New kitchen....

[ash6605]

gets delivered tommorrow,fitter comes the next day.apparently it'll take about 5 days to fit(working days that is,fitter won't work sat or sundays)
am totally dreading the mess (im a total clean freak and hate being disorganised)just wondering what the hell to do with everything from my kitchen cupboards,really don't want them lying about the living room.anyone have any tips on what to leave handy,where to keep things e.t.c?
wish i could just move out for a week-have a 3 year old who's never out of the kitchen,don't know what i'm going to do for meals during the day while fitters still here.aaaaaaaaaaargh,i'm tearing my hair out already!

then next week i'm getting a new bathroom!!!!
tips/advice needed there too!

[MrsBadger]

...and make sure you have somewhere (living room, dining room, desk etc) where you can plug in the kettle and set up a tea-making station.

And pop to the bakers for sandwich lunches.

[BettySpaghetti]

Can you set up a temporary kitchen somewhere (dining room/garage/corner of living room?) with fridge, microwave, kettle, toaster etc.

Thats what we did when doing our kitchen here and in our last house. Just be prepared to eat cr@p food and takeaways for a week.

[BettySpaghetti]

Also forgot to add -try your local supermarket cafe at lunchtimes -cheap, have children's hot and cold food options and gets you out from the chaos at home!

[ash6605]

great thanks.i agree,take aways all week!my poor diet!
anyone got anymore suggestions before i start gutting the kitchen tonight?

[Twiga]

Was going to start a thread on new kitchens but wandered if I could hijack this one?! In process of getting quotes/plans, any advice on what to avoid, what works well etc. My main need is lots of storage as do lot of cooking from scratch, have loads of raw ingredients around all the time. Thanks, and ash6605 hope it all goes smoothly, would second the getting pals to help with meals thing - will get you out of the house and away from the mess for a while too!

[eemie]

Paper plates and disposable cutlery. It's not for long. You can be the queen of recycling and energy-saving once the kitchen's done.

Call in favours - my neighbour kindly took in washing-up for me a few times to save me staggering up to the bathroom with it.

Talking of recycling - instead of putting our old cupboard doors on the skip I sold them on e-bay. A nice man in a van came and took them away for nothing - even gave me a bit of cash. Did the same with the 16-year old tumble dryer.

The new kitchen is brilliant as well. Worth the upheaval!

[ash6605]

mmm-neighbors doing dishes?friends for tea?
don't even go there! dear old lady next door,as lovely and kind as she,is a little on the dirty side.i have seen her in the garden picking up dog muck with bare hands-would you let her do your dishes? LOL!
as for the rest of my neighbors,they are the type you say hello to and take in the odd parcel but thats about it.friends-well i'm a bit of a Billy No Mates at the moment,my three "best friends" stopped speaking to me recently when i had a m/c and we have no family! god i sound so sad don't i?
but will defo be using the paper plates e.t.c.
my hubby has "acquired" some of the cups from his vending machine at work already with t-bags,coffee and hot choc in,just add hot water!

TWIGGA-i had three different quotes which varied between £3500 and £12000.
i've heard that moben and sharps are VERY expensive.kitchens direct are fairly priced as are b&q,mfi and homebase. in the end we chose b&q,don't dare praise them too much incase i'm tempting fate but they were definately cheapest.when we ordered ours they had half price sale so the whole kitchen-13 units,range cooker,american fridge freezer,integrated microwave and dishwasher,splashbacks came to £3330.we were very impressed.only thing was the fitting would have been the same price again so we chose a local joiner(fingers crossed it all goes to plan)
i think b&q and mfi have still got some good offers on.

[LizP]

Twiga - do you have room for a corner fridge - ours is fab - can hold vast amounts of food. Expensive but worth it - especially as we will have three teenage boys one day. Also all our cupboards are built right up to the ceiling - even my pull out larder goes floor to ceiling. I have a step stool in a drawer in one of the kick plates so that I can reach the high shelves. I store things at the back that I don't use every day and have one shelf with a box of baking ingredients that I lift down as needed. All our open shelves have pull down roller doors so that we can shut them away if we want to (and one day I'll be neat enough to do that all the time!)

[ash6605]

NEVER NEVER EVER buying from B&Q again! kitchen arrived tonight with about 20 bits missing,rang call centre and they said they'll be sent to us when they come into stock-first week of april.WTF!

why sell a kitchen to someone then deliver it with half of the bits missing?!

aaaaaaargh! nightmare

[Twiga]

Oh ash66056, what a nightmare! Are they able to ring round other local(ish) branches and get them to supply the parts rather than you having to wait so long - might be worth asking? Really sorry to hear things not going to plan, hope there's a quick solution. Would also be asking about compensation of some sort if you're plans are going to be delayed that long.

LizP, the fridge looks fantastic and would def consider it in the future. Prob is this time that we may have to move in July and am trying to keep costs down whilst still giving the benefit of it for that little time. It's a shame as our kitchen has needed done from day one but we were students when we first bought and it's taken us this long to get round to it.

[ash6605]

we've already done the local branches thing-no joy.

it gets worse-one of the things thats missing isn't avaialable until may.

the cooker hood that we ordered(and theyve sent us)isn't compatable with our wall(its only for an outside wall)

the fridge and range we ordered were out of stock,we've kicked off and been given better models for the same price.

the microwave has been sent,but the housing to go with it that makes it integrated isnt coming for another two weeks-by that time our fitter will be away on holiday.

these are just a few of the many problems.i'm going to list them all and put in writing to the complaints department and ask for at the very least,the money to pay someone else to come and fit the missing things when they eventually arrive.my fittrt says this is unlikely though as b7q are crap at dealing with complaints and i'll be lucky to get an apology.

any-one else had problems with b&q,how were they dealt with?

any advice on how to deal with this greatly appreciated.

