Is the cost of a new kitchen - AIBU

[CrappingMyself]

Got a quote in for a new kitchen - £15k! Kitchen is approx 3mx5m (10ft x 16ft) in size so not huge.

Includes removing and disposing old kitchen incl tiling, new carcasses and doors. New worktops, splash backs and flooring and then painting. But no new appliances.

I thought the price was exhorbitant but another family member disagrees. If it matters at all, we're in the SE.

YABU - the price is right! YANBU - go elsewhere,

We just paid 7.5k total, including a new range cooker and other appliances but old fridge freezer. 5x5m wraparound kitchen, wood veneer, in frame doors. We were generally quoted about 17-20K from all the kitchen showrooms we looked at because the cupboard doors were a bit fancy.

Units from DIY kitchens (much better spec than the other usual options), worktops bought separately, about £500 for a local carpenter to fit.

@Speakuptomakeyourselfheard

If you don't plan on rearranging your kitchen, then I'd highly recommend having the doors and drawer fronts replaced, assuming that the actual cabinets aren't falling apart.

switswoo81 Could you save money by doing the demolition and removal work yourselves? Not really as we both work full-time and have kids and puppy!

Travis1 It’s all relative. Have you chosen hi end options? Have they given you choices of materials? Could you do some of it yourself? Have you only had one quote?

We haven't chosen anything yet, just a "basic" quote so far. Worktops are laminate as is floor. Can't do any ourself (work full-time, kids, puppy) and yes only 1 quote so far.

Speakuptomakeyourselfheard If you don't plan on rearranging your kitchen, then I'd highly recommend having the doors and drawer fronts replaced, assuming that the actual cabinets aren't falling apart.

We're starting to think along these lines!

A family member got a quote for a new kitchen along those lines, I think it was howdens. They decided to do the IKEA DIY and said designing it was very straight forward. He’s very hands on so fitted it himself. The original company that quoted kept ringing and offering discounts after a few weeks apparently!

It seems daunting op, but about four months ago we went to magnet, got our first quote from them, and were total naive newbies. Then we did the round, ikea, homebase, b and q and had a go at DIY kitchens.
Honestly today we had to pop back to magnet to look at something and we knew more about than they did on so many items and points. I really feel like I could be a kitchen designer now because I've been to all the others.

Oh and awful howdens!

Like pp, I got totally fed up with shady del boy style pricing and went for DIY kitchens.
It's not arrived yet but they seem to have all the blum stuff, you can choose cabinet interior colours (small choice) for no extra charge.
It was very easy to create the kitchen, order it, the tool tells you what your missing, and it was about two grand cheaper for more of what I wanted than magnet.
I've got my own fitter.

@Calmdown14 Like all things there's a big cost for convenience

I think this is it. We have very little down time so rely on tradespeople to do it for us.

It isnt a cheap kitchen by any means but neither is it an expensive one. I think you'd be hard pushed to get good quality much cheaper and could pay a lot more.

Yy to just doing cupboard doors, unfortunately our carcases were too bad but so much cheaper to just replace or paint the doors.. New floor?

You can bring it down by taking out the previous kitchen by yourself (or private hired hands, NOT the ones recommended by the kitchen company). Hire a skip and rips it out. And also get the kitchen install done, again, by local private firm/electricians etc. NOT the ones that come with the kitchen company.

Sounds about right

Normal here. Cheap area in NE. My SIL just got a new kitchen in her small house and it was 21k.

Sorry OP but that sounds about right and if anything pretty reasonable. Especially for the SE. For what you describe I'd expect to pay between £15-20k depending on the appliances and work surfaces you choose.

We paid double that 14 years ago but it still is in good nick. Quality lasts well.

I'm getting my new kitchen this week. Dining room, kitchen and utility room stripped, de-tiled, a new ceiling fitting, new lighting fitting, plastering. Then new kitchen fitted (with new sink and extractor fan but keeping my fridge and oven), with square shaped worktop, new carcass, handleless doors, pull out larder and some units in the utility room. All for just shy of 8k. The only thing I haven't had priced is the flooring but I can fit that myself. Using Howdens for the kitchen and an independent joiner for the rest.

