Kitchens - cheap vs expensive

[UTH]

Bob-iylho said:

I make kitchens.
I made one for £180k plus vat, you get a lot of fancy stuff for that plus exceptional sucking up.

Oh do tell what sort of things are in a kitchen like that. I cannot fathom how you'd spend that money unless it was literally a case of having diamonds encrusted in the taps or something.

[Bob-iylho]

UTH said:

Oh do tell what sort of things are in a kitchen like that. I cannot fathom how you'd spend that money unless it was literally a case of having diamonds encrusted in the taps or something.

Start with a £26k wolf range, 2 x sub fridges at £15k each, couple of wine cabinets, Gaggeneu appliances, curved units, unusual granite, soon goes........... maybe I undercharged?

[CCCS]

Lord Marylebone said:

Get the very best fitter you can afford. Make sure they are an expert at kitchen fitting, not just a joiner who has fitted the occasional kitchen. It's all the little things they do that make a kitchen look good, or terrible, and only someone skilled at kitchens will know.

Muzzer79 said:

A good fitter can make a mediocre kitchen look great but a mediocre fitter can make a great kitchen look poor.

What are the little things to look for / what does a good fitter do to make a mediocre kitchen look great?

[okgo]

I'd imagine once you start actually making things out of hardwood and start using marble things get very very pricey very quickly.

On appliances...I know of a kitchen that has £30,000 of fridges in it, for example, Sub-Zero. Aga at 10-15k or Wolf cooker for upto £20k and things are getting lumpy.

Edited by okgo on Tuesday 22 February 12:06

[UTH]

Bob-iylho said:

UTH said:

Oh do tell what sort of things are in a kitchen like that. I cannot fathom how you'd spend that money unless it was literally a case of having diamonds encrusted in the taps or something.

Start with a £26k wolf range, 2 x sub fridges at £15k each, couple of wine cabinets, Gaggeneu appliances, curved units, unusual granite, soon goes........... maybe I undercharged?

I don't even know what some of those things are, so I shall have a look.

[cptsideways]

If its made of Chipboard its garbage, just expensive garbage.

You could probably employ a proper cabinet maker for a couple of months to build you some beautiful woodwork for the same price as some of the shiny chipboard junk everyone seems to love. (My partner included)

Appliances are dirt cheap in comparison.

[Cascade360]

cptsideways said:

If its made of Chipboard its garbage, just expensive garbage.

You could probably employ a proper cabinet maker for a couple of months to build you some beautiful woodwork for the same price as some of the shiny chipboard junk everyone seems to love. (My partner included)

Appliances are dirt cheap in comparison.

I'm fairly sure I could not, but if you could let me know who would make me a bespoke hardwood kitchen with the same number of units for 10k I'm all ears.

[gfreeman]

JeffreyD said:

Ask on your local facebook.

Do a bit of checking up after though.

Heartily recommend with the caveat that it depends where you live. Broadstone and Corfe Mullen Community groups (Dorset) have a total of 14.7k members - a lot are on both and post the most banal stuff BUT if you want a recommendation for literally anything it is the go to place.
Bentley or Kingsclere (N Hampshire) is useless in comparison.

[JeffreyD]

okgo said:

I'd imagine once you start actually making things out of hardwood and start using marble things get very very pricey very quickly.

On appliances...I know of a kitchen that has £30,000 of fridges in it, for example, Sub-Zero. Aga at 10-15k or Wolf cooker for upto £20k and things are getting lumpy.

We paid a suspiciously round figure of £50k for the kitchen at our last place - ex appliances.

It wasn't very big but the blokes who made were absolutely fascinating to watch. Seriously skilled.

This time round I've gone a different way and we're fitting a refurbed 50s metal kitchen. Ordered a couple of pieces to check the quality and I'm very impressed for the money.

Number one most important specification is a plug, on a chain. Nothing fancy that will break and/or get your sleeve wet when you come to remove it.

