Kitchens - cheap vs expensive

[threadlock]

singlecoil said:

I trust that that is an old photo and that the plinth boards have been installed by now

Yes, that's a fairly old photo now. A couple of months later we had plinths, and even a floor!

singlecoil said:

they either fit them themselves or have a local fitter do it.

I fitted that kitchen myself (entirely, except for the electrics and worktops) into a room that wasn't previously a kitchen, so I did the drainage, plumbing, extraction etc. Was an interesting project. singlecoil's expertise meant that even the wall units were easy to install and align, using rails rather than individual fixings.

[RevHappy]

singlecoil said:

I used to fit them myself, but I'm too old for that now. In my locality the guy who does my painting fits the kitchens (he's a builder and can do all the other jobs needed as well). When I've supplied them to people who are some distance away (usually PHers because they are the only such people who know of my existence) they either fit them themselves or have a local fitter do it.

Thanks for the info, even as a die hard modernist designer I still really appreciate quality craftsmanship. Do you do other commissions or just kitchen units?

[singlecoil]

RevHappy said:

singlecoil said:

I used to fit them myself, but I'm too old for that now. In my locality the guy who does my painting fits the kitchens (he's a builder and can do all the other jobs needed as well). When I've supplied them to people who are some distance away (usually PHers because they are the only such people who know of my existence) they either fit them themselves or have a local fitter do it.

Thanks for the info, even as a die hard modernist designer I still really appreciate quality craftsmanship. Do you do other commissions or just kitchen units?

While still making such kitchens as come my way I'm moving in the direction of other fitted furniture such as bedrooms, home offices, bookcase walls, that sort of thing. It's pointless trying to compete with the mass produced, price driven, cheap materials stuff so I'm heading somewhat upmarket, using a lot more hardwoods etc. My particular interest is display cases, I need to make a couple for myself to house guitars that I don't play but keep for sentimental reasons.

[loughran]

Tony Angelino said:

loughran said:

Tony Angelino said:

You manufacturers had your board increases through to you yet?

When you mentioned this at the beginning of March I bought enough stock in to see me to the end of the year.

A quick call to Lawcris and yes they've increased their oak faced MDF by 20% in the last couple of days. That's on top of the increase in the last couple of weeks. Interesting that the 19mm is less than the 16mm due to stock levels, so they say.

Glad you got sorted.

This sounds about right, everybody stocks 8' x 4' 19mm so it's a bit of a race to the bottom price wise whereas the less popular thickness' aren't as abundant so there is a bit more margin to be made to subsidize the headline grabbing price of 19mm. It will also take a bit longer to get the newer more expensive 16mm stock through with it being a slower mover.

Further conversations with suppliers reveals that the oak used to veneer the MDF (I use for my kitchen cabinet carcasses) comes partly from Russia but mainly from the Ukraine. The timber is then converted to veneer in the Ukraine.

Russia is the world's major supplier of urea, used to manufacture urea-formaldehyde, the glue used to make chipboard, ply and MDF.

Maybe there's a good chance that sheet material is not only going to get more expensive, it's soon going to be in very short supply which must have started to impact kitchen/bedroom furniture manufacturers already.

Fitted furniture is just about to get very expensive.

I have never held so much stock of sheet material in my life.

[akirk]

loughran said:

Russia is the world's major supplier of urea, used to manufacture urea-formaldehyde, the glue used to make chipboard, ply and MDF.

Surely any heavily populated area will be a major producer of urea

[singlecoil]

The sheet material thing is definitely a problem, but like many problems that affect a lot of people, it's also an opportunity.

[48k]

toasty said:

After having our order in for 6 months now, it's due to start going in on Monday.

Only snag is the kitchen supplier has just emailed to say NEFF oven and microwave are currently unavailable. WTF? It's been 6 months!

They've offered Caple as an alternative but initial browsing does not bode well. Any suggestions?

Our NEFF oven, combi, hob and warming drawer were ordered in December for a Feb/March project, delays at the time were "10-12 weeks". A couple of weeks ago they were reporting the delay could be another 10-16 weeks. Then suddenly the warming drawer and hob were delivered. The combi oven is due on 30th March, there's still no date for the main oven.

