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!

I liked Benchmarx. The kitchens were the same as Wickes but the units came pre-assembled. Cost less for us too.

I heard that wherever you get your kitchen from you should always use your own fitter, not the one in-house. Judging by the very negative experiences of several friends who used in-house fitters, I strongly stand by this advice!

I recommend Dream Doors. If you are happy with the layout of your kitchen then you can just change the doors, panels and trims for new. Brand new looking kitchen without the hassle of a rip-out and if you can keep your cabinets it's obviously cheaper and less for land-fill. They can also do complete kitchens though or change individual cabinets if needed. The BEST thing....they don't charge you until the kitchen is fully fitted and you are happy so any problems and you have that insurance. Such a breath of fresh air to not have the full payment in advance thing so that if something goes wrong you fight with customer service.

Not Wren. Been there, done that. Massively delayed due to their bodged ordering.

We did ours a few years ago, it was a fairly expensive through a local kitchen deign company but I love it. It is a Masterclass kitchen.

However, if budget had been an issue I probably would have gone ikea or Howden’s for the cabinets, and then you can get bespoke doors from various companies which fit. That is what most interior designers do.

Just find a local fitter and book in soon as it can take a while to get a date.

B&Q were great, I took the measurements of the kitchen, luckily it is square and no alcoves or obstacles. I also took pictures of all 4 walls. I was fairly confident what would fit so had already priced it up approximately from their website.
The designed used their online system (you can’t access it yourself online like you can with IKEA) and more or less did exactly what I had planned, she changed one unit saying what I had thought would fit wouldn’t. However when fitting started I realised I was right and took the unit back to store and got the next size up. They have them in stock for the most used sizes but we had ours delivered.
i also changed my mind about putting a pull out in one of the narrow units and it was easy to take that back and get a refund.
i also changed drawers from 3 in a unit to 2 deep ones with shallow internal drawers. Again I just took the unopened boxes back and swapped them.
we had ended up with an extra length of upstanding and a length of plinth short and some end panels that weren’t actually needed - we didn’t see the point of changing them to gloss ones when they were against a wall and wouldn’t be seen.
they scheduled a pick up and brought the missing plinth. The driver scanned the barcodes as he loaded them and then when he completed it, it processed the refund. All very easy.

Spent about £25k on a Wren kitchen. Absolutely shite.

DIY

We have a Magnet kitchen. The husband of a friend is a fitter for them and he also came up with the design for our kitchen, based on what we said we wanted/ didn't want and also the potential issues he could see regarding fitting - things that a designer without fitting experience would probably not think about. He was also able to create bespoke cupboards for spaces where the standard offer wasn't suitable, such as for our built-in microwave. As a result, the whole job ran very smoothly because all the issues had been anticipated in advance. The cabinets and drawers are great. Overall, we couldn't be happier.

Literally agreed to a kitchen quote yesterday with Howdens.

DP is a builder, we're doing our own extension. He spoke to a joiner friend who said there is little difference in quality between Howdens and DIY Kitchens from his experience fitting them and these were the ones he'd recommend. He himself happened to have a DIY Kitchens kitchen at home.

We got initial quote off Howdens, then used DIY Kitchens to design the exact same kitchen online and used their price to bring Howdens down as Howdens will price match on like-for-like.

As a result we've knocked £2000 off the original price, we didn't mind which one we went with but Howdens is slightly more convenient for us as 15 minutes drive away should we need any extra parts!

Magnet came in cheapest of the quotes I got, but didn't have the exact colour I wanted. B&Q fell at the first hurdle - after an hour on the video design meeting we still didn't have a room as designer couldn't get their head around the dimensions, and then they cancelled the next appointment due to an induction so I told them not to bother. Only heard bad things about Wren so didn't contact them.

I designed our previous home's kitchen on the IKEA website, we ordered in store, it was delivered fine. A builder friend helped fit it. I absolutely loved that kitchen!
It was about 10 years ago and looked great when we left 3 years ago. It was quite a large kitchen and it cost between £4-5k.

I'd love to do our current kitchen (probably 20-25 years old) and would be happy with another IKEA one.

Wren kitchens were very good although this was 6 years ago. Measured by an expert went to the showroom chose the units. We had our own fitter although they would have supplied one.
After sales very good as well the parts were very well packed and reasonable priced.
I suppose the quality varies from branch to branch but ours was based in the south of England.
I would be very wary of whichever company you choose but I would recommend Wren. If there are issues they are duty bound to resolve them!

We recently used https://www.kitchensbykemp.com/ who are based in Sale. Really great service if you're looking for a higher end kitchen. Beautiful showroom, so fully recommend checking them out.