How cheaply can a kitchen be done and how?

[AllBoxedUp]

Our kitchen is awful and we have next to no money. I am very tempted to try and redo it by getting a very small loan but I was wondering what was possible and how you would go about it.

I imagine the steps are:

Remove old kitchen (ourselves)
Take tiles off the wall (ourselves)
Plaster walls (plasterer)
Build new units (ourselves)
Fit units, worktops and sink (builder?)
Plug in old freestanding appliances (ourselves) or if funds stretch
Get electrician/gas fitter to fit integrated hob and oven
Tile and paint (ourselves)

Have I missed anything? How feasible is it for us to do the bits I've highlighted? I guess we would go down the Ikea route for units or possibly ebay. Our kitchen is 3m by 3m and at the moment the kitchen is along all of 2 walls and one cabinet on the third.

Are builders always happy to fit units you have built yourself? How long would it all take (DS2 is due in May).

Thanks for any advice!

[lalalonglegs]

Yes to removing old kitchen and taking tiles down. Unless the walls are crumbly, you can tile straight over the old tiled areas so you don't necessarily need a plasterer. You can also fit units reasonably easily - it's just a question of getting them all lined up level (screw a long length of wood on the wall at the level you want the bottom of all the wall cupboards to come - make sure it is level - and then rest them on it as you fix them to the wall). Yes, you will need a carpenter to fit the worktop if there is a corner joint involved but if it's a straight run, you can fit it yourself. Yes to professionals doing anything involving gas/electrics.

It sounds quite a small kitchen so even if you did get a fitter in, provided the units were all built, I think he would struggle to get much more than 1.5 days out of it just to fit the units and worktop and cut holes for the sink and hob.

[LynetteScavo]

Do you want a new floor?

If you are happy to give up most weekends you could easily have it done by May.

[AllBoxedUp]

Just realised I shoudl have said DC2 is due in May 0- don't know if it will be DS2 or DD1!

Thanks for the reply. Almost all the walls are covered with tiles so I am expecting that removing them will damage some of it. I am longing to get rid of them and the tiled worktops and the cupboards with no backs onto bare walls! I think the whole thing is a bit shoddy! The ceiling is covered in badly done tongue and groove but it looks just about ok and I am too scared to find out what is underneath at the moment.

Just need to persuade DH that we can do it.

[LynetteScavo]

Removing tiles and getting in a plaster is the way to go IMO. That way, you can move any plug sockets ect at the same time.

DH did a kitchen like this (not our house) and it cost £1K, with oven and hob. But you might want more expensive units.

[AllBoxedUp]

I think we can live with the floor - it has some inoffensive off-white tiles. Only downside is the muddy cat paws from the cat flap but it's probably better to be able to see it that have a darker floor and pretend they are not there! Any idea how much the work would cost (fitter rates?). We do know a builder/carpenter who does a good job on other things he has done for us and I know he fits Howdens kitchens (which is probably out of our budget).

[Mrsladybirdface]

ikea do interest free credit also I suspect they will have a massive sale in January to get rid of the old kitchen range

[LynetteScavo]

Howden's do a large range of kitchens, so some should be in your budget....DH used to get them at Howden's rates as a person in the the trade, but a builder will add on a mark up, ofcourse.

[LynetteScavo]

I thought Ikea changed their range in the summer...I may be wrong.

[AllBoxedUp]

If we spend £3K at Ikea it would be £125 a month over 24 months (or same over 12 months for £1.5K). Should be ok but we also need to pay plasterer etc. as well. We have a tiny amount of savings but don't want to have none going into mat leave. I'm about to stop paying an old style student loan which is £133 a month so I'm thinking we could be paying off a kitchen loan with that money instead!

[AllBoxedUp]

Maybe I should explore the Howden's route - I think the guy we use is pretty reasonable. I think when he did flooring for us previously he said he was charging us the trade price for materials (though I have no way of knowing this...)

[wetaugust]

Just had similar size done. I removed tiles and took old kitchen to the skip. Fitter removed units, tiled floor, plastered walls, built units, fitted units, sink, moved gas and cooker point, tiled floor, built shelves, fitted new electrical sockets (no wall tiles,).

£1790 for fitting + units+ sink +tiles + blinds + appliances + worktops

[Procrastinating]

You can fit units yourself too, it isn't too difficult unless the walls and floor are very wobbly. But yes, get a tradesman to do the worktop.

My plasterer charged £100 a day, it was long enough to do a fairly large room.

[AllBoxedUp]

Wow - that's great wetaugust. Makes it sound doable. Where were your units from?

[Ememem84]

We spent £3k on ours all in. We ripped a wall down. Ripped kitchen out. Bought new kitchen. Fitted new kitchen. Tiled. Painted.

Only paid for electrician and plumber. Tiling is easy. Loads of YouTube videos.

[AllBoxedUp]

I could imagine doing floor units myself but we currently have wall units as well and need the storage. I'm not sure I trust myself to do that although I guess we could have open shelves? Thanks for all the advice - might head to bed now to dream of lovely kitchens.

