Finally a chance to have a new kitchen but.........

[mellymooks]

Hello, this is gonna sound daft as we're so lucky but am so stressed.
My partners parents have just received an inheritance and have said they are going to give us £5000 so we can do our kitchen up which is faling apart at the seams. We are over the moon as have dreamed of doing it for so long but never thought we would have the cash. But we now feel paralysed at making decisions over layout, appliances etc and don't seem to be able to make any choices and just getting stressed instead for fear of messing it up as we know we will never have the chance again. This does sound REALLY daft what a thing to stressed about!! Anyway if anyone has any tips or advice I would be really grateful!

Don't rush into any decisions would be my first advice. £5000 doesn't go as far as you'd think when you're talking new appliances etc. Try to decide what your priorities are ag look or function and that may tell you where to spend more or less money.

Most of all enjoy

Relax.

And go to Ikea. £5,000 will go a long way there.

we have just finished extending our house...i felt stressy in much the same way you are...i started with magazine buying. real homes is my fave...its got REAL homes in it, rather than rambling country mansions and huge barn conversions etc..i found ideas which i really liked, and ones which i really didn't, which was equally helpful.

measure up the space you have available....go round lots of very posh kitchen shops and take advantage of their free design service.

we carried a tape measure and started measuring up display rooms in shops, just so we could see how much space we could have and what units etc...

decide on layout first, then choose your units...search online and try to find someone who can take advantage of trade prices in howdens, etc...

good luck. hope it goes well!!

How practical are you and DP?

You can save a lot by doing a lot of the fitting/plumbing yourself, or even just the rip out of the old stuff.

We re-fitted our kitchen nearly a year ago for about £3500 which included getting the room plastered (£330), electrics redone (£300 ish - get several quotes, this was half the price of one we had), new oven, new flooring, units, worktops, sink etc.

We got our kitchen from Wickes and they have two types of ranges - the takeaway kitchens and the to-order ones. The takeaway range has a smaller variety of units but is ££££ cheaper than the to-order ones. If you can come up with a design which only needs standard unit sizes, and you aren't worried about spice drawers/wine racks/pull out larders (basically any kind of novel/exciting feature) you can save a fortune.

Good luck and have fun!

I had to do my kitchen on about £1500!

Here are some tips ...

Beware IKEA could be a false economy if you are paying for labour (or mean a lot more time and effort if you're fitting the units yourself) and you have pipes on any of the walls that the units need to go against. You see IKEA units don't allow any space at the back for pipes etc (this is standard in mainland Europe apparently). UK units on the other hand have a recess at the back to allow for pipes. So, if you get IKEA ones and have pipes you'll have to actually cut into your cupboards which besides being ugly could cost you extra.

We looked at lots of kitchen suppliers. We found Wickes take away kitchen range to be the cheapest, and better quality than Ikea.

Shop around for the appliances, particularly online.

You can get some bargains on ebay for the appliances and also 2nd hand whole kitchens BUT it takes time. It's worth a shot, but be prepared to be outbid several times particularly on the kitchens - last time I tried it there was a lot of competition.

We're not really practical at all but could do the ripping out, but am tempted to get it all done in one go as I'm not sure quite how we would juggle it with our toddler! It's great to see actual costings for things like electrics as I really didn't have a clue how much that sort of thing would be.
We are torn between keeping the layout as it is and trying to change it. (it's currenty a U, we're thinking of having either an L with small breakfast bar type thingy or a galley) our other option but we're both really unsure about this, is that we could take out our downstairs loo and have a much bigger kitchen that could have a proper table in it. We only have kitchen and living room downstairs and currently have dining table in the living room which makes it really tight, what with that and trying to accomodate our toddlers ever growing toy collection, so the idea of having more space in our living room is appealing, but I do like a downstairs loo it's so handy and is good resale asset, but is it as good an asset as big kitchen?!
Oh the decisions!!!!

Decide what you like from looking at showrooms and other people's kitchens, then search online for the cheapest place to get it - you don't need to get it all from the same place.

We have just bought kitchen units from B&Q, worktops from Ikea, Smeg cooker and hob on Ebay for £80 new, ceramic sink for £30 new on Ebay, flooring from Homebase in the sale, etc...it'll come to less than £1k for all the fittings, and my dp is fitting it. But even if you're paying a fitter, you'll still be able to get a great kitchen for £5k.

If you pick up the Kitchens brochure from Wickes, it is actually really useful because at the back there is info about planning etc. They also do a leaflet if you are fitting it yourself.