New kitchen - so many questions

[lettie9]

We're going to get a brand new kitchen in our new house, and I've been looking at options. Aesthetically, I would like a simple shaker kitchen with marble-style worktop.

Some questions:

1. Solid wood vs. composite units - I've only had composite and they seem fine, but is it worthwhile investing in solid wood?

1. Is Magnet's 'Minerva' acrylic worktop any good? It feels and looks like marble. I think. Or go for quartz? I'd like something stain-resistant and low maintenance. I've always had oak and all that treating with oil and worrying about heat and water stains was very tedious.

1. What's a good mid-range kitchen supplier? Magnet? Howden? And is IKEA really so bad?

Thank you!

Meant to say, more expensive than standard laminate but much cheaper than other solid surfaces.

[quote lettie9]@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba but what if you like the more expensive one? 🤔 [/quote]
🤣

you know I thought of that as soon as posted.
they know each other's stuff & prices so it's tricky.
you'll just have to ask for the best price they can give

@lettie9

I'm hearing what people are saying about it being tricky to clean shaker. But I just think it looks a lot nicer, and in keeping with a period home...

The only extra work is really just making sure you wipe round the stile isn’t it? i suppose if you have a huge kitchen it might take a bit of time. In our last house we inherited a gloss kitchen and when we eventually replaced it with shaker it really didn’t take any longer to keep clean. I found the gloss doors showed marks far more.

I’d avoid any of the fussier shaker doors with cock heading. I imagine they’re a pain to keep clean.

@lettie9

ignore my previous post. bloody fam is distracting me....

if you like the most expensive one then it's worth asking if they can do it cheaper.

If you like the cheapest one best - that's fine.

the only tricky situation is if you like the cheapest one best but it's too expensive for you (that's the scenario I thought you meant and answered to, I misunderstood).
cross that bridge when you get there

Thanks everybody! Are Wren like Howden's in their pricing policy, i.e. no set price, all depends on what the builder wants to charge, etc.? Howden's sounds stressful, I'm hoping wren is similar quality but more straightforward?

@lettie9

we had so much going on it's all a bit of a blur.
But mainly these points:

Wren is pre-made units (builders assembed it & added doors and door handles
Howdens was flatpack

Wren had more the types of units so figuring out final design we had more flexibility with unit width/depths etc.

Wren had the pattern, colour & finish I preferred. Howdens had either pattern & colour or colour & finish (obv this is the personal taste, not a practicality issue)

DH hated the Howdens dude🤣

very similar quotes so better/worse price wasn't a factor

I can tell you all about our quartz tops, wouldn't have anything else

I actually do remember Howdens stressing me out. something about about replacement parts if any was missing from delivery or we just needed extras - he was a bit sheepish with answers so we felt we just couldn't trust their after purchase customer services.

Thanks so much @ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

Was Wren solid wood? I can't figure out from their website - infinity plus for example doesn't make it clear, or am I being blind?

www.wrenkitchens.com/kitchens/shaker-forest-shadow-matt/10514

I have a duck egg blue DIY kitchens shaker style with Iroko Worktop Express counter tops. Love it, planned it myself and hubby installed it (he's in IT not a builder), love it. Its solid wood and much better quality than what we saw elsewhere. Would have probably cost over 3 times if we'd got it elsewhere too! I think even paying for a fitter, they are definitely better than the others.

yes, ours is solid wood.

I can't remember the name but will take a few photos for you.
(door handles were possibly from elsewhere, I can't remember, can find out!)

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba thank you!

@CakeIsMyFavouriteAndBest is the downside that DIY don't have showrooms? How are they so cheap...? 🤔

cupboard

taller units with side panel

Oh it's beautiful! I love that the oven is not at floor level. Did you buy appliances from Wren or elsewhere? I'm thinking they probably make a profit from appliances...?

From Wren. they gave us a very good deal.
on photo is oven with grill above.

The guy we had that came from Wren tried to "downsell" us if that's even a thing. We gave him our budget but kept trying to get us to choose cheaper appliances, or their infinity range (as opposed to infinity plus) because we "wouldn't be able to tell tell the difference". The price came out at 50% less than what we had budgeted (we knew that fitting would be extra) and the "design" was completely impractical. Also had to chase repeatedly. They're fairly aggressive sales people and I got the impression it was all about targets. Unfortunately they completely misread us and we're now looking at local independents.

we are a family of 9 so needed to be able to cook that many pizzas at the same time!
HashTagWhatMatters🤣🤣

2 dishwashers also.
Washing machine & tumble dryer are both upstairs in a laundry room. I really hated having washing machine in the kitchen before, filthy heaps of clothes to trip over and carry up & down unnecessarily used to do my head in!
Consequently we don't have laundry hampers and I don't pick up after kids. If they don't put their dirty stuff in laundry in doesn't get washed. 🤷‍♀️

@lettie9 they have a showroom near York. We managed to fit it in on a holiday by going to York and driving back past it (we live in Kent!)
We fitted out our utility a couple of years ago and you can get samples.
They are so helpful, I wanted a pantry cupboard with longer doors at the top rather than the bottom and messaged them late one evening and they replied within an hour (I wasn't expecting that!)
I was originally planning to use ikea and planned the utility with their planner but loved the rounded cabinets elsewhere and they were affordable with DIY Kitchens.
I think places like Wren and Magnet have huge markups, and you don't get a lot of help if you need it. With DIY you do have to plan it yourself (or you can send other companies plans to them), and I waited for the summer sale so we saved even more. But the build quality is much better and the cabinets come ready made too which fitters like as well.

@CakeIsMyFavouriteAndBest thanks for that! I'm sure they have huge mark-ups... but I like that I can have a look at the products in person, and can always negotiate in person. I think I'd struggle to convince my husband to go for an online shop.

Do people always use their own fitter rather than the shop's?

Also, not sure if this is a stupid question - Magnet told me you always fit the floor first, then kitchen, then tiles. Does that mean that we can't fit the kitchen until we've sorted the floor out? A friend of mine says there are big delays in getting engineered wood...

@lettie9 we fitted the floor first but only as our kitchen was a new extension so my husband wanted to put it down first. Especially as our old kitchen had an integral fridge and after 2 broke we removed it and put in a freestanding one but we had no floor tiles there!

It might be worth looking at a local kitchen company if you have one. We did our shaker kitchen about 18 months ago. I was really worried about even going into the shop as I thought it would be way out of our budget but I was pleasantly surprised. They were fabulous from start to finish and I was so pleased we used them. Our previous kitchen was from Wickes and it was rubbish.

Here's a photo of one side of our kitchen. The photo isn't great as it's a bit dark but gives you an idea of what we got.

I'm not sure if floor first is a hard & fast rule.
with a new kitchen that's what we did.
in the old kitchen the lino got ripped when we had to replace washing machine so we judt replaced the lino and MIL had floor re- tiled with existing units in - so I can't think of any reason why kitchen couldn't be installed first.
there might be some, I just don't know

our builders fitted everything

@Icequeen01 beautiful ☺️ especially love a Belfast sink

Re fridge, is Smeg still ok? I admit I love them mostly for aesthetic reasons...

I'd also love a 'heritage' looking range but that might be limiting. My husband says absolutely no to Aga but says we can apparently get a modern range that looks like an Aga?

oh and I designed the kitchen layout, mainly because I knew exactly what I wanted where
DH suggested to have 2 dishwashers but he was happy with all my ideas because he knows I'm better at this stuff anyway.
He can't visualise things easily.