AIBU to ask how much a kitchen should cost?

[MichaelaS]

WI could spin you a tale about cowboy builders and being terribly ripped off and being left with half a kitchen and no money, but it would be a lie. I just want to find out how much kitchens cost.

We have a medium sized kitchen (big for London, normal for everywhere else. We want a new kitchen. With appliances (dishwasher, cooker, fridge). and a sink. and some worktops and cupboards. We would like it to look like it isn't entirely made out of chipboard.

We spent today going around several kitchen designers and getting quotes. I was a bit at the price. AIBU to ask how much you would expect a kitchen to cost, including fitting?

I know there is probably a section for this, but there has been some alcohol involved tonight and I can't be bothered to find it. I know IABU about that bit.

Hi all, we've moved this to our Property/DIY topic now

We're installing a new kitchen in January. We have shopped on ebay mostly and then in sales, couple of reclamation yards. We've been shopping since the summer. We bought the units/worktops/built in cooker and extractor from one guy who was removing his 18month old kitchen to fit a new bespoke thing. He just wanted it gone tbh and we borrowed a truck and collected. It's immaculate. Tiles we bought end of range from a local diy store, paint when on sale, slimline dishwasher we got from freecycle and so on...

It is costing us a grand total of about £700 all in. We'll do all the work ourselves. It will look absolutely fine I'm sure. We did the bathroom the same way (including removing the ceiling and one one wall and replacing) and spent less than £500 for what looked like (and in essence was) a brand new bathroom.

BUT we only bought this place to do up and have frig all money to spend.

thanks all. alcohol has cleared from the system now and am thinking a bit more clear-headed about it.

thanks also to MNHQ for moving this thread!

i think we'll end up buying a designed kitchen. We bought this house as a fixer upper - it is a gorgous listed georgian townhouse which had been divided into lodging rooms plus a flat for the owner. the kitchen was regularly flooding, there are mice and woodworm (hoo bloody ray. found some this morning whilst digging test pits). the ceiling height in the kitchen is about 6ft 4 and we will be digging it down by about a foot, planning permission permitting.

in the cold light of day, spending a bit more on a kitchen which suits the potential of the house (rather than our budget) will be peanuts in comparison to the costs of digging down, underpinning, and replacing sash windows. putting a B&Q style kitchen in would not fit the kind of person who would buy this house once done up I think.

so although it might mean borrowing a bit more now, it will be worth it come re-sale. that's the plan anyway. thank you all very much for your tips - I think we'll do some shopping around for the appliances certainly, and we have some ideas on the flooring too.

luckily i'm back to work after maternity in a few months, so the mortgage company might be a bit more interested in speaking to us then.

If you want a solid wood kitchen, look at these:

www.higham.co.uk/
Or
www.devolkitchens.co.uk/
Or
www.kitstone.co.uk/

Had my kitchen done 3 months ago. I chose Higham in the end. Excellent. Solid maple frame and door shaker panels (painted and handle less) with lacquered birch shelving etc.
it's beautifully made and seriously sturdy. I had a stone mason import a 40mm thick bianco Carrara marble worktop for me (standard is 20mm or 30mm but I thought it wasn't chunky enough - fussy mare) and it takes the weight of that no issue. A howdens or b&q wouldn't.

My kitchen is 9m by 4m. But only have units in part of it (5m by 3.5m) in an L shape and a large island (2.5m by 1.2m).

I didn't scrimp on appliances either but the whole lot was less than £30k all in.

I did have a quote from Plain English for same layout and similar materials which came in at £65k.

A friend has a Devol kitchen and its amazing too. Quality is good. They are also a little bit cheaper however they didn't have the fully bespoke options that higham offer.

I though kitstone/Neptune was nice too. But it's not bespoke at all and it was the most expensive out of the three. Plus a few concerns on quality. Heard of people having to send units back at installation and wait weeks for replacement.

I also saw this which I am considering for the utility room. Very cheap but would look more expensive.
www.solidwoodkitchencabinets.co.uk/?gclid=COW5nMLEn7QCFQ7LtAoddGsA6A

We've just redone our 2.5m x 4m kitchen. Ikea units, induction hob, oven, extractor fan, dishwasher and integrated microwave were £4k. Iroko wood worksurfaces from local timber merchant were £1k. We fitted the units ourselves and paid a man £300 to do a bloody good job of the worksurfaces. We were having work done on an extension so they did a bit of rejigging of electrics and plumbing at the same time to accommodate our design. I'm still arguing with them about those costs . If we had wanted installation through Ikea they would have charged us between £2.5k and £3k!

Excluding building work - knocking down structural wall, putting in a rsj and moving 2 doorways

Ikea units - 3.5k
Quartz worktops - 3.5k
Appliances - 7k - domino Hobs, oven, extractor, fridges, sinks, taps, dw
Installation - 2 k

That's 16k and excluding the wood flooring, electrics, lighting, plumbing, plastering, tiling, painting and decorating. I sourced all the items myself but my builder installed the kitchen and co-ordinated all the trades who were already on site working on the rest of my kitchen.

Research the cost of the appliances that you would like and adjust your budget accordingly is my advice! If you need to do building work, you might as well go the whole hog like we did - there is no way we could have sustained another 10k on custom built units though - we prioritised the bifold doors over that! Good luck.

Working on the rest of my house that is