Refurb tips welcome

[aivijo]

We've bought a house that needs a refurb (only the bathroom is decent)! Can anybody recommend where to find reasonably priced kitchens and also fitted wardrobes/slide robes? Where to buy cladding to make a chimney breast look like exposed brick? Tips for removing a very dark stain from beams so they can be made to look an oak colour?

Beams you should find a dip n strip place. Yell.com or google will get you that. They can take beams back to their natural state.

Wardrobes I'd got with Ikea and consider a kitchen from there also. B&Q aren't great for kitchens and magnets do good ones but don't get your worktop from there regardless of what they say. Generally they are. It deep enough.

I love my b and q kitchen and a great price . Trying to fake exposed brickwork wont that just look naff

Thanks! Think we need a trip to ikea. Never heard of dip n strip I'll google that! Seen some amazing fake brick fireplaces on Pinterest and found this website tonight www.fernhillstone.com/html/ideas_fireplace.html

For our kitchen we used Evokitchens due to mumsnet recommendations. The quality was better than what we had been looking at in high street shops. The service we had was great and the design they provided us with was better than the shops as couldn't offer the same, this included our bespoke sized units.

For our chimney breast we used natural 'real' stone cladding from Cladding which looks really nice and they offer external corners too which many companies don't.

For our wardrobes we had spaces on either side, like inglenooks, so we got the internal carcass off the kitchen company so we could self build and then we purchased the sliding glass doors off ebay. We saved quite a lot doing it this way.

We used diy kitchens. You need to do the design yourself and take responsibility for measuring. They can make changes to the units (eg door configuration) but not fully bespoke. We ordered extra door and our builder made our boiler and laundry cupboards.
No recommendations for the others. our built in wardrobe is currently a freestanding ikea clothes rail

Ikea kitchens for me, really flexible and I love the online planner. Ikea pax is also pretty good for fitting into awkward spots, comes in a variety of widths and colours.

Another DIY kitchens here (currently going in!). We have wallpapered a chimney breast with a brick effect mural, which was about £40. It's painted white brick effect. Doesn't look "real" (not intended to), but does look nice, I think. Our house came with more fitted cupboards than we could possibly ever need, so can't comment on the wardrobes.