B&Q kitchens

[HighOnStilts]

Wanting to know if anyone has a B&Q kitchen and what you thought of the service you got?
We're moving house in January and want a new kitchen before our baby arrives in March. We had a consultation with a kitchen designer at Wren and was quoted £18k.. baring in mind our kitchen is essentially a galley kitchen and really not that big. Basically told them to shove it, after being hounded with texts and calls from them about our quote. I felt the service we got from them was amateur and pushy.
We have an appointment at B&Q tomorrow and a budget of around £6k max, pretty much know what style kitchen we want so I'm going in there and laying our cards on the table straight away.
Look forward to hearing your experiences!

@HighOnStilts I think it ended up at around £5k or so, on a one year interest free interest deal.
It’s only a small kitchen though but an awkward L - shape.
We bought inbuilt fridge freezer, Inbuilt oven and microwave ( so that it looks like a double oven) double size three drawer unit, one double floor unit, one single floor unit, a double corner floor unit and a double corner wall unit. We didn’t choose the cheapest units more mid range with a granite work surface and splash backs.
I’ve heard good and bad reviews about B&Q, but I think it all depends on the standard of the fitters in your area as they do use sub contractors.

Our DIY kitchen comes in 10 days so not seen the quality yet (though a friend has one of their kitchens). The price was very good though. Think we paid just over £5k for the units but it’s a big kitchen, including L-shape run, straight run and an island. Similar layouts were quoted as £10k (independent local supplier), £9k (wren), £7.5k (Howdens) and £12k Magnet. Appliances are coming from appliance city which seem to be the best for what we’ve chosen though DIY do AEG at very reasonable prices

This thread is really helping me. We have just moved and need a new kitchen.

Can I just bitch about something though?

Where ever I look, I can't see any prices. Either online or in their catalogues.
This means a novice like me has no freaking idea if it's a costly place, cheap or middle of the road.
I understand that we need a quote, but I need a rough idea how much a unit or a sink costs in each place. It would narrow down my search massively.

Currently looking at Howdens thanks to this thread but again - no prices!

Be careful of Howdens - I used my BIL’s account to get quotes so I saw the raw numbers and identical kitchens varied by huge amounts (up to £2k) between different branches. DIY should show the prices online but you have to start building a shopping cart

@HowDoIhelp321 glad to hear this thread is helping others! It's definitely an eye opener for sure. Honestly, you will have trouble getting a fixed price as such online, like @foxatthewindow said, you have to build up a shopping cart

B&Q has a catalogue with individual prices for everything - I’ll find a link.

catalogue

@SouthwarkSkaters That's so helpful!!!

I've had a B&Q kitchen, was fine. In terms of size it wasn't dissimilar to yours, it certainly cost less than 5k, including appliances, however we did use our own kitchen fitter (this was a massive money saver).

What I would say though is that they're not the best quality for a long term investment. Builder friends have advised you wouldn't really get much more than 7 years out of the carcasses.

Be aware that IKEA units are deeper than other kitchen suppliers. We couldn't use them because ours is a galley kitchen too and the designers couldn't get a design to work as we have so little room to play with.

@hauntedvagina Love your name by the way 🤣
We will probably stay in our new house for a max maybe 5 years? If that! We're partly buying this house just to get us on the property ladder but don't intend to be there long-term. Our dream home is out in the country, but that wont happen for a while yet, haha.

@HighOnStilts thanks!!

Sounds like you're in a similar position to what we were. We wanted to move at some point and knew that a new kitchen and bathroom would massively make a difference to the selling price.

We opted for cheap and cheerful, the kitchen looked good and we went for a few nice extras like under cupboard lighting which worked in the smaller space and made a difference when selling (we sold over winter so it was getting dark at some of the viewings, the lighting made a huge difference to the aesthetics).

If you're serious about moving in the next five years and can't be arsed with the hassle of doing your own design and measuring I would absolutely go with B&Q.

