Talk to me about Freestanding Kitchens...

[greedygoose]

It's a complicated planning permission story...
We need to put in a freestanding kitchen in a room
so it could be changed back into another room if needs be! I know John Lewis and Habitat do them, how do you plan etc? Any help gratefully received.

We have a Habitat one. It's bloody marvellous - all nice quality wood etc, and we didn't really plan at all, just got what we thought we needed and shoved it round the room till we were happy. We tiled the whole room first, so no floor edging problems, and we paid someone to put the units together (it comes flatpacked) which made life a lot easier.

Only downside is that Habitat have discontinued the particular range we bought, so our vague plans to extend the kitchen are scuppered in terms of matching units. But actually that doesn't really matter - I like the idea of other cabinets/dressers etc in amongst it.

Ikea do them too.
My friend has one and it looks fab.
Her husband built it, not too difficult.

I have had 2 habitat ones- great and a bargain. We got granite tops made for some units.

Only downsides may seem odd

They come on contents not buildings insurance and so bear that in mind.

Twice when we sold the surveyors detracted them from house valuation as not fixtures and fittings. Wasn't a problem as they met valuations without them but blurb from survey was clear they were excluded.

Have seen these at a home show: Freestanding Kitchen Company

Have to say I love the idea of one but our room is too small I think.

I know this is a 'how long is a piece of string' question
how much do they cost compared to fitted kitchen?

I have one run of fitted units under two windows with sink, and the remainder is free standing. Works for us and is the best of both worlds.

Fired earth do them I think as looked round a house that had one. It looked great but far less storage than a fitted kitchen, if I had bought the house I would have sold the units and put in a fitted kitchen!