[Wagonwheel555]

okgo said:

Or google it like you would anything else

I’m not convinced Googling for Random’s is the best idea. I work in IT and it’s really not difficult to slap together a website and drum up umpteen fake reviews and testimonials.

I would rather find someone local who can be recommended by someone I know is real and had had work done. Facebook is a good shout as I can message the people that review etc

[Rollin]

I've not been able to tell much difference between the usual wren, howdens, diy kitchens etc.
We're after a painted kitchen in the style of Devol/Plain English. We've been around the Devol showroom and to be honest they look and feel the same quality as the ones in Neptune, which we are favouring at the moment. The design is not complicated and won't need any custom stuff.
Can any of the kitchen makers here put me off Neptune?

[Bob-iylho]

cptsideways said:

You could probably employ a proper cabinet maker for a couple of months to build you some beautiful woodwork for the same price as some of the shiny chipboard junk everyone seems to love. (My partner included)

I don't think so, I employ proper cabinet makers and like all trades they want a fair days wage. Hardwoods are expensive, top hardware is expensive, it all adds up. If some one comes to me and says they have a wren quote what can we do, then they have come to wrong place as I can't get close and wouldn't want to.

[drmotorsport]

Just found the original invoice of £2332 for my 13 unit and laminate worktop excluding appliances "chipboard" Wickes kitchen I fitted with my dad in 2004. The units are still going strong and look decent enough, and only one of the laminate joints has recently started to blow with some water ingress. For a bit more context in this time i've replaced the floor covering twice (due to subfloor being even cheaper 1980's chipboard, and the kitchen roof has been completely removed and replaced while leaving the rest in situ.

I've also used Ikea units in my utility room and was impressed enough with the quality to use Ikea kitchen again for my garage storage.

Thoughtful design and careful attention to detail on fitting will always be better and longer lived than an expensive parts list just thrown in place.

[singlecoil]

Rollin said:

I've not been able to tell much difference between the usual wren, howdens, diy kitchens etc.
We're after a painted kitchen in the style of Devol/Plain English. We've been around the Devol showroom and to be honest they look and feel the same quality as the ones in Neptune, which we are favouring at the moment. The design is not complicated and won't need any custom stuff.
Can any of the kitchen makers here put me off Neptune?

I can't speak for the other makers but I know nothing of the makes you mention. It's pointless looking at pictures on their websites because you can learn nothing about how they are constructed or what they are made from, and they all look pretty much the same in any case.

[waynecyclist]

Wagonwheel555 said:

I’m not convinced Googling for Random’s is the best idea. I work in IT and it’s really not difficult to slap together a website and drum up umpteen fake reviews and testimonials.

I would rather find someone local who can be recommended by someone I know is real and had had work done. Facebook is a good shout as I can message the people that review etc

This is what I did, my guy was recommended to me plus I have seen photos of his work so I was happy to hire him.

drmotorsport said:

Just found the original invoice of £2332 for my 13 unit and laminate worktop excluding appliances "chipboard" Wickes kitchen I fitted with my dad in 2004. The units are still going strong and look decent enough, and only one of the laminate joints has recently started to blow with some water ingress. For a bit more context in this time i've replaced the floor covering twice (due to subfloor being even cheaper 1980's chipboard, and the kitchen roof has been completely removed and replaced while leaving the rest in situ.

Funny you post that, my old Wickes kitchen is 14 years old and still solid, main issue is that I had a water leak from under the sink and it got into the chipboard plus just looks a little dated now, the fridge / freezer is the same age and still going strong but having a new one as part of the refit.

[Tony Angelino]

cptsideways said:

If its made of Chipboard its garbage, just expensive garbage.

You could probably employ a proper cabinet maker for a couple of months to build you some beautiful woodwork for the same price as some of the shiny chipboard junk everyone seems to love. (My partner included)

Appliances are dirt cheap in comparison.

I would be amazed if this was true.

This thread is desencing with the usual snobbery when anything mainstream is crap (coffee, speakers, music, watches, food, clothing etc.) where a select few smugly claim to pay much, much less than most for superior quality.