The kitchen company have fitted a temporary oven for the time being and will come back and fit the NEFF one when delivered. If you really really want NEFF (I did) then maybe see if your kitchen suppliers will do the same temporary solution for you? The stuff does turn up eventually (and suddenly, it seems).

[toasty]

48k said:

toasty said:

After having our order in for 6 months now, it's due to start going in on Monday.

Only snag is the kitchen supplier has just emailed to say NEFF oven and microwave are currently unavailable. WTF? It's been 6 months!

They've offered Caple as an alternative but initial browsing does not bode well. Any suggestions?

Our NEFF oven, combi, hob and warming drawer were ordered in December for a Feb/March project, delays at the time were "10-12 weeks". A couple of weeks ago they were reporting the delay could be another 10-16 weeks. Then suddenly the warming drawer and hob were delivered. The combi oven is due on 30th March, there's still no date for the main oven.

The kitchen company have fitted a temporary oven for the time being and will come back and fit the NEFF one when delivered. If you really really want NEFF (I did) then maybe see if your kitchen suppliers will do the same temporary solution for you? The stuff does turn up eventually (and suddenly, it seems).

Thanks, we're going to hold out for the NEFF even if it takes another 6 months. If there was a Siemens or Miele available now we might choose those but they all appear to be in the same situation.

Thankfully we still have a working oven that should fit in the space for the new one and a microwave that can fit on the counter. Not ideal but it'll do.

[paulrockliffe]

loughran said:

Russia is the world's major supplier of urea, used to manufacture urea-formaldehyde, the glue used to make chipboard, ply and MDF.

Fitted furniture is just about to get very expensive.

Which is odd because they've been taking the piss for decades!

Roughly what percentage of your invoice to the customer is the material cost do you know?

As someone that does a lot of DIY, I suspect a few of the projects I had planned for this year won't happen at twice the price, but if I was paying someone to do them for me a doubling in material cost might only add 20% onto the cost I guess, which people are more inclined to swallow.

[Cascade360]

Best get my kitchen ordered this weekend then!

[Sheepshanks]

toasty said:

Thanks, we're going to hold out for the NEFF even if it takes another 6 months. If there was a Siemens or Miele available now we might choose those but they all appear to be in the same situation.

Thankfully we still have a working oven that should fit in the space for the new one and a microwave that can fit on the counter. Not ideal but it'll do.

I grabbed the hob we want from JohnLewis yesterday - as that's got to be cut into the worktop it seems to me that it's quite critical.

We (my wife, anyway) still hasn't decided about ovens - we have a Neff double and assumed we'd just get a new one but they've made the top oven minscule. Doubles do seem to be available though and if we go for that we could just used the old one for now.

Microwave is really irritating me - we use it frequently but only for warming milk up etc. Spending a fortune on an all-singing and dancing one that's going to be more inconvenient to use to boot as it's not just plonked on the worktop is driving me mad.

[Bob-iylho]

I've just had an email with price rises for sheet material in april due to Russia / Ukraine, 15 - 20% across the board on MR MDF, oak veneers, MFC's.

[singlecoil]

Bob-iylho said:

I've just had an email with price rises for sheet material in april due to Russia / Ukraine, 15 - 20% across the board on MR MDF, oak veneers, MFC's.

I saw what you did there.

[Tony Angelino]

Don't rule out more increases for May gents, not looking good as of now. It looks like allocations might be reduced as we get towards summer, this is to prevent stock piling in the face of (much) more regular increases from the factories.

It appears duty on birch plywood has just been increased from 6% to 41% so expect what little volume there is coming through to be even more expensive.

[Tony Angelino]

And MDF is going again.

[Wozy68]

We use American White Oak veneered MDF in our cabinets. (Not keen on the Euro Oak veneered version personally).

I believe the MDF is made in Ireland and veneered in Northern Europe….. So neither the board or timber veneers gets anywhere near Eastern Europe.

However, supplier tells me today there’s a 20% price increase coming in April … that’s after a 50% increase last year. We don’t use chipboard (MFC) in our furniture so no idea what’s happening prices there but I guess the same.

We do use solid Euro Oak for our drawer boxes and that’s gone up in 18 months 100%. I last bought some in January…. I’m assuming prices have/will rocketed.

