New kitchen - thoughts on suppliers please.

[AddictedtoCrunchies]

I'm at the early stage of planning my new kitchen extension. I've done a VERY rough mock up of what I want on DIY Kitchens which comes to about £4.5k. I believe their units come flat packed?

The Howdens man has just been round. Very nice chap and asked loads of questions. I showed him my plan (I drew it out roughly) and he said it would be about £10k. However he did say their kitchens came ready made. Which is fine.

I have an appt at Wickes in a couple of weeks.

At the moment I want to nail down the layout and then I'll choose colours and styles later.

Has anyone got any advice on choosing the supplier? Howden, Wickes, B&Q, DIY Kitchens or Wren. Any thoughts, successes or failures to help me? Budget is probably £7-£10k absolute max. Kitchen is 5.3m long x 3.85m wide and I already have washing machine and dishwasher. I also have someone lined up to fit it.

Thank you.

Avoid Wickes at all costs, we had an awful experience with the store, the fitter and ultimately customer service which led to us going to the Ombudsman for compensation which we were awarded.

DIY Kitchens come fully assembled. We went with them in the end. We saved about £600 ish over Howdens (small kitchen) but the units are much better quality than howdens.

@LuckysDadsHatthat's good to know, thanks. I think I'll see what the Howdens man comes up with and try to replicate it with DIY Kitchens.

@Worried74you're not the first to warn me off Wickes..

My Howdens kitchen is not great quality. It’s chipped and damaged in loads of places. My previous kitchen was ikea and still looked brand new after 8 years of heavy use. I’d never use howdens again. Expensive and poor quality.

My current kitchen (2 years old) was supplied by a local manufacturer and they got me a fitter (he was ok but not great) the quality is superb and their customer service was excellent. Depends where you are, I'm not sure if they do country wide.

I recently had another kitchen from howdens to replace a 20 year old one that I got from them.

There is definitely a dip in quality between the two suppliers, howdens carcass are thinner, doors are thinner.

Howdens were slightly more expensive.

Design, I knew what I wanted from my kitchen, how it should look, how best to use the space and did not have any fancy pullouts that bump the price up.

Howdens were excellent. We got a local carpenter to fit it. I would use them again.

If you like shaker wooden style i can't recommend handmade kitchens of Christchurch enough. Good value if you buy in sale and chose units wisely. Long lead time may be an issue

V happy with DIY Kitchens - I went with the Norton bespoke painted. I didn't like the Norton cornice style so I got an extra cornice in Helmsley style.
The fitters commented that the quality is good, including the back panel being sturdy (unlike some flimsier ones).
I've been to the Howdens showroom and don't notice any difference in quality.

The only downside was that I'm in a flat and they don't deliver up stairs. They also don't give you a timeframe for delivery up until a few hours before, so it was a headache trying to have people on standby to receive it as their delivery times included weekends, early morning and late evenings when the builders weren't around.
Don't be tempted to move the units yourself - they are fully assembled and HEAVY.

Also, you can order touch up paint, even for bespoke painted, and it's just £5 for a pot. Handy with a boisterous toddler (though I have to say the finish on the units is very hard wearing and we haven't had any issues with flaking or anything, just accidents where things have been thrown at it...).

DIY kitchens are ready made units. Its one of their big selling points, they are also buy far the most recommended by fitters that I know.

Love my Wickes kitchen (Tiverton range), now 15 years old.

Used an independent fitter, from a friend's recommendation.

Very happy with our DIY kitchens kitchen too

We have DIY kitchen - it's only a few months old so I can't vouch for longevity but I love it and feels v good quality. It's a bit of a faff if you need extra bits or something needs replaced because it's not like you can just nip down the road to Howdens. But so long as you don't book your fitter in too early it's fine.

Howdens couldn't price match - their best price was still 3 grand more than DIY kitchens.

DIY kitchens come fully assembled, and are better quality and much cheaper than the other major suppliers.

i got mine from DIY, my fitter was amazed as the quality of it and couldn’t believe the price I paid.

Thanks everyone. DIY Kitchens seem to be the winners so far. Luckily I'm about 40 minutes from their Witney showroom so I can go and see them in the flesh.

The Howdens man was lovely but his plans aren't what I was expecting. I'm only going to do this once so I want it to be right.

I got a kitchen from Lark and lark some years back. We wanted to paint it ourselves. I love it.

We went to IKEA and got a design done - no pressure from them at all to buy from them - in the end we used an independent company who use Symphony as a supplier and sourced our own kitchen fitters - just another option to think about :)

DIY Kitchens +1 👌🏻

DIY Kitchens fan here too - excellent quality and masses of choice. Definitely go to the showroom and have a look at everything - we went with totally different doors having seen them all in situ.

My only gripe is about delivery - you choose which week you'd like but don't find out the actual day/time until the day before the delivery is due. So you have to be able to be flexible, or have someone on stand-by to take the delivery for you. The delivery people were great - really helpful but make sure you clear some space for the units as they will need a home before you get them fitted.

We’ve had Wickes kitchens in two houses we’ve owned and have been really impressed with them, so much so that DD also had one fitted in her house 5 years ago. The kitchen design service was excellent and the units are well made. We’ve just moved house and are planning on another Wickes kitchen early next year.

We went to all the ones you have listed, plus IKEA and Benchmarx. Builder suggested Benchmarx or Howdens.

Wickes, Howdens and Benchmarx all the same price wise.
Wren didn’t listen to what we wanted.
Magnet massively more expensive.
Ikea I couldn’t be arsed with the different installation - I hear it’s fine but builder said it was more faff.
DIY kitchens - again I have a friend who has used them totally fine but I couldn’t be arsed. They couldn’t do the nice bits (fancy pillar thing under island, I dunno) in the colour I wanted or something like that.

We went with Benchmarx, which were the people we went to first. Product basically the exact same as Howdens but I preferred the customer service and they really had a lot of patience with us and aftercare has been great too.

We've always had Ikea and fitted them ourselves and they've been very hard wearing. This time we couldn't get what we wanted from Ikea and have ended up with Howdens. I can't tell you much more as it arrives this week... Our builders told us to avoid Wren and they also weren't very complimentary about DIY Kitchens, apparently they're fiddly to fit, although I don't know why that would be. They apparently prefer Ikea to DIY Kitchens but love fitting Howdens as they're sturdy and easy to fit.

I think a lot comes down to kitchen fitter. I live in area where good ones are hard to come by. Bad ones are easier to find and by the time they’ve ruined the kitchen it is too late.

Wickes delivery is awful. Lots of things didn’t come. The deliveries came outside of the delivery window which caused problems. The kitchens weren’t great either.

This is great info thanks. I've got the Wickes man coming Tuesday plus I've requested a DIY Kitchens plan for £29.99. My boiler is in a weird place at a weird height so im struggling to house it properly. Need a bit of help with that.