Please help me choose suitable kitchen make for large period house

[rollonholiday]

We are nearing the end of large house refurbishment of a period property and we need to design and buy a large kitchen and separate pantry and separate utility room.

I am at a bit of a loss to who to go to because the budget will not stretch to Tom Howley etc for the size we need in 3 rooms but I am being advised that Howdens, Magnet or similar is no good for the house and will affect resale.

I am looking for a more traditional kitchen does anyone have suggestions of similar kitchens they may have installed.

Thank you.

Unless you are renovating to sell the architect is overstepping- he wants his vision realised, but this is your house and your money.

Once the project is complete the architect will be out of your lives, don’t spend on something that isn’t your priority!

I second/third DIY Kitchen - we have the Helmsley with oak carcass.
We paid a small amount extra for the standard height drawers to be made as oak dovetail. The deeper pan drawers are frosted glass sides.
All soft close hinges/drawers.
We have finished it off with a mix of oak and quartz worktops.

We also had a couple of bespoke units made by a kitchen company and they look very similar but a lot more expensive - we are obviously paying for the bespoke nature of the items, which included pocket doors. However, I don’t think it’s at all worth spending money on having the entire kitchen made by an independent company.

Your architect is talking crap, we have a big Victorian house with a utility, pantry and big kitchen and went to Howdens, it’s cost 22k including built in appliances and is very functional and looks good, we have had it for 5 years and still looks good as new, if I had a 50-100k kitchen I’d be terrified to use it but my Howdens is used daily and you can’t tell

What period?

I’d consider a freestanding kitchen. They are increasing in popularity now and would be period appropriate for most houses that are described as ‘period’.

I have a large period house which is high value (over 2.5m in an inexpensive part of the country). Our very large kitchen is HMKOC. It's then handpainted and we have decent appliances - Everhot, two Fisher and Paykel dishwashers, extra fan oven, french door fridge freezer, separate drinks fridge etc. It looks like a far more expensive kitchen than it is. We literally spent days and days on the design to ensure it looked as high end as possible.

I would point out however that it isn't all solid wood. They use veneers.

We shopped around, well spent ages on it, we had about 10 quotes incl howdens, TH, diy etc... Then we went with a company called Wood & Furniture Solutions. They can customise anything and deliver in TH style and quality for howdens price. Yes diy also looked good but we they had design limitations its not fully customisable also we worried about the fitting and the aftercare as we couldnt find good fitter nearby. We are really happy with our kitchen. Also asked them to 4 wardrobes in our house.

Hopefully op has sorted it nearly a year on.

Is your kitchen from Wood and Furniture Solutions solid wood?

Howdens have multiple ranges including wood, the end result is down to your fitter, same fir magnet, diy kitchens etc. I had a solid oak howdens kitchen that looked amazing

I was also going to suggest a free standing kitchen - that's what would have been in older houses I think? I really love them, but can't get away with it in this house sadly.