But if you can organise the trades people, you'll save money, you don't necessarily have to do it yourself - just put the time into planning (which I recommend anyway if spending that amount).
Wren did me a design with four 20cm cupboards. Bloody useless and unnecessary but easy for them. You know how you use a kitchen. The way a cupboard opens is the difference between an awkward corner and decent space. You don't want to regret it afterwards.

DIY Kitchens isn't quite as the name sounds. They have a tool to plan it and it arrives with the cabinets fully built, drawers in, fronts on etc. Our joiner was impressed.

For laminate worktops it seems high. They are a couple of hundred pounds compared to a couple of thousand for solid. Can still look good though and have the advantage that the joiner can do them too

My kitchen is significantly bigger than that and I had all new appliances literally everything, we had nothing. Ours cost less than that. But I didn’t go for the most expensive kitchen it’s mid / lower price for the range.

Ours is a similar size and with appliances will come in around £10k. It would have been cheaper but we needed some units made up to fit a tricky space and it was something Howdens couldn’t do.

I saved a lot because we are stripping the old kitchen out prior to instillation. Also didn’t go for quartz worktops etc. Weirdly the biggest inadvertent saving came when I changed my mind on the door handles I liked and swapped a set of drawers for a cupboard which knocked nearly a thousand off the price.

B&Q quoted us about £4K from memory but they were far from the same quality and flat pack which bumped their fitting costs as well.

It’s all relative really. Cheap kitchens are out there, really expensive kitchens are out there. You need to find the middle ground you’re happiest with.

Kitchen companies outsource much of their production and place a huge mark up on their products.

You will make significant savings by going even semi DIY.

Either just change the doors or

demolish the units yourself (lots of fun for all the family - skip costs about £350)

Buy the units at DIY or IKEA

snd get an independent fitter in.

John Lewis quoted me £24 k for a mid range kitchen ( and gave me their design).
I got the same kitchen made for 6k using a local joiner for the units and sourcing the granite worktop online

Take the kitchen out yourself normally doesn’t save much money - maybe half a shift and you’d still need to cover the cost of a skip regardless of who takes it out…then if you were to damage the walls removing it it would be on you to sort and not them.

You pay for quality - quality products, quality skilled tradesmen. I would recommend sourcing your own joiner/ carpenter, and get them to arrange plumper & electrician, & plasterer, companies like wren/ howdens etc normally charge a lot more.

Sounds about right as others have said. We just had ours done for a similar cost. We used DIY kitchens and didn't have loads of units to try to keep it down a bit but it still came to about 15k when we had finished with no appliances (we kept old ones). We had nice worktops though and not the bottom of the range kitchen from DIY.

We’ve just paid 7.5k for ours.
We did all of the ripping out/rubbish removal ourselves and paid a local carpenter rather than using a kitchen fitter from the kitchen company.

As others have said, getting your kitchen supplier to fit it will cost £lots more. Local trades are better.

We ripped ours out ourselves, bought custom made painted wood units, thick oak top and mostly fitted it ourselves too. Our tiler was pretty handy at plumbing, so did that for us for a reasonable price. DH did electrics. I painted walls and did basic cabinet fixing.

All that plus tiling, slate tile floors, and range master 110cm range, it cost us about £11k 3 years ago - 5m x6m kitchen. And should last as long as I do!

I got a kitchen for about 3k from a website that specialises in ex display and show home kitchens. Then paid for installation. Might be an option.

I would certainly look into reusing the carcasses you have and replacing the doors, table tops and flooring. Tiles could be taken off and renewed or if in a really “saving”mood painted over with special paint. We have a firm called Kitchen Doctor not too far away who started business just fitting kitchens only to discover that a lot of people just wanted to refresh their kitchens so changed tack.

Can you buy a used/ex display kitchen to save money?

We just got a new kitchen with Magnet. Old kitchen half skipped and half transferred to utility room. New range cooker (£2400 - induction), 2 fridge freezers and ultra quiet dishwasher (£2k) all sourced separately. Kitchen units (long kitchen - floor units 9m and wall units 5m.) came to £10k Quartz worktop £3k fitted. All other fitting costs £6k including build of utility room - incl tiling and electrics. Total cost £24k