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Couperman

DIY kitchen suppliers, any good?

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Has anyone had a DIY kitchen from the likes of B&Q, MFI.

Our kitchen is looking very tired, well its falling to bits really!

 

A friend of ours is a kitchen fitter and said he would fit one for us for a good price.

 

Can anyone recommend a design and supply company?

 

Kev.

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DO NOT get a kitchen from B&Q!!!

 

EVIL EVIL B&Q PEOPLE!!! :evil::evil::evil::evil:

 

After looking for what seemed like forever for a new kitchen we went for B&Q as i fell in love with one of their granite work surfaces we couldnt find else where.

 

Needless to say things didnt run smoothly - kitchen fitter didnt turn up, they sent wrong cupboards, handles, extractor, taps. Not enough granite, handles, pelmet etc The list goes on! :roll:

 

Do yourself a favour , save yourself the stress and find one elsewhere! :D

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My Mum had a new B&Q bathroom fitted approx 3 years ago now, and based on her experience I'd echo Emma's comments :evil: In fairness the bathroom suite itself was fine, good enough quality without being earth shatteringly exciting and definitely fit for the purpose. It was just the fitters who turned up late, then didn't turn up at all, who did an incredibly shoddy job, then failed to put it right. After a very long process she needed to threaten legal action before they actually took notice, and even to this day it's not quite perfect, but she got bored of the stress of fighting and settled for just about good enough.

But you're talking about a kitchen and having someone who knows what he's doing fitting it, so I'd guess that the products are of a reasonable quality :? .

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Kate im so glad its not just me! :lol:

 

The quality of our kitchen is great and we are very happy with that and the job the fitters did was marvelous but the lack of logistics organisation was a nightmare! :evil:

 

We are currently fighting for compensation and will hopefully hear something soon :pray:

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I bought the cheapest flat pack kitchen from Wickes about 12 years ago, bog standard white. It was £20 for a double base unit. The whole kitchen, including work surfaces, cost less than £200. Anyway, it has lasted 12 years so far, only thing which went recently were the nylon drawer runners (the drawer units are flimsy), so I suppose you get what you pay for!

 

A friend bought a B&Q kitchen in the sale for her £400k house, paid less than £1000 (lovely high gloss finish), and had it fitted by a friend, no problems and it looks fab!

 

I think the problem with B&Q is that everything is separate, the doors do not come with the carcasses, handles are separate too. I suppose if you can pick it all up and have it fitted by someone then get it from wherever you like!

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Thats what we liked about B&Q everything is seperate, you pick exactly what you want and most of it is in store ready for you to collect, so no waiting for things to be delivered.....The only thing that annoyed me was that we bought the solid doors and 2 weeks later they where half price :shock::shock: but I guess that can happen where ever you buy from

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Ikea free standing units are brill and my OH did a grand job fitting everything in. We have had them 3 years now and they are good as new. You must oil the beech worktops to protect them and use worktop saver glass boards to protect when cutting.

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We bought B&Q units a few years back for our last house. Quality was absolutely fine, just my OHs fitting skills left a bit to be desired! (He 'adjusted' the bottoms of the units to cope with our very uneven floor. No problems until we tried to slide the washing machine into place - whoops :shock: )

 

My brother put in an Ikea kitchen - really great quality (nexus birch with the beech worktop) and it looked beautiful. A friend who is a kitchen fitter said that most are the same quality, but Ikea are harder to fit if your walls are uneven as the units are deeper.

 

Whatever you decide, have fun designing and hope it goes well! Does seem to depend on the fitter so you should be OK there! :D

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I had an Ikea kitchen in my last house, I researched very carefully and it was one of the best-made ones I could find for the price; metal drawer runners, solid carcases, and lots of extra fitments.

 

One word of warning - most kitchen units are built so that there's a space behind them to allow for wiring, pipes etc. Ikea units are not - they are solid cupboards, their worktop is a bit bigger to allow for this space. I bought Ikea units, but a different worktop :shock: - nowhere for pipes to go! My patient neighbour who was doing the fitting for me had to jigsaw 1/2" off the back of each cupboard to make them fit.

 

It was a fantastic kitchen though, and I miss it! :wink:

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The Hubby fits the occasional kitchen ,& reckons Ikea ones are the best quality of the high street ranges.

