Harvey Jones Kitchens, or and other kitchens.

[PureQuintessence]

I want a beautiful modern shaker style or traditional good quality kitchen.
Any recommendations?

I've just had a Simon Benjamin kitchen fitted to our new extension. It is amazing quality. We went for a very modern style with flat front cupboards, no handles in a gloss finish. I chose the paint colour myself from the Dulux range. The cabinets are made from oak, and this alongside the gloss looks fantastic. I have to stress the craftsmanship of the cabinets - proper joints and really solid.

I looked at Plain English, Harvey Jones and JL of Hungerford. They didnt match the quality and I found the people at Simon Benjamin really pleasant to deal with - I felt like I mattered to them and wasn't just a job number.

I'm having the floor tiled and then Simon is going to photograph our kitchen, so will be on their website soon. Have a look - I highly recommend them.

I originally wanted a Harvey Jones Kitchen but after the design meeting it turned out over budget at £28,000 and that was with £7,000 discount. Went away and looked at Fired Earth, Neptune and a local experienced cabinetmaker and most of them came in at around the £20,000 mark, that was in budget. I was disappointed as I absolutely love Harvey Jones Kitchens but philosophical. Neptune isn't cheap either and the cabinets are made in China so quality, longevity??? Looks great in the showroom but serious concerns there. Using a local cabinet maker can also be very expensive. Well surprise surprise had a phone call from the very nice chap at my local Harvey Jones telling me that they would still love to do my kitchen and they were now offering me 40% off. With a bit of tweaking and compromising (not having baskets and losing a run of draws etc), but still keeping the gorgeous larder cupboard, they managed to get the quote down to less than £18,000 fully fitted and painted and including VAT. I couldn't believe it, so thrilled. Will have to pay a deposit of £1,000 to secure the offer but we can have it whenever we want. Shop around and stick to you budget and you may get the kitchen of your dreams. Its a buyers market out there!

We also eventually got the offer of a 40% discount after repeatedly telling Harvey Jones that no, we didn't want to put down a £1000 deposit just yet. Could it be a coincidence it was the end of the month and presumably someone had sales targets to meet?

Unfortunately for them, we'd become so fed up of the hard sell (five calls in two weeks, increasingly desperate to make the sale, going on and on about how great their product was and how poor their competitors' were) that we'd had enough of them and said no.

Yes agree it is the end of the month they must have targets to meet. I never felt we had the "hard sell" but they certainly kept in touch! I'm just pleased because I get the kitchen I wanted in budget. It's a shame that they didn't offer me such good value initially so in that respect I do feel a bit manipulated and actually I think that puts them in a bad light and seem a bit unprofessional, but I got the result I wanted in the end so happy.