DIY Kitchens - yay or nay?

[irisetta]

Hi all, we are in the process of selecting a kitchen for our new extension and are almost ready to sign on with Benchmarx - our project manager has used them in the past, is familiar with them, and can get us a good price. However - I've been eyeing up DIY Kitchens as I prefer the colour range and overall look of their Shaker-style kitchens. Please would people share with me their experience of using DIY Kitchens? We are fine with measuring up and designing ourselves. Thank you so much!

Our DIY kitchen has just been fitted. I'd say it's great quality, and the price was very competitive. It was also great having such a wide range of unit sizes to choose from.

The biggest downside for us was the delivery process. You can choose a delivery week, but you won't know what day your kitchen will arrive until the day before. It could come any day Monday to Sunday. You need to build this week into the project schedule, because you need the kitchen ready for the units to be delivered into it if the delivery is on the Monday, but you can't rely on having it there so the installers can start work until the following week.

Ideally I'd say (and DIY Kitchens recommend) that you should have it delivered at least a week before it's installed to give them a chance to send any missing bits out to you. Ours was missing dishwasher doors, which arrived the following week. Fortunately this didn't hold the fitting up, but if e.g. the corner base unit had been missing this would have been more of a problem.

Overall I'd still recommend them and would use them again, but it's worth going into it with your eyes open.

Echo comments above by @CasperGutman. We've had our new kitchen about a month now and quality is great. The delivery process was a bit of a pain though.

Massive thumbs up over here. We have a Linwood painted shaker that is about 18 months old now, absolutely fabulous, looks great. Love it.

Agree the delivery is a bit of a pain, especially compared to somewhere like Howdens which can provide any missed/forgotten bits much quicker. But any other national company will have some degree of delivery chaos.

We’ve had our cupboards repainted and drawers yellow we love it new floor and white walls. With labour about 2000 worth every penny.

Forgot to add new work surfaces as well, then yellow accessories.

Ours is nearly nine years old now. A lot of the insides have started to fail - shelf supports are wobbly, basket drawer runners keep collapsing and the hidden bin lid broke about 18 months in! I suspect our builders did a bit of a slapdash fitting job more than it being the build quality iyswim, but even so so make sure you know who is fitting it and that they'll do a good job!

Holothane - love that cooker, where is it from? So have I understood you correctly that you revamped old cupboards?

I brought from them about 2 years ago and am very happy with it.

I had the Norton painted shaker in sage.
I wouldn't have been persuaded otherwise and really like it BUT I won't ever buy a shaker kitchen again, there is just too much ledge for dust and bits to gather on.

The cooker was repainted as well from cream our cleaner used to be a carpenter because we’re both disabled he’s done this for us I love it. Microwave and kettle toaster all in yellow as well.

Yes olde cupboards repainted. Baby white Christmas tree with yellow tinsel for the window at Christmas.

We got our kitchen last year and love it. Stanbury in dove grey. As above check the delivery t&cs. We have steps up to our house and they would only deliver curbside.

@Holothane

The cooker was repainted as well from cream our cleaner used to be a carpenter because we’re both disabled he’s done this for us I love it. Microwave and kettle toaster all in yellow as well.

Brilliant! That's a great finish for a repaint job, good skills there carpenter /cleaner person. Sorry to derail, as you were.

I love mine. Everything turned up that was ordered. It seems good quality. It's been in 2 years in January. Mines the beautiful turquoise gloss colour with white granite work tops. Was £7k less than Howdens and £10K less than Magnet !!

Following. I have the basket finalised and the fitter checking the plans tomorrow before I press ‘buy’.
Delivery is currently showing as mid January so hoping to be done late January.

For those with missing bits. Did you have to open things to check what is missing?

I’m rather worried about fitting it in my house while waiting for it to be installed.

My DIY kitchen is two years old and it's fantastic quality, service was amazing too, go and visit them in Pontefract to see for yourself, I have about 6 friends who recommended them too

Mine's five and a half years old now and looks as good as new. Nothing failing. We had the shiny, dove grey, handless one. Would thoroughly recommend.

Delivery window was a PITA - eventually arrived a couple of hours before the big England Euros match over the summer, and the delivery chaps weren't happy! Had to beg them to bring the items 1 step up into the house.

Quite a few bits missing and some random extras (got someone else's sink). Meant we missed our fitting slot the following week as the legs were missing so we couldn't start - that delayed us opening all the units and so we didn't spot the damage on one of the doors until it was too late. Had to pay for a replacement (20% off and free delivery though), and we had to get the fitter to come back to sort the door and handle at a later date.

Don't underestimate how much space the units will take up until you are ready to fit them! They come fully assembled apart from legs and handles - it's quite tricky to find somewhere to store a double full height larder unit and a 4m run of worktop if you've a small house and have building work in progress. We had a couple of monoliths in each room for a few weeks.

The fitter commented on the quality of the units being good - they feel solid and look great. Being fully assembled saves time on the fitting.

Price is good.

Customer service is responsive and friendly. Lots of help available if needed.

Overall I would order from DIY kitchens again - the price, quality and service outweighs the faff and annoyance.

My DIY kitchen gives me joy 5 years after it was fitted. It was very easy.

We had to take a gamble on ours all being there and not damaged because we couldn’t unpack in the specified window. For reasons unrelated to DIY at all our kitchen arrived onsite before the builders started. We are fortunate to have a large house because we had a room full of kitchen for 3 months. There wasn’t anything major missing from ours but there was an issue relating to the size of the room (we did some structural work and what we thought was a wall was actually padded out with stud, wouldn’t have been able to predict as was all in with a chimney breast and old kitchen fitted over it). So we had to order a wider sink unit. But that meant we missed our templating slot unfortunately and ended up about a month without worktops. All stressful at the time but came together in the end.

We've just installed a DIY kitchen but we have got the shitty end of the delivery stick. Between damaged and missing bits being replaced we've had three deliveries and I'm still waiting on a final 🤞 one this week. It's taken the gloss off it all, that's for sure.

@Teenagers2grownups0

For those with missing bits. Did you have to open things to check what is missing?

I’m rather worried about fitting it in my house while waiting for it to be installed.

We knew the appliance doors were missing because the delivery guys spotted it and pointed it out. We did go through the order carefully though, ticking everything off. I had a go at this, then our kitchen fitter popped round towards the end of the delivery day to check it over. He wasn't due to fit it until the following week, but I think he wanted to check we hadn't missed ordering anything as much as that everything we ordered was there!

Thank you all.

What is the timescale for checking the delivery? We hope to get it delivered one week and then fitted the next.

Also if we order the worktops from there, which is the plan due to price, do you then pick your own templating slot or just get allocated one?

Forgot to mention - we actually ordered ours in March to beat a price rise and take advantage of a 10% discount offer. To avoid the "kitchen arriving three months before we wanted it" issue faced by @IamJuliaJohnson, we didn't specify the delivery date week until we were confident we'd be ready in time.

DIY were quite happy to sit on our money until we were ready to specify when the kitchen was wanted!

For templating, you have to contact their subcontractor and give ten days' notice when you're confident you'll be ready. After they template it takes 7-10 days until the worktops are installed. Calendar days, not working days.

They were good at phoning and emailing to confirm dates were okay for us. We were flexible as I work from home. Not sure how flexible they'd be if access was more difficult at our end.