Kitchen refurb - where to start??

[graciefielder]

We want to completely refurbish our kitchen but I have no idea where to start or who to even ask to quote.

Would include

• knocking through between existing diner and kitchen
• putting in French doors
• all flooring, worktops, units
• under floor heating
• move a boiler

It feels like it's too big a job for someone like Wren? But I feel like we need design and planning help but I'm not sure a builder would do that?

Basically I've never done any kind of renovation project before and don't really know how to get it off the ground. Any advice is appreciated!

@graciefielder We had our kitchen and dining room knocked through - it cost £3k, which included a load-bearing wall being removed and two steel RSJs inserted, removal of a partition wall, and making good.

@rbe78 Do you mind me asking the length of your RSJ is roughly? I’ve had 2 quotes to do the same as you and they’re both around 8/9k just for wall down and rsj’s put in place. I’m in Scotland.

@Pattypoop About three metres. This was a couple of years ago though, and I know materials prices have gone bonkers post-Brexit/Covid/Ukraine...

We redid our kitchen in 2019, and the original basic layout was the best configuration for the space so we moved very little pipework which made life straightforward. But it is a big space and a large kitchen living space (35' x 17') with huge windows (think 10 feet wide). We ended up spending about £22k, including the utility room. More than we planned, but not daftly over.

We renovated our house in 2020 including knocking kitchen through into dining room etc. Our builder sat down with us to see what we wanted then did a drawing for us that we took to Howdens to pick our units etc. Howdens supplied the kitchen and the builder fitted it. I would definitely recommend getting a builder who can facilitate all that.

We used a small local company with designs we liked ( and beautiful colours). They were really flexible and took ages to understand our needs, and work out how to incorporate building regs. I may have been lucky, but I am pretty sure a big company would not have offered much customer service. It was more expensive but they were great adjusting to our budget, eg accommodating out old white goods, and ordered a new hood for free when ours was broken.

Wren have very bad customer reviews
Not the product,but delivery large amount of items missing,and Terrible installers. Kitchen I have now Wicks, previous IKEA
I did like the Howdens range, but we installed ourselves,and they are trade only. We just used a plumber to move the boiler, electrician to add new consumer unit, for induction cooker.

Join the DIY kitchens fb groups to start with

I now have a quote from a builder for the knock-through and new windows but now need to source an actual kitchen to go in the space. where's best in terms of design?

I don't have a great imagination for these things so would love to see some kind of 3D visualisation of a kitchen, if there are companies who include that type of thing...?

Wren will link you with a kitchen fitter and the fitters company will then decide which supplementary work they can manage.
My daughter recently got a kitchen installed by fitters outsourced by Wren - they were amazing. They didn’t have to knock down any walls but they did do plastering, electrics, plumbing, painting - they even fitted a new fuse board for her as the old one was about 30 years old.
Having said that, it all depends on the fitters you get allocated as to whether they or their company can do extra work for an additional cost. Though you do have the right to say No to any fitter they allocate you that can’t meet your kitchen needs.

Don't they all do this? We've had this done by both Wickes, Howdens and Magnet.

We didn't feel the Howdens designer was as good at design, but that will vary between branches. The Wickes one was brilliant for fitting things in in cunning ways!

We've now had some quotes for this work but I'm confused why there's such a range.

We've had quotes as low as 25k and as high as 70k. Big variation in time scales too, with the 25k person saying 4 weeks and the 70k more like 14.

I can't work out why there could be so much difference. Is the expensive one trying to shaft us? Is the cheap one missing something important? So hard to know what's best when you know nothing about building work!

Are the specifications the same? Same amount of building work included?
Everything (plumbing electrics) included?
Tiles, upstands etc?
Appliances?
Similar units each time? Some are more expensive than others - drawers, pull out internal drawers, larder units, rotating units all tend to be more expensive.
Is it a set colour unit you buy or do they spray it a bespoke colour?

We did similar and used a small independent kitchen designer. She came up with the plans and ideas and did the computer mock up (which looked almost exactly like the real thing does now). We could see exactly what we were getting. She also sourced builders, electricians, plumbers etc and managed all the work. It was an expensive way to do it (she took 20% on top of the trades quotes) but we didn’t have the time or knowledge or a builder to do the work so for us it was worth it. We also had the problem that we live up a small single track lane so all the kitchen was delivered to her and they hired a smaller van and brought it up here. They also got rid of all the waste.

We got a kitchen design from wickes.
Then a local builder with a good reputation came and quoted for all work as he was coordinating trades.
He also used the wickes design to order our kitchen off Diy Kitchens.
The work and build ran smoothly and was completed on time.
He also got paid in stages.
30 percent day 1
40 percent day 10
30 percent when finished and everyone happy.

I have a wren kitchen. You can get the cabinets made up ready without the doors on. The guy actually told me to get my own fitter as there's were very expensive.

If you get a builder in to do it all for you, that's the easiest option but it will likely be the most expensive one, too, or you won't get as much quality for your money as you could. So you could do: 1) Get 'all inclusive quote' from 2 or 3 large contractors. Or:
2) Get in a structural engineer to specify building requirements and schedule of works and create floorplan. Take that schedule of works and floorplan to get individual trades like bricklayer, plasterer, electrician, joiner, tiler and plumber to quote for their jobs. You are bound to save 20%vat if your sole trader is not vat registered (many sole trading plasterers, electricians, tilers/decorators and bricklayers won't be outside of London), and usually contractors charge 20% on top of everything they manage, so they pay e.g. a bricklayer and take 20%fee for themselves as project managers, plus 20%vat on top of their fee. So it all adds up. Thanks to the Internet, you can get so many discounts on materials and appliances directly that you don't need a 'builder's discpunt'. Most builders merchants like Jewsons etc will also let you open an account with them without you being a registered company. Also, if 1 tradesperson is not a good egg, you loose less than if your contractor runs off with all of your money. If you choose your own windows, tiles, kitchen cabinets and worktops, you can make much more detailed design choices than if you let a builder make such decisions (aesthetics is not always their forte). Often a local joinery can make and fit a copy of any premium brand kitchen you might have spotted in a magazine, like Neptune or Devon, at a fraction of the price. To make a design, all you need is a measuring tape, ruler and paper.