Kitchens in MQs

[summersea]

I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much from my MQ, so I'd be really grateful for other peoples experiences.

The kitchen in our MQ is dire, it's over 25 years old (confirmed by MODern), the doors are all chipped, worktop chipped, the wooden base and side panels are all warped etc. But MODern have advised that it's classed as 'servicable' and so there is no chance of replacement. They've tried their usual bodge jobs of attempting to glue various bits back together!

We had a supervisor guy round, he advised that before our move in, he had requested a replacement kitchen, but this was turned down due to lack of finances.

So, I don't know if I'm expecting too much, I feel like giving up. What are your kitchens like in your MQs?

Thanks!

Our last quarter (major in a Lt Col) was a 50s kitchen and still 'servicable' apparently.

Before we left, the first house in the square had a brand new kitchen (still not that great) but I actually fell in love with our brown and beige cupboards and quirky alcoves/pipes to dry your knickers on etc.

Perhaps you could try and get them to pay out for new doors/kick boards if not the whole kitchen.

I really don't know why they don't get a contract with Ikea. I'm sure it'd be way cheaper.

Mine is awful - paint peeling from ceiling and fascias(sp) coming off the cupboards. It also has that horrid yellow lino down which gets very slippery when it's wet.
I have one drawer, however I do have a fair bit of work space, but not a lot of cupboard space

For about 3 months we had no floor!
It was literally hairy chip board that harboured bugs and germs and dust. Then (guess what?) they laid it wrong so that within 6 months, every single nail had come through the lino (which was as think as cling film).

The DE guy (Dangerous Dave ) came and 'assessed' it and said they weren't nails, they were bits of glue

Can you imagine how lovely the MQs would be if forces wives ran the show

and how much money we could save Dave?

Thanks for your responses. I just get so bloody fed up with the tatty old kitchen and trying to keep it clean!

MODern said to try the HIC, they said it's up to MODern, so I don't know what to do.

We have managed, after many phone calls, emails and letters, to get them to replace the worn and fag burnt carpets in some rooms so I may try again - replacing the doors and kick boards sounds like a good compromise, if I can persuade them!

Hods of cash .

summersea - DE and Modern housing problems are always passing the buck, that way nothing gets done at all. So realisticaly they should have shit loads of money, but they don't

To be honest though - the cabinet frames may not be good enough to attach new doors to! You can but try though

we tried to get DE (dangerous dave again) to measure for some new lino in downstairs loo as it was lifting up near the sink and was dangerous, as well as being at least 20 years old!

He came and measured up and put it on the list...........6 months later, we moved out with the same lino. I should have in hindsight, have 'tripped over on it' and put a claim in - that would have hurried them along a bit.

I've been saying for ages that if Dave streamlined Defence estates (and OFSTED, but that's another thread) he'd save thousands, hundreds of thousands actually.

For a start they could stop wasting money getting mHS to ring me up or knock on my door to ask how the contractor did when he fixed the loo seat(or whatever job he/she was doing).
"on a scale of 1 to 10 mrs saltire, with 1 being crap unacceptable and 10 being excellent".
has anyone ever given a 10?

Don't mention kitchens

our bathroom is bigger than our kitchen

It is so small we can only fit me,dh and dd (5) in - if I want to work in kitchen with DS in with me he has to be in his pram - no room for anyone else.

Back door through kitchen is currently only way in/out of house with pram as rest of house is so small compared to previous 1/4 we can't use the front door as the piano is currently living in the hallway at bottom of stairs so no way to get past unless you are slim and do the "shimmy" to get past

oh and it is old with no work surface space either - I love cooking but dread trying to do anything "fancy" as there is no space

yes my bathroom is bigger than the kitchen.
Only a space for washer and slimline fridge. No more than 2 people in kitchen at anyone time and smoke alarm has been placed above the cooker and goes off when I use the hob or boil the kettle.

All designed by men IMHO.

