What is a reasonable length of time to spend pondering kitchen design?

[Rain2122]

Hi everyone,

After three 2-hour appointments with Wren and another with Magnet, we paid a deposit to Wren yesterday, though can still change the design or even cancel entirely and get the entire deposit back. We wanted to lock in Wren's 40% off quartz offer before the current sale period ends this week.

In the appointment I quite liked the design we ended up with but looking at the screenshots of the 3D visuals sent, I'm having doubts. We wanted to spend about £15k all in and still need quotes for fitting and flooring but I think it's now looking closer to £18k. We can technically afford this but I feel sick at the thought of spending £18k on a kitchen and then wishing we'd chosen something else.

The current design is shaker style with navy blue units on the bottom and white on the top, with light grey quartz worktops. I'm second guessing the style, the colours, the worktop, the layout and even the kitchen company. Our experience so far with Wren has been very good; Magnet less so - more expensive and they've made some quite basic design errors.

I think maybe we should speak to Howdens too but we've already spent quite a lot of time with the Wren man, so I'd feel bad going elsewhere now and my husband thinks I am over-thinking it all. But £18k is a huge amount of money, I've spent more time choosing a £1,500 holiday!

Any advice???

Although it does depend how complicated your kitchen is. Small spaces with cunning storage solution need a good designer and can cost more as the 'solutions' are more expensive.
Straight runs of basic cabinets cost a lot less!

Spent a year planning & used free design tools on DIY Kitchens and IKEA websites and I'm very glad that I allowed this much time to make all the multitude of small, but vital, decisions to get exactly what I both wanted & needed. A small kitchen so it took me ages of pondering, changing my mind, trying out new designs. Initially began with a two-tone sage/white arrangement with pale marbled worktops; ended up with cashmere (pale pinky grey) units, white worktops/shelves, silver handles. Looks fabulous in my N-facing kitchen and is a brilliant design. Give yourself time to reflect on the designs produced in the kitchen showrooms once you're actually back in your kitchen. Or be brave and design it yourself!

I used to be a kitchen designer for a very upmarket company.

I would say, take as long as you can, and try to work out how things will work by using your current kitchen as a template. By which I mean, put templates made from paper or chalk marks on the floor and or worktops to show you where things will go, walk around and see how the flow works for you. If you want to do a plan, do it on paper with a ruler , 1 cm to ten cm works well. CAD can shrink or expand to fit the space , it doesn’t always give an exact measurement. It’s better to measure a space and then look at what units will fit into it, than start with the given 600/ 1000 preconceived plans on CaD.

Mmake a list of things you must have, and then a list of things you would like . The colour of the units is probably the last thing to think about at this stage.

I've spent more than a year so far.

Can't beat a white kitchen. I find the color combos are in danger of looking dated soon.

We found they’re all pretty similar price wise. Ours was done in the summer and cost £22k (that included the plastering, electrics, decorating and a small utility so extra sink and shower tap - for bathing the dog).

i worried about blue due to mn but then realised I love the look so we went for it. My dm just renovated her house and went for dark green so she wasn’t copying me. Both look lovely. I’ve attached a photo - it’s more blue in daylight.

we spent about 4 months with 3 different companies. Felt like such a massive spend but we’re not moving for at least 15 years, possibly longer.

The time limit does not exist!! We’re waiting to exchange and complete on our house - meant to be in by early August and will be lucky to be in end of this month.

We need a new kitchen and I’ve spent hours and hours pondering the design. We’ve been to DIY kitchens, I’ve done numerous designs, read magazines, looked at neighbouring houses with a mirrored layout. Once we get the keys we’ll have Wren and Howdens out too 😂 I spend too much time in the kitchen to end up with something I don’t love or that doesn’t work in practise!

We’re hopefully going dark green with wood counters and terracotta floor but dark navy is our second choice.