Anyone getting a new kitchen in 2020?

[skippy67]

If so, are you up for a support thread? I'm equally excited and terrified at all the decisions, I'll have to make!

Hello! Does anyone have a Roux Kitchen?

We had a first look at kitchens today (not quite at the full planning stage yet) and fully intended to stick to a modest budget, Howdens or maybe DIY kitchens... but then we went into Homebase and absolutely loved the Roux kitchen in there. Of course it's by far the most expensive one in the bloody shop 🙈

Everything else just seems very dull, boring colours (with the exception of Wren which has some comically garish brights ) I suppose we might get sick of a "statement" colour so maybe I should think again about neutrals.

@polarisation

My fitters did the decorating (after units had gone in)

Depending on condition your kitchen is in you may be able to freecycle it.

In my effort to save some costs I (admittedly with help of my dad!) dismantled 80% of existing kitchen which I freecycled all of. Ripped up laminate and removed existing tiles. Sold washing machine and made it a condition they disconnected it!

Saved me a few hundred £ and also meant I didn't need to get a skip and managed with a few trips to the dump in my car!

You may also be able to sell your old kitchen. People sell them on FB.

@PenelopeFlintstone my reaction was similar

@polarisation that’s brilliant. It sounds quite cathartic too. I think I’d quite enjoy dismantling the kitchen.

Unfortunately the previous kitchen (original to 25yo house) was "enhanced" by the previous owners... Think removing drawers and screwing the drawer fronts to the top of the cupboard doors to make bigger cupboards, removing the cupboard bases so you can store things directly on the kitchen floor, extending the house through the middle of the kitchen and filling the gap with IKEA units of a different depth... I can't believe it's taken us 5 years to get round to sorting it because it's a mess!

I wondered about taking it out ourselves, the quote we have is for £300 for labour and then £160 for disposal which I'm happy to accept as a laziness charge on my part! I also thought about painting it ourselves afterwards and then remembered that if I'm currently 20 weeks pregnant then I'm definitely not going to be fit for painting by the time we actually get round to this!

An extremely negative experience, I was charged £480 for their design service having seen an image of one of their kitchens in a magazine. Having paid I was told the kitchen I saw was not included in their design service as it was bespoke...? I attempted to recreate the look but was left to flounder as the 'designer' was seemingly inexperienced and offered no assistance on how to create the look of the kitchen I wanted which was one of theirs. I asked for the name of the designer of the actual kitchen, called her to ask for help but she did not return my call. This was a couple of weeks ago so I could not see any of their kitchens in the flesh either thanks to lockdown but they cared little about my needs and made no allowances, I was made to feel like a problem customer. Eventually I decided on a design by looking through their copious marketing images but was then told that I had exhausted the 4 allocated hours of 'design' so would have to pay for the kitchen upfront if I wanted to see the design. I've since complained and received no direct response, only PR stunt postings on social media. I would definitely avoid this company, its all show and they cared very little about customer service in this instance. I have since used the free design service at Ikea which was excellent and Neptune who charge FAR less and refund the costs on purchase entirely, they also give you unlimited time and the franchise I used provided a highly-skilled designer who actually told me what would fit where and offered expert advice, the service I paid for but did not receive at Naked.

Sorry skipped the top! This is about the hideous time I had with NAKED Kitchens who were awful. Neptune was brilliant as was Ikea. Naked Kitchens never ever replied to me in person and instead smugly posted on social media, they didn't once address my concerns directly.

@Louise9393 Wow! Sorry to hear you had such a poor experience designing your kitchen. For that money, I'd have used Karen from One plan who spend the whole week working with you. Four hours in just nonsense and they dicked you around in any case.

I had enquired with Naked a few months ago, and then I didn't bother replying as their prices were way higher than others. They kept chasing me, so clearly they need the business. They want to re-look at their awful design service and the crappy way they treat people.

I got John Lewis to come and do a kitchen design. They charged £50 which I thought was very reasonable. I had to have an appointment at the store first then they came round, then I was emailed the design.

Thanks for the support, it was pretty miserable and I feel like I was a complete idiot to trust Naked Kitchens.

ours is half way through order of kitchen was
take out old kitchen falling apart so we scrapped it took it out ourselves
rewiring electrician did all new plug sockets at low and worktop level
1st fix
plaster replaster all the parts of the walls that fell down with the units
electrician 2nd fix and connected the circuit
we then painted all the gloss and walls ourselves
fitter in to put the units in
still got the tiling to do and flooring as we have to have the front room rewired so waiting for floorboards up and back down before we do that,
DIY kitchen units I have got to say I am very impressed with the units and the laminate worktops are 40mm thick and very good quality here are a couple of pics of the half done kitchen

cost was £3000 for kitchen units and worktops
plasterer £500
electrician £400
paint £100
fitter £800 (family member)
tiles will be around £200
vinyl flooring will be around £250

We have just had our kitchen finished. We went with Blackstone Kitchens and I honestly could not be happier! We went with them as they had the best plan and renders and had been into the showroom last year and really thought they were like Tom Howley kitchens but at a much more affordable price point. Basically after we bought the kitchen, we were put onto a project management system so they kept in touch with us the whole time and came & did site visits to sense check all the measurements - literally a godsend as they take on all the responsibility. Good thing they did as we had a structural pole I didn't even notice. If I had ordered a DIY kitchen I would have been in trouble. We ordered a cheap one from Wren a couple years back and was an absolutely nightmare dealing with the aftersales.
As handmade the kitchens are made in the UK which I also liked (we wanted to support local businesses) and a huge amount of work went into the install and making it perfect - especially considering they were travelling from Essex to Surrey.
We also looked at YewTree and Handmade Kitchens but definitely think we made the right choice. Yes it's a bit more than a Wren kitchen but not as much as you'd think and absolutely worth it.
Another piece of advise - shop around HARD for your worktops. I had quotes ranging from £2-£6K for the same product and size. Who we ended up going with was half the price for the exact same product.

@Kefel - lovely kitchen.
Do you mind sharing who you got your worktop from please?

An old thread but very interesting so place marking 😊

Sorry, posted in wrong topic 🙈

Could I ask if everyone has gone for cornice & pelmet? We are almost finished and fitter has put cornice & pelmet on one side and I don’t think I like it, it’s the garcinia Matt grey handless kitchen from b&q. Do I need them? The end panels slightly overhand the bottom of the cupboards though so I’m worried without the pelmet it may look odd length, but with the pelmet it seems to make it less modern.

*overhang

Just place holding as will be doing my kitchen soon.

we went for cornice and pelmet because we went for a range that has handles and seeing it at the showroom it finished the units off as in gave them a frame and as ours have end panels they would have looked weird in the middle without and werent that expensive to finish them off

Has anyone had the kungsbacka kitchen from IKEA. It's the one I had my eye on but just read a couple of reviews and a lot of people have complained about how to keep it clean

@Kefel: completely agree with you re. worktops. I was gobsmacked when I got a quote from a local (SW London) place which was double of the estimate produced by DIY-Kitchens calculator.
Would you mind to share where you purchased your worktop?
I love your kitchen: large, spacious and full of light so dark cabinets look great. I like tall wall cabinets.

Has anyone bought worktops from hcsupplies.co.uk?
They got very competitive prices but google reviews are not good.

Sharpstone granite x

I’m thinking of having quartz worktop. It will be a large area so I know it will cost a lot. Not over keen on the samples in the showroom. Can anyone recommend a quartz supplier please?