I didn't Dave Cameron Saltire - I meant the DE guy who was 'in charge ' at our last posting.

should have read 'I didn't mean Dave cameron'

I love my house. We are in Paderborn at the moment and I am dreading of leaving the house. When we first got here we were like kids in a candy story. Everything is clean, modern, nice, spacious. Its like a hotel. Moving in a few months back to England so guess we will be back to what you have described. Ahhh, it was nice whilst it lasted :) (:

Our old mq kitchen was bad. It was so bad that they had let the last people who lived in it paint it-peach!! There was a huge wall cupboard which was bigger than others so I guess it had been replaced at some point but it was In such bad shape that when I opened it one day the whole thing came off the wall and almost knocked me out. The wood where fixings were had disintegrated. Dh was fuming as ds was only weeks old. I'm lucky I wasny holding him etc .
The tiles were either miss matched or missing. We dis however have brand new flooring and cooker.

That was 4 years ago. All of the mq's have been completely modernised since.

Our current MQ kitchen is rank.

Prob about 20 years old I'd guess, all cupboard doors chipped and hanging at odd angles, none of the drawers run smoothly.

We even have torn lino on the floor which I know I could get replaced but can't face having to move the fridge, washing maching and dishwasher out into the hall when it should have been done before we moved in.

Well Focus do a nice line in stick on lino tiles, used them in downstairs loo. And screw fix direct do cheap cabinet doors. We put our own doors into one MQ kitchen and it made a massive difference to our "morale"! everyone who visited thought it looked great. The worktop was the give away! I always change loo seats too. Somethings are just not worth waiting for MHS to sort out.

I'm with Huffy on that one I'd much rather just get DH to get on and do bits and bobs myself, it's amazing how and avocado bathroom suit can be transformed by swapping the white plastic loo seat for a wooden one! And we've just painted one kitchen wall a similar colour to the bar just there ^ that says add message here, it looks fantastic, the dodgy kitchen cupboards are hardly noticeable anymore, will take a few coats of magnolia on march out though!

i have a new kitchen, but we aren't in the uk. it was put in a couple of months ago. the one before that had been there since the house was built though - i'm guessing about 40 years? it did have a new cooker in about 1975 though.

it was the second time they had come to renovate the kitchen. the first time they took everything out, then realised the new kitchen didn't fit, so put the old stuff back in again. so we had the same kitchen, only now it leaked as well where they had to replumb everything...

we had to live in the house whilst they renovated though. three weeks with no kitchen, (including sink) or washing machine (it was on the same electrical circuit), and only a teeny bathroom sink to wash up in. they gave us a two ring electric table top burner to use on the dining table, whilst the contents of our entire kitchen was piled around the house. the two ring burner could not maintain a simmer. it took me 45 minutes to cook plain pasta. after the kettle had boiled the water first. we live an hour and a half round trip from the nearest restaurant/ fast food outlet. oh, and the fridge was in the dining room as well, with the (obviously unusable) cooker.

be careful what you wish for.

MrsTickle always paint a coat of white before you do the magnolia - it covers much better and you then need fewer coats.

I also change the loo seats - leave the MQ ones in garage and whack back on on march out.

We sometimes take off doors too, if they're weirdly fitted and make it hard to get round corners etc.

I spoke to a friend at new year who said her neighbour (in every quarter) gets a company to take up the carpet and lay a laminate floor through the hall! That's the most ambitious make over I've ever heard in an MQ. They have dogs though so I guess it's easier. My friend said their house looks amazing though.

Wow! Laminate floors! Don't think I could be bothered to go that far. But I did buy a Bissel carpet cleaner that I use all the time, also have dogs. This is fine in our current quarter with relatively new carpets. But in our old quarter with fully "lifed" 7 year old ones, they kept lifting up. Then at march out we were told they'd been extended to 11 years. Money is tight. I am lucky in my current quarter it's in reasonable nick and the carpets are new and matching! I haven't painted a quarter yet. Might do this one. I love going is other peoples identical quarters and seeing how different they look.

You can actually lay laminate floor over the existing carpet, I've known people to do this.