Kitchen advice please.

[nunnie]

We are just getting to the point in our new extension where we need to decide which company we go with for our kitchen.

So far have had a local firm do us a plan and a quote and knowing our budget crept over it by a whopping 3k.

Paid Ikea £100 for their so called design service expecting something good considering most companies do not charge for this. Anyway plan arrives in my email 7 days later in a 2d format with one view, showing an extractor hood too close to window preventing the window from being opened, no side image of all the appliances no tap on sink and interior doors in the incorrect location. Price was ok but for the above reason we will not be using them and are in the process of trying to get the £100 back.

Howdens have been they so far have been the most impressive by way of gauging what we want out of a kitchen, were here for 2 hours haven't had plan or quote yet.

Has anyone any experience with Howdens or can recommed an alternative company please.

Don't have a John Lewis budget sadly.

We spent weeks planning/tweaking our kitchen design and went to the usual suspects - Magnet, Howdens, B&Q, homebase, local independents and finally Ikea by which time, we knew what we wanted layout wise so it was relatively easy fo us to knock up a design at home on the Ikea planner and then go instore to have it checked by the kitchen dept before ordering (and we live 1.5 hrs away!). Your budget will basically determine where you buy it. Having devoured a ton of house renovation magazines and having a product designer BIL, we knew that plenty of people buy the kitchen units from Ikea and and then spend more money on the appliances/worktop which is exactly what we are doing. Just for the carcasses, Ikea was cheaper by £3+K which I easily spent on my quartz worktop. If your kitchen is part of your new extension work, fitting it should be easy for your joiner since you'll presumably have a blank canvas to work with even with stripping out your old kitchen.

Thank you for the advice. We drove to our local branch of Ikea also over 1.5hrs away only to find they would not go through the plan we had done with us to check layout etc because they offer a design service and if we needed layout advice then we would have to go with that, which we did and paid for the so called service and as they say the rest is history.

I do not intend as it stands at the moment, to buy anything for my kitchen from Ikea until the dispute is sorted. And we may be cutting our nose off etc.

Will spend today looking online at recommended kitchen suppliers from here and will get back to you on our decision.

Thank you everyone for being so helpful.

I'm thrilled to bits with my kitchen from Benchmarx, which is the trade arm of Wickes - same stuff but much cheaper (and you don't need to be trade). The chap in the Reading branch (Andy) did me a fab design. We bought our appliances from other people, and the worktop from an internet place recommended by a fellow MNetter. CAT me if you'd like to see a pic. I don't have a vested interested in Benchmarx, honest, but just want to share my good experience.

I was also going to suggest Benchmarx, not from personal experiences but from all teh recommendations I have read on here.
hobnob I have had a quote from Benchmarx for the Borrowdale units which I seem to remember you have, would you mind sending me a pic or two if I pm you?

Another to add to my list thank you. Only have a couple of weeks really to plan and choose, the builder is wanting to knock through soon so will lose my current kitchen when that happens and was hoping to have new kitchen fitted and ready for use if that makes sense. Have no idea why we have left it so late, I suppose it was because they needed somewhere to measure and quite a few won't work off the plans. Anyway I digress.

The benefit of Benchmarx is that the units are held in stock and are pre-assembled, though am sure this is the same for Howdens too.

It is the same for Howdens, so any missing parts or damaged etc can be with you in 24 hours apparently. Which is essential I suppose when you want your kitchen fitted in one go without missing doors for weeks etc. Will go through list with DH later I suppose I need to include him in the decision somewhere

Thank you for all the help and advice.

Hi.
I've just had a howdens kitchen put in and am really very pleased. They do a very wide range in terms of quality/price. We went for one of the more expensive ranges, but got the worktops and appliances elsewhere.
They were excellent at getting any extra bits sent out to us. But there is a branch very local to us which helped.
I found communication with them was good, mainly via email.

