[Closed] New kitchen time - diy-kitchens

Friend of mine got one and is very happy with it.

Cheers TJ

I've just finished putting in a diy-kitchens kitchen. It's very, very nice indeed. Paint quality is excellent and appears to be very thick, certainly hard-wearing so far having been rammed into by FlyingOx Jr II in his babywalker numerous times. Hinges and drawer runners are sturdy, soft close doohickeys are worth the extra. Really can't fault them. I reckon IKEA were about £300 cheaper on £4000 of units, but they didn't have the exact style we wanted and I'd have had to spend a week putting all the units together - diy-kitchens arrived already built, just had to clip the doors on.

The only 2 minor complaints I have are:

1) the screws for attaching the handles we chose were only just long enough to go through the door material and into the handle, to the point where I've had to drill a small countersink for every one of them to make sure they don't come loose.

2) the clips for attaching the plinths to the floor unit legs are too small, the top of the plinth fouls the top of the unit leg and ends up at a jaunty angle and so you can't get corners squared up. I solved by shimming the clips a bit further out from the plinth with some 5mm-ish depth offcuts I had in the garage, but it's not really something you should expect to have to do.

Other than that, really really nice quality kitchen. I'll use them again without hesitation.

Great feedback thanks. Question on drawer and pan drawers if you have them - is the bottom of the drawer made from a solid piece of chipboard or is it a thin hardboard panel?

I put our old IKEA kitchen in our tiny offshot.. wouldn't want to go through flat pack assembly again with the amount of units the new kitchen is going to take!!

I can't remember off the top of my head, I'm not at home. Might be hardboard but they're not thin. They are very sturdy though - I seem to remember a 50kg load for each drawer in the booklet that came with them - and have some kind of metal rail/dowel down the sides at the top for extra strength.

My kitchen came from there, went the the showroom a couple of times before we ordered, superb quality and price, delivery was spot on.

Yeah we've been up to the show room today. I probably should have asked a lot more questions 🙂

For to hear the painted finish is hard wearing. Two year old and another brewing are going to mean impacts are likely.

+1 on impressively child proof finish - my five and two year olds have been ramming stuff into ours for the past 12 months and still looks good as new.

Fitted mine about 3 years ago still looks as good as when it was fitted, we have the painted gloss doors.

The bottom of the drawers are around about 10mm chipboard,  they are solid.

Units coming built up saves a chunk of time but make sure you have somewhere to store them while you are fitting the kitchen.

They’re good quality, on par with Howdens at similar price. Painted finish matts down a bit over time so just be aware. If you’re using a fitter then remember a couple of important things, you’ve got to store it fully built so it’s easier to have the kitchen turn up with fitter there so the kitchen can be banged straight into place, but any issues which there is likely to be can’t be rectified straight away, and can give you headaches. My fitter said he’s has a couple of mates fit them and the kitchens are very good but they often have issues they have to rectify, which is a lot easier when it’s howdens 5 minutes away with stock in the shelf. If you have to wait a week for a replacement part it can be a pain, they could send lads up to the depot as it’s only a couple of hours from here but if you’re the other side of the country notvso good.

They're on my short-list to, although their delivery conditions seem a PITA - I'm in a first floor flat and apparently there's no way to get them to deliver upstairs 🙁

I’m a kitchen fitter and prefer Howdens for the reasons mentioned above.  Fit enough kitchens and you’ll get damages, with Howdens you can just go down and generally take away the part you need there and then.

We also fit a German brand, Leicht.  Which are great kitchens but a royal pain in the butt for remedial work as everything is on a 6 week lead time.

Hinges:  Just buy proper hinges where not supplied.

Ours has been in a few years and I had to do a lot of customisation around existing granite worktops.

This took longer than planned at the time due to the weather being too nice not to be on a bike ... (and other jobs on the house) and the supplied touch-up paint and hardener went off... (rock solid).... I emailed them and they sent me a free bottle of each.

The touch-up was used for things like enclosing the extractor vent... where I had to cut custom shapes...

The actual doors have been VERY hard wearing.  The big cupboards are used in an Island and have all the pans and mixers etc. in and are not sagging... we also got the drawer in a drawer cutlery things as well... 😀

The majority of cabinets are the old ones because no-one would take out the work surface for re-use so every door is custom measured for the hinge hole.

Overall I'm really happy...

My fitter said he’s has a couple of mates fit them and the kitchens are very good but they often have issues they have to rectify, which is a lot easier when it’s howdens 5 minutes away with stock in the shelf.

I have still got a spare door.... and a load of hinges, some iron on strip etc.

Before I ordered I had a quote for £6000 for about half of what I did fitted for me.  I spend about £2000 in total and got double (approx) done.

I’m a kitchen fitter

Anywhere near Sheffield with availability in early-mid July???

I've used them twice:

1) 5 years ago in our previous house and they were great. One minor issue that was resolved straight away.

2) Kitchen delivered in April to our new house. Completely the wrong style but it was the right colour.  It's taken 6 weeks and at least 6 deliveries to get it sorted. We only ordered the units from them, no worktops or door handles. A catalog of errors after sending the wrong kitchen including mismatched wall unit heights, incorrect sized doors for the carcasses ordered, occaisional paint issues/dents pre paint. Doors sent without hinge holes drilled, then sending more units in the wrong style.

It's been an absolute farce and must have cost them a fortune. They've sent multiple fitters out at their cost to rectify some of the problems and even had them waiting around while they've rushed to right parts out of their factory and across the Pennines to us.

Recommended them to loads of people after the first time we used them.

Would be hesitant to again.  Dealing with them is infuriating as you can't just phone up and sort it out. You have to keep logging tickets and then wait for a response which could span a day or more.

A victim of their own success and the Which rating I think. They just haven't been able to scale up to meet the demand on the public side of their business.

I have no concerns about the long term quality of  the carcasses etc.

Ours isn't a one off either according to the fitters we've had sent out to us. They're regularly going back to the same homes multiple times as the factory keep sending out the wrong items.

Fuzzy I couldn't use DIY kitchen as I live up 104 stairs.  I ended up with B&Q mainly because they deliver to the flat.  Quality is OK at best

Recommended them to loads of people after the first time we used them.

Would be hesitant to again.  Dealing with them is infuriating as you can’t just phone up and sort it out. You have to keep logging tickets and then wait for a response which could span a day or more.

It's near 5yrs since my good experience so based on that I'd be hesitant to use again!

Cp - Sorry, no.  In Leicester and do travel but booked until end October currently.