Howdens buy DIY kitchens

[fourstardan]

Didn't see this yesterday.

End of an era for DIY'ers or will we still another one start up?

[Rob.]

https://www.howdenjoinerygroupplc.com/docs/librari...

[LooneyTunes]

“Post completion DIY Kitchens will remain an online only business focused on non-trade customers and
will be operated separately from Howdens’ own much larger trade only business’”

Hopefully they don’t change anything/much.

[Danns]

Spent half a day at the rather fancy Witney show room a couple of weekends back.

Not sure if the ship has already sailed on not changing much - the prices compared to what I recall them being a few years back were in the realms of "how on earth can they justify that"

They are obviously doing very well, and fair enough if the market will tolerate such prices, perhaps I'm just a bit tight - at the end of the day it is just MFC.
Anything with a curve in it, ridiculously priced (just the carcasses - not the slightly more difficult to product doors)

Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch looks a much more appealing offer.

[worldwidewebs]

Danns said:

Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch looks a much more appealing offer.

That's who are doing our kitchen. Completely different level to DIY Kitchens, Howdens etc

[alscar]

Presumably both in quality and price.

[theposhboy]

I think it's at the point where you can get a kitchen made cheaper. We've just had a local cabinet maker/carpenter make our kitchen, everything exactly sized as we wanted basically no compromise and cost wise I was very happy. Local company did all the slate tops, uk made sink etc so could support who we wanted not just imported stuff thrown at us.

[worldwidewebs]

alscar said:

Presumably both in quality and price.

Similar price (HMKOC do 4 sales a year!) and far, far better quality

[alscar]

worldwidewebs said:

alscar said:

Presumably both in quality and price.

Similar price (HMKOC do 4 sales a year!) and far, far better quality

Interesting - thanks for the tip.

[fourstardan]

I bought my kitchen about 8 years ago now. Better Kitchens was where I bought mine and DIY kitchens was appealing but up north so wasn't able to do a review in person.

Interesting I never knew about Christchurch kitchens, maybe as I've not been looking. They are 20 minutes away to me.

[Crumpet]

worldwidewebs said:

Danns said:

Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch looks a much more appealing offer.

That's who are doing our kitchen. Completely different level to DIY Kitchens, Howdens etc

That’s who I used for ours. The customer service is top notch and no regrets.

I’m not sure it’s fair to say it’s a different level to DIY Kitchens, they’re different products really. It’s not like HKOC are high quality, because they’re not, but you do get totally custom units with the in-frame look for DIY prices. You’ve got ongoing maintenance with the HKOC units because the wood is very soft, so you’ll be painting and filling every couple of years if you’re hard on them.

I think I spent two months painting them as well, so they’re not a great solution for someone who needs their kitchen turning around in a few weeks. We were without the main kitchen for 11 months but I converted another room to a fully functioning kitchen so it wasn’t an issue.