Think i might need a new kitchen!

DonDaddyD

These bots are like artificial intelligence with mind control powers...

Anywho, kitchens it is! How often do you replace yours? What did you replace, how much - if I may, how long did it take and how did you go about it?

Discuss.

kelsen

Hmmm...I think I might make chicken and sweet potatoes tonight...

ETA: Oh sorry DDD, wrong thread! I thought I was in the 'random musings' thread!

essex-commuter

Luckily I moved into a house that had had it done very recently. Found bills totalling £40K including electrical work, granite tops, tiled flooring, matching units in utility room, but no white goods. The kitchen was bespoke and has a cool walk in food cupboard. It has 25 doors in total...we still have empty cupboards!

However I don't really cook :roll:

Best advice I think I can give is get a planner in, they will come up with ideas that you will never think of.

rubertoe

I'll replace mine shortly, It will be coming with the new house that I am buying.

The Rookie

Done mine twice at 2 different houses.

DIY, totally gutted back to just a bare shell, new Kitchen installed with my Dad, built in Microwave, dishawasher, fridge, oven and hob, plus tiling and plumbing took 4 days, including building the units, quite a large kitchen (we used 16 units (floor and wall, single and double width), supplier of choice was Ikea and would use again, NOTHING (not one item) missing, order as parts also so you can mix and match and return what you don't need.

edhornby

depends on the space you have and the budget

BnQ are rubbish (cheap carcasses) I've heard good things about IKEA and also Wickes kitchens if you want to DIY

if you want to have a designed, fitted kitchen it can get VERY pricy

corriebee1

Providing the walls are OK (and relatively straight) fitting a kitchen is just lego for big boys. I have a couple of buy to lets where we've replaced kitchens with decent kit for less than £2K, including getting someone in to do the gas.

In saying that, I'm probably going to pay someone soon to knock our kitchen through to the utility and fit a new fancy schmancy kitchen. I'm budgeting under £15K for the building work and the kitchen (including new boiler).

sketchley

Re all the SPAM, is "kitchen cabinets" a euphemism for something or are they really selling Kitchen Cabinets?

My kitchen cost £11k it's shiny and white with lots of high end toys. I cook a lot and there is a big different in just putting something in that is practical and getting what you want with the appliences you want. You can do it for 2k but....

@DDD one option is just to replace doors if the cabinets themselves are ok. you could probably do this yourself as it's not hard. Worktops replacement need a bit more skill if you want to go that far as you have to do cut outs etc.

veronese68

I was just wondering why email spam at work always seems to be penis enlargers, little blue pills and watches. The spammers holy grail would be a penis enlarging watch. Yet forum spam always seems to be kitchen related.
Have the spammers done their homework and market research has led them to the conclusion that cyclist replace kitchens more often to sweeten the EPO after the n+1 purchase?

essex-commuter

Ooh and don't forget to utilise some of your old cabinets in the man cave. That's more exciting than kitting out the kitchen.

veronese68

essex-commuter wrote:

Ooh and don't forget to utilise some of your old cabinets in the man cave. That's more exciting than kitting out the kitchen.

Talking of which. Does anybody want a tall thin Ikea cupboard with shelves in it but no door for their man cave? Free to a good home, or even a bad one. I have enough shite, I mean useful storage, in my cave.

Koncordski

Done 3 now, all self fitted. If you can put together flat pack furniture then you can build kitchen units. Forget Magnet and high end shops. The quality of the cabinets is no better than you'd get from Wickes, even fancy features like solid oak doors and marble tops are available from the big warehouse outlets.

In terms of suppliers there's B&Q with their made up designer brand (Cooke & Lewis), Wickes (excellent, more on this in a minute), Howden's (must be fitted by a builder, pre-assembled units), IKEA (no utility spaces behind units), and then Magnet etc etc..

Firstly break down your costs. There's appliances, worktops, gas and plumbing and then the actual kitchen units.

It never works out cheapest to get everything in one place, Wickes will do very well priced units but make it back on the appliances. Everywhere rips you off on the worktops (unless using standard laminate, then its about £150 per 3M length. Plumbing is very easy unless you don't have any confidence in doing it, GAS must be done by a gas safe engineer.

Having done a few (both IKEA, and Wickes) the best way to control costs and still get a high end finish for me is:

Use Wickes for Design, Supply of kitchen units and install if you're not familiar with a screw driver.

