Kitchens - Recommendations

[mothersandsons]

Hi. We are in the process of collecting quotes for our kitchen. When we went to our local Wren showroom, the designer was very keen to show us how their product was superior to Magnet, Howdens and John Lewis.

The confusion started after we read the Which? Review where Wren have been rated as the lowest.

We would really value peoples' experiences and recommendations. Thank you.

They are all very similar. We did loads of research, spoke to a couple of kitchen fitters and friends with new kitchens. Ended up going for the B+Q flat pack kitchen as the carcasses are the same as the more expensive range, and our kitchen fitter was able to build all the units in a day. He was very impressed with the quality!

I was coming on to say not B&Q. Ours was Cooke and Lewis their premium range and was ok when fitted and for the first year or so but 5 years on can already see too many marks, scratches and doors lopsided from cheap hinges which no longer soft close. It looks well used and old but we aren't hard on it. Previous kitchen was over 20 years old and lasted better.

Hate it now, but will be a few years before we can replace. Might consider changing the doors/worktop because the carcasses (wood effect are ok).

BrokenWing, sorry to hear of your experience with B&Q. We would probably avoid them.

Has anyone had experiences with Magnet, Wren, Howdens or John Lewis in the past year?

Try the online companies- vastly superior to those brands you mentioned. Do a search for DIY Kitchens or Units Online on here to see all the recommendations (have personally used both).

I had a fairly cheap Homebase kitchen fitted 15 years ago in a rental property and it's still in good condition. We had a quite expensive Magnet kitchen in our last house, it's ok but no better than the cheaper one from Homebase.

We used DIY Kitchens for our current kitchen, the units come assembled, they're better quality than the likes of B&Q, Howdens, Homebase etc. and there's more choice of cabinet sizes. I'd definitely recommend DIY Kitchens.

Re Howdens, I found the customer service in our local show room shocking. I was completely ignored by the staff whilst they chatted with various tradesman. Also the price quoted for the exact same kitchen varies depending on the % discount your tradesman can get.

Whereabouts are you based OP? I’d say that Wren / Howdens / Benchmarks (which is Wickes pre-assembled) are not great quality and haven’t heard a lot of good reviews about service. I was really shocked at the poor quality in John Lewis.....not at all what I’d expect of them but the kitchens in the local (Wycombe) store were de-laminating and looked really cheap. I’ve experience of the online places as we looked at them when we did our kitchen extension and the quality is def better than all aforementioned and cheaper for what you get BUT there is no design service so you are totally on your own when it comes to speccing it all out and I didn’t want to go down that road. Note that Units Online quality is inferior to DIY Kitchens and I am still (months on having finished my kitchen) waiting for a response from Units Online regarding some questions I had about their quote (they took 2 weeks to reply to my first enquiry). Have you tried local smaller businesses? We got ours (after much searching) from a company called Rosewood Kitchens (near Slough) and couldn’t be happier. Recommended them to lots of people who are happy too! I preferred them because it’s a small business so the service is way better (you don’t feel like you’re on a conveyer belt) and we got to spend ages refining the design with the designer who was fab. The actual kitchen is lovely and gets lots of compliments. I know (from my months of research) that it’s better quality than all the rest of the above companies and really good value for money and way cheaper than I thought for what we got! Good luck!
PS Might be worth a look....? www.rosewoodkitchens.co.uk

I weigh it up and went to a small, local firm. They arranged everything and I am absolutely delighted. You don’t pay the balance for six weeks in case there is a snagging list. You pay when you are completely satisfied. How is that for customer service? The lads were on time, polite and swept up each day before leaving.

DIY Kitchens are very good for quality but delivery can be patchy. We have had 2 kitchens from them in the past 3 years (2 houses, not because we had to replace the first!). First time they were great, second time, very recently, they screwed up 2 things on the order and then gave me duff info re when they would be delivered. And delivery always seems to be very late at night for us. They did sort out the issues with no quibbles, but would have been better if they'd got it right in the first place!

I would avoid Wren. Not because I have any personal experience with the quality myself but I used to work in a role which had me closely associated with their finance company and I experienced so many unhappy Wren customers on that end.

littlemisssunshine your post is not correct that Units Online / DIY Kitchens don't offer a design service. They do - from memory, the Units Online design service is £200 (might be £100) which is deducted from the cost of your order when you proceed.

I also don't agree that Units Online is inferior - not my experience at all.

We are also getting quotes for kitchens at the moment mothers. We are awaiting a quote from magnet and had a pretty good experience at Ikea the other day. I want to try DIY kitchens, but if is quite scary, especially as we're right at the beginning of the extension building stage.
I went in to Wren on my own and they refused to look at my plans because I wasn't there with my husband and would therefore not be putting a deposit down .... I went back in and told them we wouldn't put a deposit down today with or without my husband and asked for a breakdown of costs. We have definitely ruled them out now though.
Who are rated highest by Which? Have you looked at Ikea?

@namechangedtoday15 My apologies I stand corrected on the Units Online Design service. As I said previously I found their response time poor so I never got that far with them! I sent them a full and comprehensive list of components and it took weeks for an (incomplete) response. Subsequent follow ups for information from them were unsuccessful. Regarding their quality in comparison to DIY they are cam and dowelled whereas DIY are rigid glue and dowelled. DIY definitely don’t offer design but if you’re prepared to take this on then I’ve heard good things about DIY.

@Littlemisssunshine Like I said, I've personally had kitchens from both (I suppose it depends on the kitchens you buy, our kitchen from Units Online was a Burbidge kitchen) the quality of both suppliers was very good.

Oh yes Burbidge do a lovely range of doors......When I mentioned quality I guess I was just talking about the cabinet construction as Units Online and DIY make their own cabinets. I’m sure that Units do supply lovely kitchens but my point was that the DIY method of glue and dowel is just a better quality, more solid method of construction in comparison. Interestingly DIY have even stopped using third party kitchen components suppliers (like Burbidge and PwS) and now use their own ‘house brand’ Innova for all their kitchen components (except metalwork).

Thank you, ladies. Our experience so far...

• Wren: the chap kept on and on about how great their units were incomparsion to the others...
• Magnet: great designer but not sure about the rest of the company
• Howdens: 2x designers (different locations) who couldn’t really to asked and one hinted at potentially offering different discounts

Scared to source everything online, despite knowing exactly what I want - fearing the we haven’t got what we need from the builders. Will definitely have to woman up and go for it probably!

JL were rated in the low 90s with Howdens and Ikea rated in the high 70s... Interesting?!