New kitchen shopping/money saving tips please

[papillonrouge]

We are currently planning our new kitchen diner and utility room. I have spent hours searching the MN archives and have already picked up so many helpful tips around planning, what works/what doesn't etc. What I need now is shopping advice...

I am pretty ok with my options for kitchen units but am slightly confused by the hundreds of places you can buy sinks, appliances, worktops, taps, light fittings, flooring etc. How did you all do things...get everything from your kitchen supplier? Shop around and get everything from lots of different places? Any cheap online retailers you would recommend? And any other money saving tips when shopping for a new kitchen?

I was hoping to complete the project this year but am already so bogged down by choice I feel it may take me ten years! Thanks in advance.

I feel your pain in thinking it will take at least ten years to sort through all the options! I have moments of feeling inspired by how great our kitchen could be and then other times it feels so overwhelming making all these choices.

I guess the best bit of advice is find a great kitchen fitter. Someone recommended, whose work you can see and is very patient and open to your plans changing as you start researching and visiting different suppliers. An independent fitter will also be loads cheaper than any installation service.

I would visit lots of showrooms for ideas and talk to different designers about your plans. If you get an all in quote from your kitchen supplier for sink, taps etc make sure you have an itemised quote. We were shocked at the prices one of the main retailers wanted to charge for a sink and tap and don't get me started on their appliance costs!

You can save money either on what you buy or how you buy it. And it depends how much DIY you are up for both in planning and installing.

I have just done my kitchen on a tight budget. I did get everything from separate suppliers and fitted by a carpenter. I would say it's quite a lot of work, I shouldn't have tried to mix and match Ikea for a start, I had to explain everything to him and do a lot of sketches. There were several months as the various items and appliances gathered in our garage.

Obvious ways to save are to pick a style from a cheaper range, don't go for granite worktops and loads of fancy fittings, or prioritise which of these you really want and economise elsewhere. Try to simplify the design, re-use what you can, don't move services/sockets unless you have to.

Interesting article here on the cost of (practically the same) kitchen from different sources, in fact this blog is a mine of information. (Bring on Majjie for an MN live chat, I say).

You just must shop around - i searched the internet for the best prices for appliances - and read lots of reviews so we didn't get the cheapest, or most expensive, but value for money. Also ensure warranties for expensive things like the worktops and floors were good - made us feel happier about spending the money.

We got around 7 different quotes for the kitchen - price difference was incredible!!!!!!! In the end we got some things thrown in for free. I spent hours driving to different floor, granite, showrooms etc but we have easily got the kitchen for 3/4 of what it could have been .....and more if we'd just bought the first thing we saw. e.g upstands in some places were more than twice the price in most places.

Ebay for bargain taps too!

Thanks for all the advice so far - some really great tips. That website looks really good fossil - just reading through it now. Had a trip to a kitchen designer today and we're still no where near where we want to be so trying to get that nailed down before we do much more detail.

fossil - did you use Majjie's service? It seems like quite a good idea to me and fairly cheap in the grand scheme of buying a new kitchen. Just wondered if you had thought it worth the money.

No I was really tempted and think it would have been good value (and very inspiring) but once I had typed 2 A4 sheets of what I wanted I thought I had better just design it myself! I combed through all her pages for hints.

I do think that where you get the kitchen from is far less important than how well it's designed and laid out for you and your room, and a lot of suppliers have tunnel vision about using only their own range of off the shelf components. It's actually very easy to cut down/ adjust/customise/mix and match the standard cabinets if someone has the idea to do it.

I think it would be a mixture of both
no point having a crap quality kitchen and a good design if wanting to last, and no point having a crap design with a bespoke kitchen.
get the best quality kitchen for you for durability and the best function that works for you with the look you require and you'll be happy to be in work in and look at every time