Buying an ex display kitchen, will it fit?

[Zpack]

clueless first time house owner here, this is my first kitchen purchase and I’m not very handy at the best of times.

I’ve seen an ex display kitchen online, what do I need to do to make sure it fits? They are going to send me a plan, but I obviously don’t have a plan for the existing kitchen. I can see from the listing that the total wall space for units is about the same, and the floor to ceiling height is about the same. What else should I check?

Probably not quite. It is useful to buy a few more units than you think you need.

BTW for your wall units, I strongly recommend fixing Cabinet Hanging Rail to the wall, rather than individual brackets. You can then hook the cabs on where you like, and if it isn't quite right, unhook them and hang them in a different position.

It is also very strong.

I recommend painting it to match the wall before fixing.

Thanks, that’s a great tip! I’ll look into getting a hanging rail. I’ve got paint at the ready.

I've done this. I ended up buying 2 end panels as the configuration I used meant I was short. But I had an enormous room to fit it all in and I literally pulled things around until I was happy with how it looked and fitted. The other issue was my display kitchen had a marble worktop already cut with a chimney breast and unless I was willing to create a chimney breast it would never fit. So I had to buy many metres of worktop. There were a couple of units that I didn't want. I sold them along with the marble.
I ended up not paying very much for my display kitchen, however I did have a lot of marble to store until it sold.

Ours was a great fit.

We had shifted the cupboards around to get appliances and the sink where we wanted them. And then got a new worktop cut to fit that layout.

Once you have the dimensions of each cabinet then you need to sit down and spend some time working out what order to put them in to get a good fit.

My advice when planning the layout would be to draw it out. Start with the corner cupboards, and then draw the m sink and appliances on roughly where you want them. Measure the gaps between the corners cupboards and appliances and then 'fill' them in with the other cabinets.

As someone else mentioned it's definitely worth having more cupboards that you need. It gives you more to work with.

I was thinking we might come up against problems with the pre cut work top too. It should still work out significantly cheaper even if I have to source a new work top. I actually hadn’t thought about the possibility of selling any units we don’t need, bigger is better by the sounds of it!

Also wondering about selling the kitchen I’m about to remove, has anyone successfully sold a kitchen? It’s nothing fancy, but in quite good condition.

Thanks @kegofcoffee that’s good advice. Starting with a blank canvas plus appliances is probably the way to go. The existing units are all different sizes and it’s making my head hurt!!

To make it fit you'll probably need to get plain panels to fill in any gap and possibly extra skirting and, if the kitchen has it, cornice. The most important thing will be a good joiner, or are you planning to fit it yourselves?

We were definitely planning on getting a joiner, but having received the plan, the L shaped island won’t work in our kitchen. We needed the opposite configuration! Back to the drawing board

Do you feel like posting images of what you have and what your getting?
We might be able to help.

To add, yes already fitted kitchens can sell not usually for much but if you offer a lower price still and ask them to dismantle it too, your winning.

@CryInToYourCornflakesNicola thank you for the offer. Weirdly, the company selling the kitchen emailed me this evening to say that the seller had decided to keep it! Pretty strange for an ex-display, and from what I could see it had been listed a while ago. Hopefully I'll find something else suitable, I'm sure I will be back for advice!

Sometimes, kitchens advertised as "ex display" are actually second-hand. They have sometimes not been used much, and sometimes they are taken out of a new-build or refurbished house when the owner doesn't like them.

Second-hand kitchens often go for next to nothing because there are not many buyers willing to put the effort into dismantling them without much damage, or own a van big enough to take them. The kitchen installers might be planning to resell them without telling the customer.

Stone worktops are incredibly heavy and difficult to move, or to fit into another home.

If you are lucky, you might get an amazing bargain, because there is so little demand. Most of them end up in the skip.

Going to add, my kitchen had cornices but as I was putting the wall cabinets closer to the ceiling than they were in the shop i didnt use them. I don't remember selling them either so I guess they went to the tip.

I bought my kitchen off ebay, it was in a farmhouse, I paid £300 for more units than I needed, but I could play around with them and see what I wanted where. Dh had the unused units for shed storage, a quick paint job and new sink and worktops. My advise is go for a good quality second hand. Mine is solid, no loose doors or drawers and it's been here 5 years, I don't know how long it had been in the farmhouse