£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?

www.smallbone.co.uk/london-showroom/

This is where the super rich are buying their 200k kitchens. It’s a private shopping experience with valet parking, personalised hospitality, by appointment only and you have to be pre-approved to get an appointment (i.e. if you’re not super rich they won’t even let you in). It is absolutely not the same kitchen you’d get from B&Q.

Only on Mumsnet would you find such snobbery on a kitchen thread: "I would simply refuse a cup of coffee made in a kitchen that cost less than £60,000"

Depends how much your house is worth and if you’re planning on reselling in the near future. My friend had to drop hers by 120,000 as she’d installed an Ikea Kitchen and laminate flooring in a 1.8 million pound house.

I've seen the accounts of smallbone

coffee is better value at aldi

expensive kitchens need not have working drains

as one of my plumbing clients discovered at huge cost to the home owner and profit to him
(I believe the house is at the £10m mark now. Still tasteless)

I've seen the accounts of smallbone
@ListeningQuietly what did you see? Just out of interest as I work in a related field.

Ikea and laminate won’t cut it in over £1m. Is just too cheap. You don’t need Smallbone prices either but you need a reasonably bespoke fittings with high quality ovens etc. Decent work surfaces are vital in an expensive house but you can make big compromises in cheaper houses.

I meant to add, I would negotiate the price down for an ikea kitchen or similar in an expensive house because you would anticipate you would replace it. Ditto cheap bathrooms.

To be honest we paid about 20 k in 2010 for a very average kitchen ...it is crazy how expensive kitchens are ! I think we got ours from B and Q and it was the cheapest we could find !! That didn’t include tiles but I think we got a dishwasher and fridge freezer.

Betty I use a £5 chopping board and the onions are absolutely amazing 😉

Shock horror! We bought a house in 1992 that was a builders' renovation. It was an expensive house. By 2002 the kitchen was worn and tired. I replaced it for £22k - family kitchen, shaker style, cooked in and loved. By 2014 it was dated and worn although initially good quality. So was the rest of the house. We renovated to sell and a v expensive kitchen paid dividends.

In my experience, no matter how expensive or well made, kitchens and bathrooms date. So, I would venture a degree of moderation but I do agree that an Ikea kitchen in a million plus house is a no no. However a good architect and builder can achieve something similar to Smallbone, John Lewis of Hungerford or the glossy German makes, for a lower price. A Smallbone kitchen, well looked after for 30 years may still be nearly perfect, but its time will have been and gone in that 30 years and no buyer will pay a premium for a dated kitchen or bathroom.

Molocosh

Most of the kitchens on that site are vile. Lobe that they've called their newest model Icarus. It's almost like they are taking the piss out if their own customers.

• love
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Impossible to say whether you'd be overpaying without knowing room size, materials etc. If you're talking about buying a bog standard kitchen of average size then yes you should be able to get that price down. If you're talking bespoke then that price can easily be justified.
Just reference we paid probably about 5k max for a kitchen in our rental inc oak worktops and tiles etc, it looks good but it won't stand the test time (fine as we did it so cheap on the understanding a tenant might trash it). If this is a long term family home it's worth paying for a quality kitchen. If your taste changes and the carcasses are good quality it's usually ok to change the doors so might even save money in the long term.

It’s a £550k house on a nice street. Big semidetached. 5 bedrooms.

The current kitchen is small for that size of house now. We were quoted on integrated appliances, quartz worktop, boiling water tap and real wood doors. Fridge And freezer, double oven/microwave Dishwasher.

A plan is here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/3923743-Kitchen-plan-any-thoughts

It’s a real shame that a decent thread about the price/budget for a normal kitchen in a normal family home has been derailed by the kitchen snobbery brigade. Most people don’t live in a house over a £1m, most aren’t oligarchs, or taste-devoid insta influencers. Most people are just trying to get the best value from £10-20k of hard-earned/saved money.

@DangerCake, you can get a decent kitchen for whatever price point you choose, but I think £15-20k all in if you want things like quartz surfaces, and moderately high end appliances (e.g. Neff rather than Miele), etc. I remember your first design though, it was short on worktop IIRC. Hopefully you got the help with the design you needed.

@Flamingolingo we’ve got another designer on the case. Though tBF I think the first one was fairly spot on apart from sink on island and needing more counter surface.

I hope it's Karen as she knows her stuff

It’s a real shame that a decent thread about the price/budget for a normal kitchen in a normal family home has been derailed by the kitchen snobbery brigade
Lots of normal people spend £20-40k. OP asked what the normal price for a kitchen was and got loads of replies saying £4-10k. That’s not a normal price for a kitchen at all, you’ll only pay that if you get chipboard or an ex-display kitchen that’s wonkily fitted by your husband.

What one persons ‘normal’ is, is completely different to another persons ‘normal’. Also affordability is key. Go for the best kitchen you can afford, which you can live with for years. There are plenty of price ranges. I don’t think it’s kitchen snobbery at all. I think 25k all in is really good value my neighbours would consider 100k. No snobbery no issues just down to taste and affordability.

OP asked what the normal price for a kitchen was and got loads of replies saying £4-10k. That’s not a normal price for a kitchen at all, you’ll only pay that if you get chipboard or an ex-display kitchen that’s wonkily fitted by your husband.

Seriously, read the spec for my kitchen upthread. I don't understand this insistence that paying 3 times as much for the same product is better.

At the top end of the market people are paying £200k for a bespoke kitchen.

That's what my house cost!

Specs for a kitchen differ vastly. I have oak
Lined drawers. I have a huge island with a massive expense of granite (as in the island pictured above). I have a bespoke wood circular breakfast bar. Any items such as lots of stone work tops, drawers instead of cupboards, even quality of hinges and Materials used makes a big difference.

The op had not mentioned the value of her property. £25,000 is reasonable to me for quite a large kitchen with an island in a house worth over £1/2m. You also get the pleasure of using it and loving it.

More expensive isn't always better. DP used to work for an independent kitchen place, they put a 70% margin on everything (way way over what any other kitchen place charges) so the kitchens were expensive because the boss wanted profit over anything else. Safe to say they didn't sell much.

Yes and my first comment was that £25k might not be that expensive depending on size and spec - ours cost £20k. But this talk of £60k or even £200k is not typical of most family homes.