So what do I do now?

[Twiglett]

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will ask when he gets back from France (has taken my sister to meet his mother... yikes!).
how big is your kitchen?

Our kitchen is Smallbone, it was here before we were. I didn't belive it as lots of estate agents say "Smallbone kitchen" when they mean Smallbone-stylee. I needed new drawer knobs so phoned them with the previus owner's name and they had it on file! Could have knocked me down with a feather as the layout is crap!

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The kitchen in my previous place was Smallbone's - it had the little label on the inside of the cupboard doors. The cabinets were lovely, solid wood, but the layout wasn't that great.

I bought pine cabinets from Ikea (now discontinued) and painted them myself (or rather, dh did) and they do look very nice. I asked one of the nice handmade kitchen people to come round and they did a quote and design for nothing. Now, what was their name...? Plain and Simple, something like that. Lovely stuff, and certainly nothing like £40K (gulp).

didn't someone post recently (an architect/designery type person)about how they always recommended ikea units as they're pretty sturdy and do what they say on the can? and then you could get a local craftsman to do the doors. our ikea stuff (including extractor fan/sink/taps/wooden worktops) cost £1,000, plus another £1,000 to fit it.

Yes, must say that the quality of the units, drawers etc is very good, solid wood is really good and the design hasn't really dated.

Twiglett, my sister's boyfriend the cabinet maker says he would take on a job in Dulwich. You can email him on [email protected] or me via CAT.
HTH

His name is Marco, BTW.