New kitchen!!

[Ginnymweasley]

Right I bought a new house a couple of months ago which needs a new kitchen (and bathroom, and completely redecorating). We have been waiting until we could get the gas meter moved to outside before we started focusing on the kitchen but that is happening next week so now we need to try and plan a new kitchen. The only thing is I don't know where to start as I've never done this before.
The kitchen is about 30 years old, the walls are completely tiled in a lovely art deco print and we have fluorescent strip lighting. There are not enough sockets so we need some of those put in as well. Do we need to take the tiles off the wall ourselves before we even start thinking of getting a new kitchen fitted? Do we get the sockets done now or when we get the new kitchen fitted.
Does anyone have any recommendations of good fitted kitchens? I've been told wren are cheap but not great? Is that true? We went into the local magnet but they were useless. My dad says I should go with an independent local fitter but will this be more expensive.
There is so much work to do and I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed atm. Any tips and recommendations would be much appreciated.

We've always had a builder to do the bulk of the work in our kitchens.
Obviously it cuts the cost down if you do some of the work yourselves but it depends how busy/confident you are.
We've just finished our most recent kitchen project. We took out the old kitchen and tiles etc ourselves and cut out the wall where we wanted sockets and lights. In the past a builder has done all this for us though.
We got an electrician in, a plumber as we moved a sink and radiator, then a plasterer for the ceiling which was previously artexed and tiler to do the floor.
While this work was going on we got plans and quotes from several different kitchen firms and researched appliances and other fixtures and fittings.
It's worth noting some places have a fairly long lead time so get an idea before you start any work. We painted the walls and ceiling before the kitchen was fitted.
Our builder fitted the kitchen and the electrician came back to wire in the ovens, sockets lights etc and the plumber came back to do the sink and fit a boiling water tap we went for quartz worktops and they included fitting.

Thanks that gives me some idea of what we are facing. My dh wants to do as much as possible himself but as the one at home with 2 kids I'm more interested in getting it done in a decent time frame. I'm fine with getting tiles off etc myself. Might start with a few quotes from bigger places and a local guy and see where we can go from there. It's a bloody horrible room atm so I cant wait to get it sorted.

Independent fitter will be cheaper than going to a store e.g. magnet and getting them to fit, but you have to liaise with both if you have kitchen from one and fitter from elsewhere.

Fitters will take out all of the old kitchen including tiles, but some store fitters won't do things like floor, extra plugsockets etc.

DO NOT got to Wren. They are beyond shit - 60% of deliverys have issues like missing items. The best reviewed kitchens (not fitters) are Ikea, John Lewis and Magnet.

Good luck. I'd definitely get a few quotes first. I know you mentioned Wren, I've not heard very good reviews for them and the quote we had was frankly ridiculous.

DIY kitchens and Howdens seem to be recommended a lot, we went for Crown bought through a local builders merchant and I'm really happy with the quality.

We just got a few different builders in to give quotes and they did all of the work.

Looks like a consensus on wren. We have a local howdens so will take a look at them. Definitely gonna have a Google for a few local fitters. My dh only has 3 days off out of every 14 so anything to make my life easier is a must.

We recently had a new kitchen from Ikea. They contracted the fitting out to a more local company because we’re 2 hours from our previous store. They do a free kitchen design - you just need to do a rough sketch of where your current electricity/gas/water bits are, with the size of the room, and have some idea of whether you’d like to keep services in the current position or be prepared to move them - and are very reasonably priced. Our whole kitchen including fitting came to around £6/7000, including solid oak worktops. We already had new white goods though, so the cost didn’t include those, and we arranged the plastering ourselves. They can provide the whole service from start to finish, if you wanted them to. For reference, we have 8 base units of varying sizes, and 6 wall units. We like the flexibility of the internal cupboard layouts, and felt that Ikea offer designs that are just a little bit different, but obviously ‘Ikea’. We have their stainless steel doors on the base units: my tongue-in-cheek nod to feeling like a commercial kitchen with the hours I spend in there each day!

Definitely ask around locally and see who is recommended. Good builders/joiners etc should have a waiting list.

Get plans drawn up and make sure your budget includes everything- handles, flooring, plinths, even the hinges.

Our kitchen was Symphony and I love it. Very reasonable, seems to be hardwearing.

I'd not thought about IKEA as our nearest store is about 2 hours away as well. But will have a look as that sounds very reasonably priced.

Wren are not good quality from what I have heard (electrician DH who does a lot of work in kitchen & bathroom installs)

Howdens are the best in terms of quality - this is what we will be having

If you're happy to do the planning yourself (with online tool) then diy kitchens is great. My biggest bugbear with kitchen companies is their insistence on not giving you a unit price, they play games and want to lock you in. DIY kitchens cuts the crap, you mess about with your plan til you're happy, they check it, you fit/have fitted. No hard sell, plenty of choice and Which? top recommended company. Gosh, I wonder if they'll give me a discount for this advert!

Hahaha they should definitely give you a discount Haha. I will take a look,I'm fine with planning it myself. It's not a big kitchen and I already have an idea what sort of kitchen i want. It's just the scale of work that I find daunting.

Ours took two weeks to be ripped out and put in and the middle of it was hard going- so much dust, felt like it would never end.

I'm planning on taking the kids to stay at my parents for some of the time when its fitted to try and make it a bit easier. Luckily the rest of the downstairs is an underrated mess so I'm not to worried about them messing up the place. You cant make nicotene stained walls and carpets look any worse.

I'm having a new kitchen put in right now and am using a builder who can do all of it, rempvong the old units, work top, tiles etc, fitting new cupboards, worktop, doing the electrics, gas and plumbing. I got my units from Howdens. They're good quality and if your builder has an account you get good discounts, also off appliances. I chose Bosch, their own rebadged onesdon't have a great reputation.
Don't underestimate the disruption and mess and it all seems to take longer than anticipated.

I'm hoping to get it done when the weather is nicer so the time when we are at home we can go out for most of the day. We live near the sea so on warm days there is plenty to do, a bit miserable when it's cold and wet though.

I’d say at the cheaper end of the market you can’t beat ikea. We put in an ikea kitchen 20 years ago and only replaced it last year with another one from ikea.

They have planners which will do home visits and when we did ours, this service was free.

I can’t comment on fitting as both times dh has done it.