Feedback for low to mid-range Fitted Kitchen. Tesco? Betta Living? Ikea? Any horror story I should know about?

[MrsCrooks]

Hi ladies, the time is near when we will consider having our entire kitchen redone. L shaped style, looking for shaker style.
I have heard Tesco's now do kitchens, Any good? I also know of Ikea, of course. But at Lakeside there is also Betta Living 2 showrooms, but they insist in sending someone for a quote and can't give me a price there and there despite me bringing my plans. Is that bad news?
Budget is below £15K with top appliances, quartz worktop and installation costs.

Just marking my place...

I want to refurb our house to last 5-10 years so am interested in what is said.

Had a howdens one fitted 4 years ago (we have just moved house) and wasn't impressed. The plain cream gloss finish was FANTASTIC but the carcass build etc. were very disappointing

Yes, we were advised many time by family members to consider Howdens but the fact that you need to find your own private fitter to fit their units and you can't actually visit a Howdens showroom, as there isn't one, was a no-no. I need to see it in situ to establish if I like it. There brochure is thick full of images, but as we know, images are not always what it looks like in real life.
I also popped in Magnet but didn't like any styles, and the installation cost I was quoted was a joke! Near £4000!

We had a quote from Tesco's but decided against going with them. I wanted the whole job from start to finish but Tesco's like to install their kitchen and go. Not interested in plastering, flooring, ceiling lighting etc which is fine if you are happy to find the various trades to do the work. Quote was not significantly cheaper than any of the others we'd had either.

I see. I popped in a very posh kitchen showroom in Kings Rd just to see, and was baffled when the lady told me they do Dry Installation only, NOT Wet= meaning No appliances, sink plumbing or gas/electrics. I asked her what does it mean then? She said well, it means for any sockets, wash-machine/ sink water plumbing connection, anything that isn't units/worktop related, you are on your own and would expect to pay someone usually £150 a day to deal with it. As one knows, a plumber isn't an electrician, so you'd need to hire a few people! Not even mentioning the tiling which would need be done After units/worktop is up....Nonsense!

Spreadsheet your costs.
Building work - any room restructuring?
New glazing? New plastering? New skirting/coving? New plumbing/radiators? Plan where you want that plumbed in fridge now and if you have a kitchen island with a sink - new drainage. New wiring? Led lights and all the sockets that you could want including a pop up one for the island? New doors? Flooring and wall/floor tiling? Splash back? Extractor?
Know exactly which appliances you want - the exact model and research their prices would be a good start. Do the same with the Sinks, taps and provisionally cost the type of quartz worKtop you want via the internet. Know your budget, adjust if necessary and haggle! IMO, it's hard to beat ikea kitchen units for price/quality ratio - I used them but sourced everything else from elsewhere. I paid the joiner on site (part of a larger renovation/ extension project) to install my kitchen and utility for £1500.

To be absolutely clear, I paid my joiner £1500 to assemble and fit the ikea units and utility room work top. I paid the quartz work tops in the main kitchen to be templated and installed separately. This excluded the costs of plumbing, wiring, plastering, flooring, tiling, etc for which there were separate tradesmen to pay for but coordinated by my builder.

I agree. I have done lots of research into kitchens and are currently in the middle of installing it. Betta Living – went to visit the showroom and wasn't impressed. When you looked at the gloss doors for example, the edges of the doors were a slightly different colour. It looked cheap imo compared to some of the other kitchen design shops.

From my research – if you google Tesco kitchens (even on MN) they get very bad reviews. They are not connected to Tesco. Don't know anyone personally though who has had one. Homebase expensive, B&Q cheap looking. Howdens actually not that cheap and limited designs (in my view). General view that IKEA is very good and I had one of the old Abstrakt kitchens in my previous house and loved it. Very good quality. The only reason we didn't order from there again this time was that the new Metod range is odd sizes (i.e. cupboards and worktops are different to most other kitchen companies) and we are probably going to extend in the next 2 years and I'll probably want to re-jig / add to the kitchen rather than start all over again. The IKEA kitchen that I had before was discontinued quite quickly and I thought therefore that it was "safer" to order "normal" sized units etc. We have used DIY kitchens. The kitchen (so far) is great, customer service up until ordering was great, after sales less so. Took a week and quite a few calls to get a couple of replacement doors that were damaged. But lovely design and very good quality and (for my kitchen) only slightly more expensive than IKEA.

I have bought appliances / worktops (mixture of quartz and laminate) on-line, quartz is being fitted by quartz company and we are paying a local joiner to install the rest of it.

We got a quote from Tesco and found it ridiculously expensive. I've only heard good things about Ikea.

After a fair bit of research, I came across an excellent post on this site here on WREN Kitchens (another average budget kitchen option). I had no idea but apparently they are really bad. We learn everyday.
Some amazing brave reviews of Wren to be read and very detailed.

I have been reading various kitchen companies Facebook pages for a while now and it is amazing how many unhappy comments there is on let's say for instance Betta Living Kitchens fb page. It's nearly daily someone tells their story and it's very alarming to say the least.

I really feel now having a kitchen fitted is most probably the most cut throat business to deal with. There seem to be NO regulations about sales tactics or time line expectation goes out of windows for some companies once they get the money.
I would highly recommend anyone do their research first by googling and social media daily checks and run away if you have to.

reference post title: WREN KITCHENS. YES? NO? GOOD? BAD? (April 2013)