Anybody after a Perron & Rowe tap ….. I’ve been quoted 16- 18 weeks for delivery on a lot of them.

AEG integrated microwave…. 12 weeks

La Cornue range Cooker used to be around 4- 6 months now 8-12 months (Thats if they haven’t gone on strike whilst it’s being built)

It doesn’t seem to make any difference in where all this stuff is made, UK, Germany or France, everything is being delayed which I can only assume is that appliances/taps etc use parts that are made somewhere else in the world and is causing chaos.

So not only are prices going through the roof but it’s compounded by supply issues.

Edited by Wozy68 on Friday 25th March 19:33

[Tony Angelino]

Wozy68 said:

We use American White Oak veneered MDF in our cabinets. (Not keen on the Euro Oak veneered version personally).

I believe the MDF is made in Ireland and veneered in Northern Europe….. So neither the board or timber veneers gets anywhere near Eastern Europe.

However, supplier tells me today there’s a 20% price increase coming in April … that’s after a 50% increase last year. We don’t use chipboard (MFC) in our furniture so no idea what’s happening prices there but I guess the same.

We do use solid Euro Oak for our drawer boxes and that’s gone up in 18 months 100%. I last bought some in January…. I’m assuming prices have/will rocketed.

Anybody after a Perron & Rowe tap ….. I’ve been quoted 16- 18 weeks for delivery on a lot of them.

AEG integrated microwave…. 12 weeks

La Cornue range Cooker used to be around 4- 6 months now 8-12 months (Thats if they haven’t gone on strike whilst it’s being built)

It doesn’t seem to make any difference in where all this stuff is made, UK, Germany or France, everything is being delayed which I can only assume is that appliances/taps etc use parts that are made somewhere else in the world and is causing chaos.

So not only are prices going through the roof but it’s compounded by supply issues.

Edited by Wozy68 on Friday 25th March 19:33

Depending on the mill pressing the veneer, there's a fair chance the logs will be peeled and processed in Ukraine, or at least they would have been. Regardless of this the prices of Euro and American oak are closely linked as they are such similar products. Re your MDF, the cost of urea is through the roof and add the large increase in cost of the gas used in the manufacture of MDF, plus the cost of diesel for lugging MDF from Ireland to North Europe and back again - not to mention a supply chain that hasn't really got over covid and you have a perfect storm.

I understand Ikea also source a large percentage of their veneers from Ukraine so they will be fishing in the other pools as well.

Just to add further fuel, PEFC recently declared all timber from Russia and Belarus 'conflict timber' (and FSC refusing to have anything to do with them) so this will further reduce the amount of lumber in circulation.

Expect further increases month on month.

[singlecoil]

If it gets too bad I may just switch over to just making made-to-measure hardwood doors for DIY kitchen revampers, I'd be happy to make doors all day long for £100 each

[Cascade360]

So, DIY Kitchens order placed today. Comes to £11,700 excl appliances which is a separate c. £6,000. Went with Stanbury in the end, which is smooth 19mm MDF doors with flush joints, and a Quartz worktop. So about 6.5k cheaper than Magnet for an equivalent quality kitchen but with a better design, considerably more units, much higher quality appliances, and a more expensive type of Quarts worktop. I think like for like it would have been about 10/12k cheaper than Magnet.

Let's hope fitting etc all goes to plan!

[snowman99]

So I got my DIY Kitchen the other day, well 4 units to replace some storage we are losing. Generally all looks good albeit I haven’t unpacked much of it yet. Thoughts

- Surprised how light the cabinets are - I guess I’ve been doing some projects with 18mm or 12mm plywood and this is chipboard and seems way lighter.
- Doors look good
- the ‘tongue and groove’ end panels which were fairly expensive relative to the cabinets seem to be a sheet of (I hope) solid wood with some grooves in it. I thought tongue and groove would be actual tongues and grooves.
- Some of the cuts on the non visible cabinet panel edges are chipped - I got similar when I used my £30 circular saw on a laminate worktop. Fortunately nothing visible (that I’ve found) but not the best attention to detail. I guess maybe I’m being pedantic as it’s possible everything you can see once assembled is perfect and their price is good.