Please talk to me about Kitchens, is Wickes better than B&Q? What about Kbbc ?

[runaroundstartsnow]

We have a limited budget and what a new kitchen, however everyone seems to have a horror story so i am getting a bit stressed.
Can any lovely mumsnetters give me some advice about whom to use?

Wickes is supposed to be the best quality out of the sheds or you could try their trade arm called Benchmarx. Or lots of people seem to get Howdens kitchens.

I have a very good friend who is an experienced kitchen fitter - and he says Ikea for budget kitchens.

Also, I work for a property developer who lives in a very flash house. He has an Ikea kitchen, too, albeit with an expensive worktop.

We went for Second Nature and are happy with the quality.

A good kitchen fitter is important.

Second Nature isn't particularly cheap but it was what the recommended kitchen fitter supplied.

We used Wickes last year and had no problems.The kitchen is fabulous-best room in the house.Don't get them to fit it though,it adds £1000's onto the price.I went on the Screwfix website and looked at the 'trade chat' pages.It was interesting to see how the kitchen fitters rated the various kitchens,and it also gave me a good idea how much an independent fitter would charge.We paid £250 a day for our fitter and he was amazing,so much so that he has worked for several friends and is doing the bathroom for me this year.

I love my IKEA kitchen and had a builder fit it - their stirage ideas just work!

Wickes are the devil incarnate as far as i am concerned - I waited 12 weeks for the correct toilet to be delivered and was heavily pregnant(bucket not fun!). No customer service.

Mirage, we had a quote from Wickes for fitting which came out at £1500 & said it would take about 4-5 days, which I didn't think was too bad. Having said that, our builders will be fitting ours.

We have used both B&Q & Wickes for property development. DH fitted them both, on balance DH preferred Wickes. Advantage with B&Q is that is a couple of years you can change the doors if you want to without having to change all the cupboards.

They are both a reasonable standard. However I am ruthless about quality so any issues and I am at their throats.

Thanks everyone