Where to get new kitchen from?

[Bobnobob]

I need a new kitchen fitted and am starting to look around to get quotes. Does anyone have any recent experience? Do I go with a cheaper option such as IKEA or should I bite the bullet and go with howdens or wren? Also had a look at B&Q. You have to do a 2 hour appointment there in order to get a quote but I’d just like a quick estimate!

Any experience of quality, service and price would be much appreciated!

Very happy with my 5yo DIY Kitchens one.
You do need to know what you want though, I did a lot of looking around and got a couple of quotes - Wickes and someone else - which gave me idea of what I did and didn't want.

My fitter, who always used Howdens, switched to DIY Kitchens after he saw the quality of my cabinets.

I don't know how people deal with Wren. Any place that won't just give you price lists and let you get on with it doesn't work for me.

DIY kitchens, come ready assembled and are better quality that other kitchens.

A like for like comparison has been done by this chap ordering the same kitchen from 5 companies, he reviews everything from delivery, packaging as well as the kitchen units themselves. I also think DIY kitchens come out cheaper. There are other videos by DIY kitchens themselves.

Another vote for DIY Kitchens. We’ve one over 10 years old and it’s still perfect.

Not Magnet. I repeat Not Magnet.

Just for OP, those saying DIY Kitchens do not mean B&Q, they are a different company based in Pontefract; we have a kitchen from them; great company

If you are in south or West Oxfordshire , Swedemade are the best we have used in Forty years!

I know two people who had massive issues with Wren kitchens. Put us off, so we had DIYkitchens (the Yorkshire company) - brilliant and looks and works great 8 years on.

Oh Brilliant! Thank you for the recommendations! I’ll check out DIY kitchens

Another one recommending DIY kitchens, had ours in for about 7 years now.

I've just ordered from DIY Kitchens. Can't wait. There is a FB group dedicated to people thinking of buying or who have and are fitting from this company. It's invaluable. Get yourself on there.

We had Wren. Lovely planner who gave us loads of time and we needed it! Private fitters, all great.

My fitter recommended DIY Kitchens. And then I came on Mumsnet and discovered Mumsnet is obsessed with them.

It is worth going to the show room if you aren't too far away. They still make you plan it yourself but the planners will point you in the right direction.

DIY Kitchens - realy impressed with the quality and service. The delivery guys were excellent too.
If you can get to one of the showrooms to have a look around I'd really recommend it. We changed our minds totally on a couple of aspects once we'd had chance to see everything in real life.

Ours is Wren, but we used our own fitters, it is excellent and the customer service was great too, the design service was way better than Howdens, Magnet and Wickes.

We had Wickes and their fantastic fitter. The designer was excellent and we are delighted with our kitchen

I suspect the clue is in the name.. do DIY kitchens provide fitters or do you have to use your own? I’m a bit worried about my measuring skills too!

We have a Wickes kitchen which was fitted 15 years ago. Still brilliant and have had no problems with it.

My work involves refurbishing properties and I now use Howdens. Super quality but definitely not the cheapest.

I measured my own kitchen with a sewing tape measure! Did the plan online and then my fitter looked over the order, changed some bits and that was it.

Ended up short of one item but easily sorted with another delivery.

I got Wren to do a design for me. I bought a couple of their cabinets, got lots of display appliances on the cheap, and used secondhand on the rest of the cabinets. They are lovely solid wood cabinets which you'd never get for the price. I could have had them painted but I like the wood.

Another DIY Kitchens fan here.

I would also take a photo of your room, upload it to ChatGPT or Microsoft Co Pilot, describe what you want and it will generate a photo, change colours etc. I did this last week and it was excellent.

Co Pilot is unlimited whereas ChatGPT has a limit of 2 images per 24 hour period.

No, they don't. They don't provide a design service either - although they are very helpful with any questions.

You'll have to find your own fitter (or have a go yourself). We did it ourselves (with a lof of careful planning and some help from a joiner friend to fit the work tops). The joiner who helped was massively impressed with the DIY Kitchens units and pricing so is now recommeding them to his customers and recently used them to fit his parents new kitchen.

I now want a new kitchen just to try out DIY Kitchens. We used Howdens a few years back and had our builder fit it. Howdens were great through the whole design process and handily round the corner from us. Good quality cabinets too. Everyone I know that has used Wren has had issues with them so I wouldn’t go near them!

We had a very good experience with wren. We did take an hour or so with the designer but it was useful as he suggested things we hadn’t considered. Prices were in a booklet and were printed out for us and we left to have a think so no hard sell at all. We used a fitter from a list they had and they were cheap and fast. We paid them directly for painting and electrics that we wanted. I’d use them again

Wickes left us without running water and with a hole in the wall for 6 months. There are groups on facebook with first hand accounts if you want to do more research (I suspect it may be area dependent).
Ikea were great twice.