DIY Kitchens (towards the top end of the 'off the shelf' MFC kitchen carcass market) offer a 400mm drawerline base unit with both fronts and soft close runners/hinges for £150 including VAT.

Where can I buy a 'beautiful woodwork' cabinet for the same money?

[singlecoil]

Tony Angelino said:

DIY Kitchens (towards the top end of the 'off the shelf' MFC kitchen carcass market) offer a 400mm drawerline base unit with both fronts and soft close runners/hinges for £150 including VAT.

Where can I buy a 'beautiful woodwork' cabinet for the same money?

It won't matter to most, but how much would they do a 425mm wide drawerline base for?

[LocoBlade]

Wagonwheel555 said:

We have just priced a kitchen up with Wren.
Quarts Worktops - £4800
..
I am tempted to order the cabinets and appliances from them, find a local company to supply and fit the quartz and a local place to do all the fitting too.

I am convinced I could shave £2-3k off the price doing it that way which would pay towards the flooring, electrics, plumbing and skimming the walls.

You may well save your £2-3k on quartz alone as I reckon you could cover the entire 3.5m x 3.5m floor area for less than what they're charging for the worktop! Our 5m x 5m kitchen and 3.5m x 2.5m utility has around 11 linear metres of 60cm deep worktop, a 1.8m x 1.5m island with waterfall sides so 3.6m x 1.5m of slab overall, plus 100mm upstands and just over 4m of window cill all in Silestone Corktown Quartz (not their cheapest by any means) and that was only just over £5k last summer from a local company called Matai Stone near Woking. A few others I got quotes from were in the same ballpark whilst others were way off as some were just expensive whilst others were estimating needing 4 jumbo slabs not the 3 that Matai and a few others managed to calculate.

On that topic stone worktop prices can vary wildly depending on how many raw slabs are required for your kitchen design, if it's just under 1 slab it could be almost half the price compared to needing just over a slab as they'll generally charge for a whole extra slab even for the tiniest sliver. It's therefore worth keeping in mind the maximum slab sizes of the worktop you want when designing the kitchen layout because different designs come in different slab sizes and you might find you can reduce the length of a worktop run by say 10cm or chose a different stone that comes in a slightly larger slab size and in doing so need one less slab and save maybe £1500.

[anonymous-user]

Wagonwheel555 said:

We have just priced a kitchen up with Wren.

Quarts Worktops - £4800

Wren seem to massively overcharge for worktops, I am confident you could get those fitted by another company for half the cost.

Not sure if they have been mentioned so far but we have a Howdens kitchen which was fitted by the previous owners. I am actually very impressed with it and would certainly have one again if I had to replace it.

The only thing I would have changed is I would have gone for better quality appliances rather than the own brand Lamona brand. They are OK and do the job but they are just rebranded Beko appliances and I would probably have gone for better integral washing machine and possibly oven.

My parents paid about £20K for a Wrens kitchen that my brother fitted (he is a carpenter) and I think the Howdens one we have is easily as good if not better.

[wilksy61]

I'm currently having my 2004 Wickes special, which I installed, replaced with my first kitchen that will be (hopefully) professionally installed the total cost for what is a very small 3M x 3M kitchen will be circa £32K for everything.

The units are from Crown Imperial - no wall units - it will include a water softener, 4-1 tap, Minerva worktops, Gaggenau 400 series double oven, Gaggenau Induction hob with downdraft extractor, Miele built in fridge freezer, underfloor electric heating, central heated plinth heater, fully tiled floor (before the units go down), all first & second fit electrics, some small alterations and fully plastered.

This will probably be my last kitchen as I have no desire to move so I decided to spend, what is to me, a lot of money.

Hopefully it will look good and be worth the money, broken down as below,

Cabinets/doors/end panels @ £8.5K
Worktops/tap/water softener/flooring/underfloor heating @ £4K
Appliances @ £11K - already have the fridge/freezer
Fitting including all building/plumbing/plastering/electrics/skip @ £6K

And then VAT on some of the items.