How much for a new kitchen? Help with some direction for today's market please.

[desi2]

Dear all, posting for the first time looking for some guidance on upgrading our very small kitchen in Sussex (max 15 kitchen doors required for units).

We are going with high spec timber doors and the DIY Kitchens quote like for like comes at 7.5k with quartz worktops vs 11k a local independent supplier for similar spec appliances and quartz worktops also. We have quotes also from Magnets, Wickes and a pending one from Howdens but reading reviews about them on quality/service etc. we have decided for now to not include them in our final considerations.

For the installation we have been quoted such a variety of prices from a number of different kitchen suppliers and we have no idea what's reasonable and what's not. The independent supplier has quoted 2.5k for fitting and the builder 4-4.5k to prepare the kitchen before fitting, getting rid of old flooring, appliances etc. and fitting a new floor and a new door, plumbing and electrics.
DIY kitchens do not come with a design service and have not found a fitter willing to want to take the work of ensuring the design is accurate and we don't have the knowledge or the time due to little ones and work to do fit it ourselves. We also new to the area and we know no builders or fitters.

We would really appreciate some thoughts on the costs mentioned above. 18k with an independent local supplier with just 3-4 appliances in seem quite a lot of money. DIY kitchens could be an option but we literally have no one we can trust to do the job and we are tight for time. Thanks for your help!

There's a DIY Kitchens Facebook page and I've seen there are a couple of independent designers on there, who'll design your DIY Kitchen for a fee and you could then use a local fitter?

18k sounds good to me (ours was £10k including appliances nearly 20 years ago and we are looking at about £25 now as we will be re-using our granite worktops). You are right to stay away from Magnet - we used them and a 4 week build took 16 weeks and then needed remedial work! In the last couple of years prices have really gone up due to a shortage of materials so I'd go for the local company as they are more likely to care about you as a customer.

The kitchen itself sounds like a reasonable price as does the fitter - £4.5k for preparation work sounds like quite a lot to me.

Have you considered IKEA? We found they were cheaper than DIY kitchens and they provide sessions with a kitchen designer for free. Our medium sized U shaped kitchen was about £6k including fitting by a local kitchen fitter.

Thank you everyone. The issue is the lack of local fitters at a price that makes sense. 7-7.5k we have been quoted to for fitting and building work from guys people beyond the quotes above. And they mentioned they wouldn’t work with diy kitchens. One mentioned they would work just with Benchmarx which we don’t have a quote for yet and don’t know quality etc.

If we had found a builder (and we enquired with 6 or 8 different ones) that would work with ikea or diy kitchens we would be happy to go for it, but everyone we seem to find only has preferences with the suppliers they work with or they have a year long waiting list. Thanks again for your opinions!