@hauntedvagina I like your thinking to be honest. I just want it done before baby arrives, that's my main concern overall, i'm hoping that due to the size of our kitchen (being on the smaller side) it wont take longer than a couple of weeks. We don't have a completion date yet but told it shouldn't be later than the end of Jan.. fingers crossed 😬

@HighOnStilts are you actually me two and a half years ago

Sounds like a fab plan, good luck with everything, sounds like you have an exciting 2020 ahead of you.

I second IkEA I did a rough design using their online design package then We went in for an apt in store and they tweaked what we had started online.

@hauntedvagina Ohh that's so lovely, thank you!
Same to you too! Wishing you all the best for 2020!

By the way everyone, I'll update tomorrow after our consultation! Our consultation is at 2pm! X

OP we went for a kitchen quote today from Leakes which is a local supplier to us. It's about the same sort of size as yours and a galley kitchen at 3.5m each side with a door at either end. It came out at £5.1K including appliances (not oven or extractor) It's white with a dark grey work surface and units are all built in.

B&Q Cooke n Lewis kitchen installed 6 years ago. Looked great when first installed.

Units, hinges, handles are all cheap and nasty and look terrible just 6 years on.

UPDATE

So..... had our consultation at B&Q, honestly, they were absolutely fantastic! We've been quoted £3,681 (not including fitting) but it's well within our budget, we are so happy! The design is everything we envisaged and our kitchen designer talked through every little thing with us. Very impressed with the service we got. I've attached some pics of the design they have come up with so far. There are still a few things we need to tweak and also we completely forgot about our freestanding fridge freezer (DOH) but there's a couple of places it can go so not too worried about it.

Still trying to fathom were Wren plucked an £18,000 quote from though... 🤔 ridiculous!

*B&Q Cooke n Lewis kitchen installed 6 years ago. Looked great when first installed.

Units, hinges, handles are all cheap and nasty and look terrible just 6 years on.*

I really don't understand why that would happen. Ours is also Cooke and Lewis and about the same age. Hinges are hidden from sight and handles are long, simple steel bars which look really good. Units are fine. Very sturdy carcasses and the doors still look good. We're a family of 5 and the kitchen has taken a fair battering from dcs who crash around cooking stir fry etc. There are a few marks here and there of course and I've had to redo the grouting around the sink but that's to be expected.

I don't work for B&Q by the way! Glad you got a design and price that works for you op.

@Medievalist Thank you!! We've gone for a handleless design. I'm so excited now!

Units, hinges, handles are all cheap and nasty and look terrible just 6 years on.

I really don't understand why that would happen.

Ours are oak units, and a framed style (B&Q pic)

• soft closing drawers don't always close fully now, they need a final push
• Framed cupboard doors no longer soft close, some close too much/sink in, some of the doors are now hanging too low (we are fed up adjusting the hinges to fix them) giving an overall cheap look - my mum has 30 year old cabinets and the doors are still nicely aligned.
• we are not particularly rough on the units, there is only me, dh and ds, but we need to be careful when putting heavy things like pots in cupboards as the frames are very easily scratched/dented.
• Bar handles are loose (we have tightened several times)
• Shaker style doors have ledges which are slightly rough making them difficult to keep clean

some of these will be due to the framed style we choose, but wouldn't touch B&Q with a barge pole again.

We had a kitchen from b and q once. Never ever again. The kitchen itself was just about ok but the fitters were awful, they obviously had far too much work and kept disappearing for days to do other jobs. Can't understand a pp upthread saying they are awful yet had 3 kitchens from them, once was enough for me.

We're yet to get a quote from the fitter but he comes highly recommended, we also have a friend of a friend who fits kitchens so I'll get quotes from them both and go from there. Hey, even if the kitchen goes a bit shitty after a few years I wont be living there to worry about it so I guess I'll take the plunge! I might eat my words but I may not so we'll just see.

Thanks again everyone!