Lordy, the price of kitchens!

[Peanut15]

We've been getting quotes for our new house to have new kitchen. It's not massive - 3.2m x 2.7m with units on 3.25 sides of that. I've done houses up before and always got kitchens fairly cheaply - but I've always gone for the basic range.

This time we want something a bit nicer so have been going for the mid range. We're looking at howdens, benchmarx and buildbase as we have trade accounts with them. Even with the trade accounts just the units are coming in at £8k. By the time we've added on the building work, new tiles and paint, white goods and work tops it's going to be extortionate.

We had 20k as a budget in mind. Was I really far out? Building wise there's a wall (non load bearing) being removed between the breakfast room and kitchen leaving us a kitchen diner. The diner area just needs floor and paint. The ceiling in both rooms will need replastering.

Do I need to radically alter my budget?!

Well you could do it that way - or you could stick to your budget but keep shopping around ?! There's many kitchen places offering all sorts of deals - find one that works for you ! :-)

Go online! Places like DIY-kitchens and pricemykitchen are a fraction of the shed costs, and the quality is good. Our kitchen is a German make - Schuller - has two 5m runs, full of expensive extras like pull-out cupboards and drawers and lacquered doors, and was 7k total. You don't get a design service, so take responsibility for your own measurements, but quality and price are in another league I found!

Find a chippy and get a kitchen from Howdens. We paid 8k and would've halved it had we done that.

Shop around!

Plasterers are expensive generally, especially skilled ones.

Ikea is another option.

Like the suggestion of online ones - I'll have a look into that, thanks.

The howdens quote was 7k - that is trade prices! I have a good kitchen fitter to use. I was surprised it was so high. We probably need to go for cheaper units. Although we only went mid range not high end.

Ikea? Ours was 2k.

And it's nice. And if it dates in another 10 years, we'll get a new one (and just because you get a more expensive kitchen doesn't mean it won't date).