Chicken Memorials

[soapdragon]

Oh darn it! Another door has fallen off our ancient (original to the house) kitchen! As I am at a loose end for the next few weeks I've started looking around at various suppliers and styles to try and get an idea of costs. It's a small kitchen with standard units but will also need tiling and flooring, so we need to take that into account when costing. 

We have a very limited budget and I wondered if any of you had any recommendations regarding suppliers/companies? We do have a couple of friends who would be able to fit it for us so thought we'd ask for 'supply and fit' and 'supply' prices. For the record we would not do any of the work ourselves, even if it saved us money - we are both totally hopeless at DIY and have had occasions in the past where we have had to bring in the professionals to put stuff right that we have messed up so we'd far, far rather get people who know what they are doing in!

Homebase came out today and e mailed a lovely 'virtual' kitchen to us based on our measurements and design chosen from their catalogue but no price, as yet! Wondering about Howdens or Wren? Over to you, oh wise ones!

[SeramaSilly]

I'm looking into replacing my inherited horrendous kitchen too!!  Ikea are supposed to be the cheapest but after that DIY Kitchens are supposed to be VERY reasonable - they're based in Yorkshire but if that's too far to go they will send out door samples.  You just need to email them a plan.  https://www.diy-kitchens.com/  Have a look at their website - it has videos of kitchens they have supplied to customers.

Also another one is Units Online - they are based in Somerset with a showroom and they're whom I'm veering towards at the moment because they're not a million miles from me.  Again you can email your plan in and they'll give you a price.  They'll do a kitchen design as well and if you have the kitchen from them the price is deducted from the price

 https://www.unitsonline.co.uk/

[mullethunter]

I had a new kitchen from Howdens almost exactly a year ago and I love it. There are a few things you need to know though. Firstly you can’t buy from them direct - they only sell through builders who have an account. I got around this by using the name and account of my friends dad who is such a builder. Secondly their pricing is crazy. Their base price is ridiculous, but they put massive discounts on everything - after I went in and said how much I had to spend I got an estimate / quote which detailed the discounts as well as the prices and the discounts were between 60 and 90%!!! A good thing about them is that if anything is wrong it’s easy for your builder to just go and swap it. Howdens will do you a virtual kitchen too. 

I did also look at DIY kitchens (because my mum got one the year before which she’s very happy with) who were very similar in terms of price (in fact I ended up with he price I paid at Howdens by getting Howdens to price match DIY kitchens). The only reason I went with Howdens over DIY kitchens was because of the potential return reason mentioned above.

 I subscribed to the Which magazine for a month while I was doing this - DIY and Howdens came out top. Wren did terribly. I think Ikea did OK. All the others like B&Q, Homebase etc were much of a muchness.

Also don’t confuse DIY kitchens with DIY.COM which is B&Qs website.

Enjoy 😀

[Patricia W]

We have a Homebase kitchen.  Got it in a sale a few years ago and got  a local carpenter to fit it.  I’m pleased with it, although I wish I’d had more deep drawers than cupboards which you can’t get to the back of!  

One thing I did was use every free kitchen design offer I could find.  So, we had B and Q round, then went to Homebase and Wicks if I remember.   The design evolved as we went along. 

My daughter had an Ikea kitchen which was very nice too. 

Glad you’re feeling better! 

[The Dogmother]

Mine is 8 years old now, but still a source of joy and gets used a lot. It's from Wickes and fits perfectly into my Victorian house.

Get yours in the sale - usually less than half price.

[Scary Mary]

I'm with Dogmother on this, I have a Wickes Kitchen and it is the best I have ever had. The units are solid and well made, mine is a painted wood, shaker style and they gave me the dulux  paint colour code for mine, so I could paint bookcases etc in the same colour (and touch up the odd dunt).

We have bought a house to renovate and downsize to,  and we will, most definately,  be gong to Wickes again. We used the Wickes fitters and the one we got was good, he even sent a couple of units back for replacement, rather than make do, although the painter he recommended was not quite as good.

.

[patsylabrador]

Our Wren kitchen must be easily 5 years old. It still looks and feels very good. No complaints at all. The fitters were really nice and built me some shelves for an awkward corner that I hadn't asked for but they just thought would look nice. 

[Luvachicken]

On 3/2/2020 at 6:44 PM, SeramaSilly said:

 DIY Kitchens are supposed to be VERY reasonable - they're based in Yorkshire but if that's too far to go they will send out door samples.  You just need to email them a plan.  https://www.diy-kitchens.com/  Have a look at their website - it has videos of kitchens they have supplied to customers.

This is where we got our kitchen from and I love it.

I chose all of my kitchen from their design your own kitchen simulation, apart from the work top. They actually had 80 work tops to choose from compared to 12 in B&Q (at the time) so we drove there for a day trip. The shop was fab and in fact I changed everything that was originally in my basket.

We managed to buy all of our kitchen, Karndean floor and glass splash backs for much less than the cheapest quote from a local kitchen shop.

22 hours ago, Patricia W said:

 I wish I’d had more deep drawers than cupboards which you can’t get to the back of!  

I have a couple of deep drawers but do wish I had done them all round instead of cupboards.