A couple of suggestions:

• make sure you are working with a fitter who is prepared to give you original quote direct from Howdens so you know that you are just paying them for the fitting and they are not taking a cut of the kitchen itself. This also makes it much easiler to negotiate the discount level and take out things that are not worth the money. Make sure you barter on the level of discount they give you. You want to be in the 75-70% range (I think).
• make sure you get them to give your fitter up to date and detailed plans. We had a couple of fuck ups that were caused by the fitter not knowing exactly what the planner had intended. Partly caused by us having slightly out of date plans and partly because some of their newer items came with shite instructions.

• I recommend getting your fitter to check over the plan before you place the order. Their planner was a bit shit tbh and had included a couple of things that were impossible in practice that we didn't spot until the fitter was here.

overall, they are certainly not cheap, but I think give a good service and my kitchen is now beautiful :)

Thank you for the advice. The quote is coming through the builder so no mark up and he isn't fitting. The fitters are very good with many years experience so I have every faith in them. I hadn't thought about passing the plan to them so thank you for that advice will definately do that. I had picked from the top range but after speaking to the planner he said unless we really wanted the wood grain finish, he would do a plan in a mid range similar colour but without the grain effect and get a cost for that, and if we felt we had enough of our budget left to upgrade then the option was there. So we are going in with that in mind.

Thank you for all the advice it's little things like this I hadn't thought about that could prove to be a bit of a natural hair dye which I really don't want.

Hello pannacotta. That would be fine.

Can I see a pic too please hobnob?

Yes thanks for the benchmarx tips, I'll look into that!

Hello nunnie. Yes, of course. PM me and I'll send them along.

Try www.paramountbathrooms.co.uk (they do kitchens and bathrooms). I've just bought a new kitchen from them and it was extremely reasonably priced and comes all made up, with doors and everything on, so saves your fitters time and you money. Doesn't cost all that much more than ikea and the quality is loads better. Email them your measurements and they'll do you a plan for free. Really highly recommended.

Got plan from Howdens and pretty impressed with layout and price, so it is looking like we will be using them. We are getting at the builders cost so no mark up. Thank you everyone for help and advice.

He included all the top of the range items like sink so we didn't need to upgrade. All drawers etc are cushion close.

Thank you once again.

Nunnie - can I ask how you got a plan from Howdens? Did your builder get it for you?

I am possibly able to do my kitchen now rather than in a few years as I expected. Totally clueless where to begin!

My builder made the appointment, he measured and chatted with him, then came in with catalogue and free cookery book and talked for 2 hours with me. Went off and did a plan which he emailed to us (video plan) then the hard copies and quote are given to builder (usually) we went to chat and collect ours because our builder allowed Howdens to deal with us as he isn't adding anything on their quote.

Oh that sounds good. The person I want to use to fit it is a great tradesman, but he isn't an ideas man, so it will be really helpful if I can talk to someone myself.

If he has an account get him to contact them (even if he doesn't he can get one very easily) they don't deal direct with you in terms of cost, but for planning they do. My local depot have been great (can only comment on my local one) very helpful, they are salesmen so they do have their speal but you will get that anywhere. We got a few plans done to get an idea of what cost is and what we really wanted as we didn't really have a clue and it was a complete blank canvas.

It does help to have more than one, then you can mix and match what you like.

Hope it all goes ok.

Thanks. I've ordered brochures from them and Benchmarx so I can have a look. I'm totally clueless pricewise too. I suppose I'll just have to pick what I like, discover that I have been totally unrealistic and then adjust down to my budget!

Have you tried home base, they quoted almost half what habitat did for the same custom made kitchen.

Just decided to do it this afternoon, so am all at sea! Would you recommend Homebase, Ghana? Did they come out and give advice?

Would recommend, it's not in all there stores, but they do a range of custom made kitchens by a company called odina which also do same range for habitat. They do 3d design drawings will come round measure up to ensure correct fit plus lovely designs

Thanks, Ghana.

I am busy collecting brochures at the minute, I picked up a Homebase one today, so I'll take a look at that now.

my-kitchen.howdens.com/plan/gbD6505010002Nma/

This was the Howdens design that we got back. Impressive video feature.

Price was very good in my opinion alot of kitchen for the money.

Have decided after seeign this video that the flooring looks a bit to dark so have gone for a lighter flooring option.