£25k for a kitchen...fucking hell

[DangerCake]

Always inherited a kitchen.

New kitchen in new extension, if we can ever get a design that works we appear to be looking at £25K, and that doesn’t include flooring.

We are a bit limited as due to location, No Ikea or DIY kitchen option.

Is that just what they cost?

If you're willing to source things from separate suppliers and have a builder or carpenter to fit them, you can go much cheaper, but then you're paying for your own time. We got sprayed painted carcases and doors made to measure from an online firm - over 500 pieces plus all the fittings and feet and all. Local firm fitted the countertops with an upstand at the back. Re-used our appliances. Huge lovely kitchen for 4k but took a good year to get installed as the desire to fit the last few fiddly doors etc plummeted once it was all useable.

Ours was about £4.5k including electrical work, capping off a gas supply, appliances, worktop and tiles. Would have been significantly cheaper if we hadn't fallen in love with some particularly expensive tiles. Total is about 2% of house value. We designed it ourselves and partner measured and fitted it (plumbing but not electrics/gas!). Neither of us had done this sort of thing before but he did a beautiful job, I can't imagine a fitter taking so much care. Kitchen was from DIY Kitchens. £25k is crazy money.

Get some quotes from a cabinet maker . I think you'll be surprised how competitive they are.

Surely it depends on the size of the kitchen!!! Ours was about that but the kitchen is huge, I’ve got floor to ceiling units, mainly drawers, 3 ovens, a halogen hob, 2 sinks, hot water tap, a huge island And masses of work surface all with marble work tops the unit is with cupboards inside it, Some of my shelves are glass, all drawers have dividers and bespoke pull out things the doors are all wrapped so that they don’t get damaged, I’ve had additional lighting.

Sure you can do a kitchen cheaply but there’s no comparison between a high street and a high end kitchen. It’s in the detail.

We had a Howdens quote fro £22k without worktops and appliances.

Anyone paying £200k for a kitchen has more money than sense
Lord Whatsit, Lady Thingummyjig, Russian oligarchs, people living in £5m houses... they all need kitchens and they spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on them. They might be spending £200k a year on their kids school fees so it’s not unreasonable to spend that much on a kitchen. Some of them get a kitchen just for show and have a separate kitchen for the housekeeper to actually cook in.

DH’s friend installs top end kitchens in London and he needs insurance because he’s worked on projects where the fridge cost £30k and the worktop cost £100k. He was once flown to the Caribbean because a wealthy business owner wanted the kitchen in her holiday home installed by a British craftsman not a local, she paid the flights and accommodation on top of the fee for fitting the kitchen. The prices being quoted here reflect the very bottom end of the market.

Rhodri
And many of those ultra top end kitchens .....

you could leave the cooker disconnected and the owner would never notice

as they are for instagram not cooking

I got a quote for our kitchen from Poggenpohl and it came out at £110k!! We didn't go for it.

Do shop around. The sheer size makes a difference of course but you can save a fortune by going for cupboards (double ones where poss) instead of drawers and pullout units, laminate instead of granite surfaces, wrapped instead of painted... the thing is, all that upselling stuff is what makes it look & feel expensive. Robust drawers are fab, and granite or quartz does look lovely. But they add many hundreds of pounds to the cost.

It does feel like a bit of a racket. I priced up a kitchen with Wickes and saved nearly £1000 (!!) by swapping 2 X 60cm tall units for 1 X 100cm one. That is just insane. I then actually went and gave my money to DIY kitchens, who sold me 60cm cupboard and a 50cm one with pullout drawers, for less than the Wickes double cupboard.

It is finish and bespoke that adds to the cost. What you put in a £2m house isn’t the same as what goes in a £200,000 house. Most people spending £2m want and expect bespoke kitchen. Kitchens sell houses and cheap kitchens in a high value house simply don’t exude taste or quality. A cheap kitchen in such a house would be ripped out and DIY simply isn’t done by busy professionals. They prefer to earn the money (more then the fitters) and pay for fitters.

*you could leave the cooker disconnected and the owner would never notice

as they are for instagram not cooking grin*

Hahah absolutely! I got a quote from a local kitchen place and watched their website videos - one woman spent £60k on a kitchen she wasn't intending to cook in. She admitted it on the vid!

I'm intrigued as to where you are then, if you can't get a delivery from DIY or Ikea. Are you on an island somewhere ? West or north of Scotland ? Or Scilly Isles ??

Ikea do not deliver to the Isle of Wight, most of the Western Isles and Scottish Highlands, Scilly, Shetland, and lots of other areas where they would have to pay transit.
Let alone Northern Ireland !

I had one kitchen design consultation that came in at £80k up, which seems super high 🤣 I think we will end up spending £40k on the kitchen cabinets/worktops/installation...not including appliances, flooring, underfloor heating, lighting or redecoration! It’s the heart of our home, so where we spend most time.

@Dougalthesyrianhamster The builder got us an appointment with his account manager so we met him directly. 🤷🏻‍♀️ He set us up with the planner then we negotiated the bits and pieces with him on a subsequent visit. We actually paid them direct too, albeit through the builder's account. Everyone I know who's dealt with Howdens has been in and out of the showroom and negotiated.

Hotel
I have zero regrets about my kitchen
it has the right sinks
it has the right appliances
it has the right worktops
it has the right drawers and storage
it was IKEA units
all up it cost less than £15k (18 x 60 cm verticals)

the folks getting the over expensive kitchens are getting ripped off
simple

(mine is 12 years old BTW)

We’ve been quoted 15k for handmade bespoke kitchen. We have a large kitchen and it will have a large island. We will then need to pay for appliances, fitting, worktops, for it to be painted etc. So 25k(ish) We want dovetail draws, larders bespoke sizes. DIY, kitchens from most high streets stores, Howdens, Ikea etc do not offer this service.
I think it’s a personnel choice and a personal budget.

drawers

personal

why dovetail

I think dovetail drawers look nice vs plastic.

in what way ?
on a day to day, cooking a spag bol basis?

I agree with Bubbles and Rhodri you just cannot compare kitchens such as Devol and Tom Howley to B and Q or Howdens, it’s like saying a Ford Focus is the same as a Porsche they are completely different beasts, many people don’t want a chain store kitchen that people can recognise is from Ikea/Howdens, they are looking for Bespoke and are happy to pay for it.

Betty
How does cutting up onions on a £55 chopping board compare with a £555 board?

If you did actually buy a £555 chopping board you wouldn’t be doing any chopping

Olivers
My point exactly
Expensive kitchens are for instagram, not cooking

so I'll stick to IKEA and their ilk and save my money

You would have to ask the Housekeeper Listening