 

He has just done a B&Q one & had no end of problems with bits missing,not fitting,not working etc - added another day on to the job at least :roll:

 

Hope this helps :P

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We bought a kitchen from Focus, I think about 15 years ago in the old house and fitted it ourselves over a fortnight. It was fab! Looked nice and went together well. We're just about to buy an Ikea kitchen to put in here as the original units are very sad looking and shabby now. LSH has spoken to several people at work who have Ikea kitchens and are happy with them but they've all said be prepared for bits to be missing so you'll hear me cursing :lol: .

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my secondhand solid beech freestanding habitat kitchen is great, they do a similar one in ikea. i bought all my units from local auctions but there are also loads on e-bay. i am just waiting for the sink which i will have to buy new. i have a really big kitchen and have done it under £1000 (inc £390 sink). we have a really old house so it fits really well. we were quoted £5000 for an mdf kitchen which we hated and would not have fitted in with the rustic look.

 

we had a cherry one from wickes in our last house with solid doors it was great and we did get it trade price. hubbie fitted it in his spare time which took ages as he is always working 7 day weeks. we did spend 6 months without a kitchen while we saved for it so anything would have done because i was fed up of cooking on the bbq everynight and washing up in the bath. i cant really complain as we doubled our house price in three years and managed to move two steps up the property ladder and have a great house now (even if it is still abit of a building site)

 

solid wood doors do make a real difference to the mdf kitchens and putting a really nice stainless steel cooker with splashback and hood will make it look really great. i always remember that most houses sell on the kitchen and garden, so even if you are not thinking about selling, just incase you decide to, you dont want to replace the whole kitchen or make a potential buyer think they will have to.

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Can I kind of hijack this topic a bit and ask how much we should expect to pay for fitting an average kitchen. I have owned three houses in the past 20 years but have never had a kitchen fitted :cry:

 

When you look at B&Q, IKEA etc everything looks a great price but fitting costs a fortune and there is no way we would find the time and energy to do it ourselves.

 

At our last house we got a quote from Magnet for a small kitchen - £8,000. This kitchen is 3 or 4 times the size and the house is worth about twice as much and I want to put in something that reflects th eprice range of the house if you see what I mean.

 

Expecting a small inheritance soon so I am trying to work out which bit of the house to spend it on - EVERYTHING needs doing

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hubbie just fitted a kitchen for someone with loads of extras and he had to adapt some of the units. it cost £800 ish. so it might be worth asking a local good builder if you know one. because if it was a basic fit it might be alot cheaper.

make sure you get one that knows what they are doing

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We had an MFI kitchen in our last house which was great. We changed the one in this house to B&Q when we moved in 3 years ago. The variety of combinations of cupboard size was better, but the quality of the units is not so good. Nice extras though; slow closers on doors to avoid slams, extra wide opening drawers, etc. We were delighted with the fitting service from both.

 

However one big gripe with B&Q not all the items were delivered on time. We were expected to wait for the hob, despite arranging the whole delivery and fitting with them. After I stamped my foot a (large) bit, they came up with a replacement on the last day of the fit. FOUR MONTHS Later the delayed hob arrived. What they expected us to cook on for four months I don't know, and are they so badly organised that they didn't cancel the order when they made the replacement one? I guess so.

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I bought a kitchen from B&Q about 15 years ago. Had a fitter arranged (about £600 I think, but was 15 yrs ago) - and the stuff didn't turn up. Rearranged fitter for another day and a few bits turned up. Wrote snotty letter to Head Office :evil: and was offered £50 compensation, wrote even snottier letter :evil::evil: and was offered £200 compensation which I accepted. Goods all arrived eventually at 3rd delivery attempt but this time every wall unit was duplicated, including some of the tall glass fronted ones :) . Luckily, my neighbours, who were very good to me, didn't mind having the same kitchen as me!! :):)

Last year fitted an Ikea kitchen here (my DIY skils have improved over the years) I build and fit cupboards and husband does plumbing and electrics. Joint effort for heavy and high level work. Fitted Ikea's double ceramic sink, which is quite fiddley and had it up and down loads of times. Each time we put it down very carefully on a blanket but then finally had to make just a slight adjustment and guess who dropped her end!

Good thing about Ikea cupboards is that you can adapt the smaller wall cupboards as base units so can have a narrow run of base cupboards. They even do drawers for these sizes.

Used B&Q worktops so we could get them cut locally when ready for them.

Recommend Ikea any time and the flatpack instructions are really easy when you know how!

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