Wickes for kitchen / bathrooms yay or nay? Anywhere else?

[LovingTheSunshine]

We are in E.Herts & looking at kitchens & bathrooms. Are Wickes decent quality? There is a high market kitchen shop in town but they are on the pricey side. Any recommendations please?

[worldgonecrazy]

I went to John Lewis and was pleasantly surprised that their quotation was exactly the same as I would be paying for B&Q and slightly less than Wickes, once I'd factored in installation and finishing costs. John Lewis did a great job and the design was brilliant too, far better than B&Q, Wickes and Howdens.

I've heard Ikea are good but again, you need to factor in installation and finishing, and it all looked like a bit too complicated for me to cope with at that time.

[feetheart]

Our 12 year old Wickes kitchen still looks great - HTH

[VeryPunny]

We have gone for IKEA and were very impressed by their service. Yes, you have to do a bit of homework yourself but the in store advisers were excellent. We aren't that far from you and used the Lakeside branch. We're using the IKEA fitters who also do the John Lewis kitchens.

[123rd]

Our previous two kitchens were from Wickes.( Moved twice) we were really happy with them. But we are now redoing a kitchen in third house and had a look in Wickes recently but I didn't fancy any of them. But always impressed with their quality

[MadamG]

My wicks kitchen is great quality. Installed 5 years ago. The customer service after sales and installation was shocking though (Sw london branch).

[LovingTheSunshine]

Thanks everyone. Have appointment with John Lewis tomorrow & Wickes on Friday.

[Sizzlesthedog]

We had two bathrooms and kitchen in current house done by wickes. Depends on fitters. The bathroom guy was good. The kitchen guy was good but very very slow.

We had issues with the kitchen tap. Wickes changed it and got it fitted. Bit of a struggle as their warehouse is run by a different company to wickes. And apparently it would be too hard for them to talk to each other, so a lot of hassle and stress over a small customer service issue. Instore designer was amazing. Really really good. We had the three installations done within two years so we got to know the instore guys well, and the quirks of the installation system.

[LovingTheSunshine]

Thanks. We are also wanting to add an en-suite in our bedroom & update the family bathroom. Had another browse in store today for ideas :)

[Briony32]

We have just had an Ikea kitchen and are very impressed with the build quality. Much cheaper than Homebase and B and Q. We only had to visit the store a couple of times for hour long appointments (only bookable in store on the day it opens, ie: you turn up, go straight to kitchen dept to book an appointment and leave your mobile number with them, go and browse round Ikea until you get your call). They do the planning for you if you just tell them what you want. You can go online and use their kitchen planning tool, bt it can be frustrating and tricky to use. We were disappointed with the delivery company used by Ikea as parts did not arrive all at the same time, and we had to chase things up but it all came eventually, and we have been able to return any duplicates and things we haven't used without any hassle through the delivery company. As with lots of things in Ikea, they aren't alwys compatible with products bought elsewhere, eg: we wanted to re-use our old Ikea integrated dishwasher but it would have stood proud of the plinth if we had so we had to buy an (inexpensive) Ikea one. You can fit an Ikea kitchen yourself to save money (much of the carcass building is like assembling flatpacking furniture), but we were glad we used the Ikea kitchen fitters as they were very knowledgeable and experienced so saved us a lot of time and hassle. I'm not sure of the final figure but we got a fairly large family kitchen inc appliances and fitting for about £8.5k.

[Icedfinger]

We're getting a kitchen from Benchmarx. Wickes kitchens but at trade prices.

[LovingTheSunshine]

We had our appointment with John Lewis today to talk through what we want kitchen-wise. We also want new cupboards in the utility room but cheaper ones than the kitchen as they are not next door to one another. John Lewis have quoted up to £20k but that's without measuring up or asking for room dimensions. Then we received an email this afternoon quoting our budget is £20-£25k, which is rather strange as we were never asked what budget we had to work with! The JL planner is coming out in March & we have Wickes coming out this Friday.