Kitchen advice needed!

[Mughalswife]

Has anyone had a Daval kitchen? And if so, are you happy with it?

I am really rather kitchen clueless. How many kitchen companies is it normal to approach/get quotes from?

We had a design drawn up, which I'm reasonably happy with. But I feel very unsure about the style of kitchen to go for. My husband keeps saying he likes 'country style' kitchens, not realising that what he means is shaker style. He's even more clueless than me. If it was up to him we would just agree a price, then choose any thing in any colour, with no thought to how we use the kitchen or what works for us.

Watching with interest, our local fitter is quoting for a Daval matt handleless kitchen and I have no clue if they're any good!

I've heard they are very good. We haven't approached them as we know it would be way out of our price range. They look fantastic from what I've seen in the brochure. I love country style kitchens too.

I keep getting confused when I google as there is also DeVol which is seriously out of our price range! Daval seems to be our local kitchen suppliers standard range, but the catalogue does look lovely.

Whoops! I was referring to DeVol, sorry!

I agree, Ilovetosleep, the brochure is lovely.

I have found it impossible to find any reviews of them on here or anywhere.

Not sure if I like country style or shaker style - something inbetween, I think.

I'm not sure what the difference is between country and shaker?! We're looking at a slightly different style to you, We're choosing between the handleless Salcombe or DK45. However in my dream home I would choose the shaker Bramham. Its just not quite the right look for this house sadly.

We have just ordered Devol, arrives in March. After lots and lots of research we decided that they are probably the best quality and finish within that price range. I went to the London showroom and the designers have been great.

Oops as you were.. You were talking about Daval..

My understanding of country style is that it's more old-fashioned - kind of arched grooves within the door shape - and not very 'in' at the moment (could be wrong). And shaker is more clean plain lines.

We got a quote for Bramham today, ilovetosleep. Unfortunately it's just too expensive. But interesting that you felt it wasn't the right look for your house as I have been wondering about that too. We live in a village in the countryside and I feel that an in-frame wooden look is kind of suited to this location. But the house was built in the '80s - so it's not like we live in a chocolate boxy twee cottage suited to wooden kitchens with an Aga etc. On the other hand, an up-to-date slab front gloss kitchen doesn't seem to fit with the green meadows we can see outside the window. A very first-world problem...

Do you like the Matt handleless designs? The salcombe for example? My kitchen fitter told me this week that salcombe and dk45 are the cheapest by far from the catalogue

Oh that's interesting. I like them but I'm not sure they will look right here. I feel a bit frustrated with the local showroom as they didn't seem very interested in allowing us to browse through loads of doorstyles. I like to weigh up the options slowly. (Too slowly).

Go on google images and have a look at some kitchens together, identify what floats your boat and maybe save some images or print some off - there's also magazines.

Then you can approach whichever company you go for with a solid idea of what you want.

By the way modern kitchens can look fantastic in a traditional setting.

We have a Victorian house and everything's quite original, lovely fireplaces and mouldings and so on - it doesn't mean we don't have a modern kitchen - just keep it quite basic and it will be fine. The two styles really can gel quite nicely.

What about this sort of design - these are solid wood, but it's a kind of modern/traditional compromise. You don't have to have an orange sink and you could have a wooden worktop instead of sparkly.

I do like that! I've seen similar looking things on Handmade Kitchens. Am leaning towards wooden worktop. I didn't know you could get different colour sinks like that.

ours was hand made but it was done by a local carpenter, a lovely young chap who did the whole lot in a few days and including materials it was about £700.

It fits the space we have perfectly, though our kitchen is tiny, so it needed something a bit more adaptable than the standard units or we would have wasted a lot of space. So it's built to fit.

It's simple but it's all wood.
The sink was from an outlet that sells random kitchen bits - it's Astracast, I'm not sure if they make these colours any more but I'm sure someone does.
I hope you get something you really like.