[Twiga]

Ash6605, I don't really have any def answers to help but surely they've breached contract and you would be within your rights to cancel the order, demand they pick up the stuff, be compensated and start again with someone else - looks like you're in for a long wait with b&q, someone else might be quicker?! Apart from all that a stinking letter to head office sounds like the way fwd. Might be worth contacting bbc's watchdog, they seem to be good at getting results. So sorry things aren't going right with it all.

[ash6605]

i wish i could start again with a new company-we've already ripped out the old one!

our fitter has been really understanding he discovered today that b&q's measurments were out by 6 inches!he's been trying to come up with solutions to all of the problems(eleven in total) and has managed to fit all of the essential parts to our kitchen-sink,cooker,washer,fridge so we weren't left with absolutely nothing.

been over to b&q tonight to return things that they've added to our order that were completely unneccesary,such as door handles-we only need 16,they've sent 20 but they are 20 quid a pack.i think they saw us coming!

fitter says he's seen some problems in the past but this has been by far the worst case.

[Twiga]

Thank goodness for your fitter! Don't give b&q an inch though, what a mess, sounds like they deserve everything you can throw at them.

[KTeePee]

twiga, if you need to keep costs to a minimum, Ikea were the cheapest in my area. If you want some ideas for layout, I got some great tips a while back on another thread, will try to find and link....

[KTeePee]

here

[viticella]

As I write this my saintly DH is cannibalising our kitchen to try and fix the horrid (inherited) inaccessible corner cupboards. Must go and pour him another beer.

Twiga, would advise you to get your corners sorted and work the design around them. I think L-shaped cupboards are better for base or wall corners, with the 2 doors hinged together so they fold open completely clear. Avoid corner cupboards where half of it is buried behind another one like the plague. Saw a good base corner version in Magnet once with just shelves but very good use of space.

[Mirage]

ash6605,I can confirm that B&Q are indeed crap & don't give a shit for customer service.I ordered & paid for a fire in August & was told that it was in stock & would be delived in 10 days, but that I couldn't take it with me as too heavy.

To cut a very long story short,it was eventually delivered in Mid November.I rang chasing it every week & was told a different story every time.I was told that my order had automatically been cancelled as it had been on the system for so long-then that it hadn't been cancelled.I was told that there were none in any store in the country when I asked them to try other stores.It only turned up after I emailed head office demanding my money back.The guy who delivered it said that he had been to Nottingham to collect it & that it was asbsolute bolleaux that no store had any.He also said that my original fire had been ready for delivery back in August,but a bit was missing,so no one thought to do anything about it & just cancelled the order.

To top it all,when my builder came to fit it,he said that it wasn't suitable for the use B&qQ sold it for,it was more of a decorative thing!I took the damn thing back in my mondeo & got a refund.I emailed again to complain about the whole sorry saga,but just got a message saying that it was being investigated.I emailed a couple more times,but got no where.

I wish you luck.We had planned to buy a kitchen from them before this all happened,but certainly won't now.

[Twiga]

That would be good WW, we've got a very good design and quote from DM Designs - they're a Cumbernauld based company but have a branch on Rosemount. Started at quote of £10,725 and worked down the way by various means to £6,820. They do all the fitting etc themselves, no sub-contractors, fully corgi reg for gas fitting etc. Were impressed because we explained to the designer who came over that we would have to sell within a year and he didn't try and talk us into anything unnecessary or stupid extras. Hoping the rest goes as smoothly but guess watch this space til it's fitted! Let us know how JL go.

The only gutting thing for us is we've lived with our yuky old kitchen for the last 6 years (still has ciggie burns in the lino from 2 owners ago) - we were students when we moved in and now just as it's going to be lovely we may only get limited use - aargh!

[Twiga]

KTP - thanks for the link, some interesting reading there .

Vit - our layout is L-shaped so just the one corner and we've gone for the sort of cupboard you've described. We were advised to avoid these carousel type inserts as can't fit big things on them, if you lose things into the corners very hard to retrieve, and hard to clean.

[PanicPants]

Oh no Twiga - we've just taken delivery of our corner carousel! Along with the rest of the kitchen from homebase.

So far I've been fairly impressed - bit don't want to tempt fate like Ash6650.

We have had everything delivered and on time. We've only opened and checked the cupboard doors so far, but all have been fine and not a scratch on them.

We ordered 20 units, integrated fridge freezer, dishwasher, cooker and splash backs. for £2800.

Fitter started today, but as he's also doing a new floor for us, I've come home to find my kitchen floor a good 12cm lower, a mountain of rubble outside and a view UNDER the dinning room floorboards - and not a sign of a kitchen at all! Oh well, hope it's worth it

Btw - we've got paper plates which we're just chucking into the fire once we're finished with them atm. Will definitly go on a recycling binge once it's all done.

[Twiga]

Panicpants - that's just what we were advised for our kitchen in terms of space - we'll only have the one corner cupboard so best solution for us. Sounds like you've got a lot more units coming than us and it may well be the best thing for your kitchen, so don't worry! We're having deep drawers put in under hob which will save storage for things like pans and baking stuff, so again corner thing not such an issue. Sounds like you got a good deal on things, hope the fitting etc goes well.