like an update. so yesterday was the first day of our new kitchen installation...the workman turned up 3 hours late to rip out the existing kitchen which took him about 2.5 hours to do and then he buggered off. apparently thats all he was told to do even though he had been paid for the full day. he was told that someone else would come along to do the rest of the jobs but that guy never turned up.
after a few heated phones calls the manager of the contracting firm b&q use turned up this morning and after apologising for yesterdays problems went through some of the issues that had been identified as a result of the old kitchen coming out.
wth all those issues sorted and assurances given we just needed to wait for the new workman...2 hours later he phoned to say he'd been given the wrong address and was on his way.!!
but to be fair the guy has got stuck in today and has pretty much put together all 16 cabinets?units and will be coming back to do the electrical work and plastering.
i thought it was going to be easy to hand it over to a one stop shop type company via b&q...so far it might have been easier if i got the workers in myself!!

B&q fitting service? Oh dear god.....

i thought it was going to be easy to hand it over to a one stop shop type company via b&q

Problem is that they subcontract all the fitting so you've no idea who you're going to get. I'm assuming the fitting is at a fixed price and there wasn't a survey by the guys acutally fitting it so it's likely they're struggling to make money on it.

If you want a job done properly, contract directly with the people doing the work and pay them for as long as it takes. Needs some trust though.

I'm assuming the fitting is at a fixed price and there wasn't a survey by the guys actually fitting it so it's likely they're struggling to make money on it.

the survey was done by the same contractor who works for b&q...no issue with the amount of work needed...just the confusion in getting the work started...they had to subcontract that out due to delays on another job. the subcontractor finishes today and then its back to the contractor and his fitting team to get cracking on with the install...so far we've lost 1 days worth of work and the knock on effect is that it delays the finish day by more than 1 day due to the work needed to be done...but they've promised to come and do 2 full days over the weekend to get back on schedule

 

You've seen my kithen Deadly, although you probably didn't study it. Your welcome to look closer when your back. I got it from
http://www.knaggs4fittings.co.uk/
and fitted myself. Knaggs are a tiny place in an industrial estate in Harlow in Essex, not a plush show room, just an office and a few samples. However They've been around a good while, my parents have used them for bits and pieces and I found them excellent. Had no problems at all with any bits ordered from them and they were fairly swift at getting me some extra stuff when I found I'd stuffed up and ordered one wrong door and needed another. good cabinets, solid backs, triple density chip, blum fittings, assemble easily, easy to fit and fingers crossed they should last well barring floods.
I used the ikea website to do all the planning and get the whizzy 3d graphics so i could tweak the layout until happy.
The granite worktops came from somewhere different. cheap but a bit of a pain to deal with....they stuffed up and cut the sink hole in the wrong place, only by about 3mm but it meant the sink wouldn't drop in. I had to take a router to the side of a cabinet to give space for the bowl. not an issue really as not seen, just a faff. I did get ~£100 off the worktop suppliers though which just about compensated for the extra work and a day or so without a sink.

update for you:
so as i had previously said we were behind schedule in the first few day of our installation due to confusion over what the workmen were supposed to do...once the kitchen had been ripped out there was a fair amount of plasterwork to be done which was expected considering the house was over 100 years old and there was plenty of evidence of where the previous owner had taken shortcuts when fitting the old kitchen...there was wiring work that needed to be done to. once the plastering had been done the electrician started but after 1 day went off sick without telling anyone...wife came home after work one day to find no workers there...the contractor had to chase him down...by the end of week 1 we had now lost over 2 full days due to no shows. wife was gong ballistic...refusing to come downstairs and look at the mess. on the plus side they had started to put the unit together just before the electrician had started.
come saturday a new workman turns up to work over the weekend as promised and it turns out he is one of the co-owners of the contractor firm...the manager was one of the other co-owners along with another guy.
when he surveyed what state the work had been left at by the sub contractors he was shocked and apologetic...
turned out most of the units had been put together wrongly as the coloured end panels hadnt been fitted. he spent all weekend putting all of that right before he could even start fitting everything but by the end of the weekend it was finally starting to take shape. the other partner turned up on monday to fit the worktops and get the plumbing and gas work sorted. however he had a long standing hospital appointment later that week but his partner (the one who operates as the manager) hadnt made any provision for his cover and subsequent no show the day after due to the nature of his appointment...so again we lost another 2 days.
after a few more calls to the "manager" the other partner got sent to finish everything off over the remaining week and another plumber was brought in to pick up the gas/plumbing job.
the contractor and B&Q both said the job would take no more than 10 days but after 16 days we finally had a kitchen. the first partner also said to us that if he been on the job from day one it would have been done within 5 days but the "manager" likes to overbook them team as he has no concept of how long a kitchen install should take...which i understood given his lack of building knowledge...both the partners had by now told me in great detail how clueless their other partner was. he was very defensive of aggressively toned whenever i had spoken to him to express my displeasure over his management of our project...he also liked to tell porkies to us and to B&Q.

but eventually the kitchen had been finished albeit the new ceiling and the tiling are yet to be completed but not by B&Q...we've also made a complaint to them over his crap project management but at the same time were full of praise for his other partners as it was quite obvious they were being put through the shitter by their partner.
b&Q have since apologised and refunded us our deposit we p[aid for the kitchen.

it'll be a straight forward installation....thats what we were told both by B&Q and the contractors...
my arse it was!!

We used a local joiner (and MTB-er!) to do ours. The whole kitchen was ordered from diykitchens. The joiner has fitted loads of kitchens and says that DIY do better quality units than any of the other big names - Howdens, BNQ, Wicks, Wren etc. Thicker finish layers on the doors and so on.

[quote=Leebaxter"]I am a kitchen fitter, and can only recommend diy kitchens really. Their such a pleasure to fit, and deal with compared to any of the other brands.

We got ours at diykitchens and real pleasure to deal with.
We had a granite top (5m of it) we didn't want to replace (££££) so I just replaced the units.

Really happy with quality and also the extras... 6 months after I had to do a bit of changing around and they sent me some new paint and harder for free ...

Worth paying extra for good hinges ... and I got some parts like the hidden inner drawers separately on eBay.

I'll update after I've fitted mine in July!! Building work (extension/wall removal) done by a pro, as is electrics/plumbing. Fitting & decor down to me. I think I'm looking forward to it.

Just taken delivery of our DIY kitchens errr kitchen, it's all still boxed so too early to give an assessment of the actual kitchen but the ordering, while a bit complicated is easy enough. My only piece of salient advice is go for the "Gold" (?) delivery, those mofos are bloody heavy, the kitchen was delivered last Thursday and my forearms are still a bit hurty.