Find a company that specialises in the kind of wortop you want, Stone, Solid Wood, Composite etc.. Get them to supply and fit the worktops. They can quote for the work before you start but it's best to fit all the units then get them in to template, going off measurements before everything is fitted will result in non fitting worktops!

Buy you appliances online, you will save a fortune. They're all a standard size to fit standard kitchen units, even if you want integrated appliances these are available and again will work with any kitchen supplier's doors. It's all a big kit of parts.

Get a decent Gas safe engineer form Checkatrade (or other) to fit the hob and boiler if these are part of your build.

I don't know if IKEA have changed recently but when i last used them the kitchen units had no utility gap behind the rear panel (between the back of the unit and the wall) which means getting everything buried in a stud wall first and making installation a right pain in the arse.

Howden's having seen a friends Kitchen are no better than anywhere else, the fact that you can only buy them through a trades-person means that you will have to pay for fitting.

Magnet are overpriced and the sales staff are pretentious. YMMV of course.

The Rookie

One reason we went for IKEA was we didn't want the utility space, you only need it for plumbing, not wiring and it takes 2" of depth of every unit you fit.....depends of course where your services are in relation to your sink (right next to in our case!).

davis

I'll +1 the Wickes suggestion. Really pretty good value -- did the kitchen in my rental flat about 5 years ago and it's still totally fine. Fitted it with my father's supervision and help in an afternoon, and when it looks a bit tired I'll put some new doors on it.

I'd never bother with a designer/planner myself, but then I grew up in a house where planning/designing/building was practically entertainment. If you're really scared, I think Wickes even do it for free if you bring them an accurate room plan. I've since done most stuff myself in SketchUp. Just visualise opening all the doors and drawers, for example (good scenario to imagine is scraping dirty plates into the bin and putting them in the open dishwasher -- that'll find all sorts of collisions if you've got any spacial awareness).

Edit: Think it was about a grand. Or so. Dunno. Not much. I'm tight.

tailwindhome

DonDaddyD wrote:

How often do you replace yours?

eh?

prawny

Some local places can be quite reasonable, at least out here in the sticks they are anyway.

My parents are having theirs done soon by a local custom kitchen place who are doing all the stripping out installation tiling and plastering for £6000

Solid kitchen too, nothing fancy (no granite) but good units

lostboysaint

Surely you'll get one in the new house outside London that you were looking for?!

The Rookie

prawny wrote:

My parents are having theirs done soon by a local custom kitchen place who are doing all the stripping out installation tiling and plastering for £6000

Kin ell, ours cost less than half that for parts....units, appliances, paint, tiles etc etc

Santa cruzing

The only kitchen I've ever fitted was to my campervan. I used Ikea units, with satin black doors and a nice wooden block worktop. Went together very well.

Made a rod for my own back though as now it's nicer than the one in the house, so it has been added to my ever growing list of jobs....

prawny

The Beginner wrote:

prawny wrote:

My parents are having theirs done soon by a local custom kitchen place who are doing all the stripping out installation tiling and plastering for £6000

Kin ell, ours cost less than half that for parts....units, appliances, paint, tiles etc etc

Yeah, but fitted and that and finished to a pretty high standard I think that's pretty good.

I did mine a lot cheaper, but my tiling skills are feckin awful

It all depends on how much you're willing to do yourself. I'm workshy 8)

merkin

Speaking as a tradesman (but not a chippy or kitchen fitter) you can usually tell a kitchen that has been DIY fitted. I got some chippies in to fit my units and worktops as although I am quite good at these things I wanted a good quality finish. If I had done it I would have risked messing up the worktops or the scribing would have been poor and it would have bugged me for ever more.
I did the mother in laws kitchen though. Sod her, she wouldn't appreciate quality anyway.

tlw1

Just had ours done and the wife specked it,never ever again - it cost more than I care to admit and she hasn't finished as we are getting bi-folding doors fitted in 6 weeks

First.Aspect

DonDaddyD wrote:

These bots are like artificial intelligence with mind control powers...

Anywho, kitchens it is! How often do you replace yours? What did you replace, how much - if I may, how long did it take and how did you go about it?

Discuss.

Its torture. Think stabbing yourself repeatedly in the penis with a fork levels of torture.