[lalalonglegs]

Wall units are easy! See earlier post!

[AllBoxedUp]

Sorry lala forgot that bit. Still sounds terrifying though - we're not very hands on with DIY but I think it's time we started.

[wetaugust]

Independant - so no good unless you're in the SW. It's an Omega kitchen.

A few tips - fitters seem to be booked up solid, I had to wait 10 weeks to have the kitchen fitted even though the lead time for the units etc was only 2 weeks.
I had a fitter who was not VAT rated.
Avoid Homebase - ridiculously expensive £7K for fitting (and B&Q would only fit B&Q tiles if you used their fitting service).

Twenty-odd years ago exH and I fitted its predecessor.
We ripped out the old kitchen, built and fitted the units and tiled ourselves. It was not difficult - just time cosuming and disruptive but I did half the kitchen and then the other half. I called in a Corgi plumber to fit the sink and taps and connect gas cooker and an electrician to add some sockets and replace the kitchen light. That kitchen came from a chain (MFI in those days) and the whole thing cost very little. But it was basic - metal strip on worktop corner join, lino on the floor etc.
This time the kitchen was totally ripped back to a bare room and I was camping out at home for 3 days, doing the washing up in the bath .

[wetaugust]

We stacked up books to the right level for the wall units and sat the units on the books while we screwed them in

We didn't go overboard with cornices etc. That would have required us to do nive mitred joints which we'd never have got right. But we did cut the worktop (from the underside with cellotape along the joint on the 'right' side and did iron the end edgings onto the cut ends.

Would definitely get an electric screw driver if you're doing it yourself. I remember my hands being very sore. But a lot of the units are constructed using an allen (sp?) key.

[Pradaqueen]

Love ikea but beware of ikea fitting charges. Go and see them on a weekday afternoon (school collect time ideal as v quiet) and get their chaps to help you with inexpensive design. They were very good to me but They wanted £4k to fit £4k of units plus the chap wanted £3.5k in extras as I wanted a specific look and design. My local chap charged £1800 all in! Factor in that an ebay kitchen might need dismantling before you can take away plus cost of getting it (ikea will deliver most units next day for a small charge). Good luck!

[Lovelybitofsquirrel]

You can get ex display kitchens from independent shops and you can also find whole kitchens for sale on eBay, worth a look.
Do you not have any handy friends or family who could help?

[wetaugust]

Kitchen planning is dead simple. You should have seen some of the crazy designs the 'professionals' came up with. One was actually illegal !

Just measure the room and decide whether you want 300,400,500 or 600cm units. Use 150 spice/wine/tray racks to fill in smaller areas.

Try to mirror the floor units with the wall units size-wise.

High line (without drawers) are cheaper.

Sink goes under window if possible and do the triangle if you can.

Otherwise, the design is more or less dictated by where the services are (unless you want the expense of moving them).

Try to go for symmetry - unlike Howdens who had 200 unit one side and 400 unit the other side of cooker hood - dreadful.

[PastaBeeandCheese]

We did our first kitchen entirely ourselves except for moving oven supply....... Be really careful with this. Ovens have a 45 amp supply so whilst I am DIY confident I would get help with this and have a proper isolator switch fitted if there isn't one already.

The rest of it was easy and we got away without plastering as we tiled over and did a decent filling job. I plastered a section of wall myself that needed it and was going to be behind the oven unit so the finish didn't matter so much iyswim?

The only thing to be wary of is worktops are really heavy. I think they are too heavy for a pregnant woman personally. I could just about lift ours when I helped DH and wasn't pregnant. Could you get a friend to help that day with the lifting?

We spent under £4k with B&Q for a much larger kitchen including new hob and double oven. Wait for one of their so called sales to get a genuine price and they will come out a plan it for you for free.

[mabelbabel]

Lynette, I don't think Ikea have changed their range yet. I've had the last two kitchen brochures and there are no fundamental differences. I'm also holding out for a big sale at some point early next year, so I hope I'm right!

[Wafflesnaffler]

As you say "Our kitchen is awful and we have next to no money", I would do a very quick and cheap makeover to make the kitchen one you can happily bear while you save up for the kitchen redo you really want and will love. Here is how I would do the quick-and-cheap fix:

Make the units better by either:
A) painting the doors, changing handles (if you get ones you love, you can reuse them in the second phase ultimate kitchen) and removing any dated trim OR
B) replacing the doors (www.kitchendoorworkshop.co.uk/) if A really not possible.

Cover over existing tiles with either:
A) Easy Tiles (www.easy-tile.com/category/Easy%20Tile%20Range) - I used these in my bathroom round the sink, and when you use the grout from the range they look exactly like "real" tiles. I used plain white ones.
B) Smart Tiles (www.thesmarttiles.com/en/). Can't vouch for these as haven't used them, but they look prettier than A to me.

Replace anything overtly manky which bring the room down (nasty taps, old-fashioned light fixture etc). This, along with a fresh new paint colour and perhaps a couple of accessories (again, ones you love and could reuse in ultimate kitchen) could make a world of difference. You can do all of it yourself.