Help me get a new kitchen for as cheap as possible

[obsessedwithinteriors]

As the title suggests, we have an incredibly tight budget for this and I can't afford to go over it. So far, it's as follows:

New Kitchen - £3,000 (DIY Kitchens)
Fitter to rip out and install new one - £750
Plasterer two days - £300
Wall Tiles - £60
Floor Tiles - £350
Decorating - husband to paint
Skirting boards - £100, husband to glue
Spotlights x 6 - £150

Still waiting for quotes to disconnect and install new appliances - do I need a plumber for this or would a handyman do?

Waiting for quotes for tiling labour

Waiting for quotes for new wall to be put up and stud knocked down.
Electrician to install new lights.

Is there anything else we can do to save money ourselves?

Thanks very much MN.

Will answer other questions later, have to put baby to bed.

We paid more than that for the plumbing. There was some gaffing with pipe work since the new pipes are unlikely to just fit exactly into the old pipes.

Your floor tiles look nice but clearly there are many far cheaper options out there.

Do you have any tesco clubcard vouchers, they're worth 3x the amount at topps tiles?

Your tiling labour costs look about right, generally more per sq m than the tiles cost.

But if you were looking to save money there are lots of nice ceramics around for about £10 per sq m

Look online for tile merchants that may be cheaper than Topps. Do you need to tile so much, or could you just have tiles behind the sink and cooker?

Look on Ebay/Gumtree and place a Wanted ad on Freecycle for kitchen carcasses. If you're keeping the layout, could you not just replace doors and worktop instead?

You could do it in phases - eg don't buy new appliances yet, or leave the upper units and painting until later (just buy doors all at the same time so they match).
Connecting appliances if in the same place isn't difficult - should be possible to do that yourself if not gas.

If you are looking at DIY kitchens, also check out unitsonline - they offer most of the same kitchens and same service as DIY kitchens but you may find them slightly cheaper (for some ranges we found DIY kitchens were cheaper, for others it was unitsonline).

Hi again,

My costs have gone up by nearly £1000!!!

Thanks for all the tips, but I don't have the time to looks for the kitchen carcasses that will be an exact fit. Besides, they will be different to the doors and panels and I think when we come to sell that will work against us.

Also, my kitchen price at £3,000 from DIY inc VAT and Delivery, I think is good value. Howdens came in at £6,000 and Magnet £7,200.

So, my costs are kitchen and fitting is now £4,000. Our fridge freezer has packed up, meaning our initial budget of £3,600 is now £4,000.

Tiles Floor - 350
Wall Tiles - £60
Plastering - £300
Knocking down and building new wall - £200
Electrician - £200 (cheapest I can get)
All tiling - £600
Paint - £36, Labour Free
Capping off an old radiator - £40

All connections/disconnections are now included in fitting

TOTAL 5786.

I think this is as cheap as I'm going to get it, note there is no rubbish removal as we are taking it all down to the tip ourselves to avoid paying £200+ for a skip.

Honestly tiling takes no talent, I've tiled loads of walls and floors. I have also laid a parquet floor (not doing that again!). Knocking down a stud wall is also easy. My sister and I did one in about two hours and that included clearing up, she had only had a baby three months before!

Really, I disagree, I've seen loads of odd cuts, wonky grout lines and I don't have a tile cutter for a start! Apparently, porcelain is quite hard to cut. I think in principle it sounds easy, but is quite a physically demanding job with a big floor area. I want a mis matched brick effect too, so would need a professional!

Yes, I agree about the stud wall, but if he's here to build the other one, might as well knock the other one down. Happy for that cost for a day's labour to knock down old one and erect new one.

Just something to be aware of, when I ordered my diy kitchen, when I went through checkout something got added on, I think it was for some sort of drilling? On my kitchen it was £400 bit I had lots of units. Keep your eyes open for it.
Good luck x

You can rent a tile cutter & most other tools for the day.