New Kitchen Costs?

[bitchstewie]

Clearly a Saturday night when everywhere is closed is the ideal time to think of this

What started out as replacing a cooker and hob has turned into thinking whether to replace the kitchen as it's getting on for 20 years old.

It's small at around 2m x 3m and a simple "U" shaped with one side of the U longer than the other.

Looking online places like Wren and Magnet have rough price guides that spit out what feel like crazy low prices for "mid" or "high" range units and appliances with wet-fit.

Guessing I probably wouldn't use them but the calculators are there and they all spit out in the sub £10K range which feels like complete rubbish.

Like the painting/decorating thread I fully get that you can buy cheap stuff or decent stuff and I fully appreciate that it needs a sit down with some kitchen specialists - but has anyone had a smallish kitchen done recently with sensible stuff i.e. it's not the Ritz?

I may pop to Wickes/Magnet tomorrow as they're open and local but I'm just trying to get an idea if it's worth even sitting down to get a few quotes.

[J6542]

Kitchens are all about the fitting. A good fitter can make a cheap kitchen look great and a rough fitter can make an expensive kitchen look ste. Look up a guy on YouTube called cav joinery to see someone doing it properly. Don’t know where you are in the country, but if your anywhere near him it, he would be worth contacting.

[AWRacing]

If you know what you are after try DIY kitchens. Our old house had a similar sized kitchen which, from hazy memory, came in at around the £3k mark, may hve been slightly less. I was going to fit it myself with a chippy doing the worktops. He offered to fit the lot including the work tops for something like £500. Took him a week to do so i thought that was a bargain. And it looked perfectly fine, everything worked as it should, worktop joints mitred in etc

Edited by AWRacing on Saturday 28th September 20:44

[LooneyTunes]

AWRacing said:

If you know what you are after try DIY kitchens. Our old house had a similar sized kitchen which, from hazy memory, came in at around the £3k mark, may hve been slightly less. I was going to fit it myself with a chippy doing the worktops. He offered to fit the lot including the work tops for something like £500. Took him a week to do so i thought that was a bargain. And it looked perfectly fine, everything worked as it should, worktop joints mitred in etc

Edited by AWRacing on Saturday 28th September 20:44

Last one we did with DIY Kitchens was @£2500. It’s not bad stuff either, but not found them the easiest to deal with. £500 fitting would be a no brainier!

I wouldn’t get the worktop from them. Find the local “flash” granite/silestone worktop place and see what they have available as offcuts (they’ve already been paid for, so all gravy them)… ours will come out and pattern, cut, finish if needed for much less than you’d expect to pay.

[2 GKC]

If you can’t do a 2x3m kitchen well for £10k you’re doing something very wrong

[Moulder]

My fiver is on...

Kitchen units/top: 8k
Appliances: 3k
Fitting: 2.5k

Higher end Wren/Wickes units, middle level appliances.

[Simpo Two]

Moulder said:

Higher end Wren/Wickes units, middle level appliances.

I used cheap cabinets but added soft close hinges and drawers. Wood staved worktop, then chose Siemens appliances and glass splashbacks for the expensive look.

[Blown2CV]

are people saying wren is higher end?! We had one fitted 18 months ago and I don't think I'll ever buy another one of theirs.

[bitchstewie]

Blown2CV said:

are people saying wren is higher end?! We had one fitted 18 months ago and I don't think I'll ever buy another one of theirs.

I'm just using their calculator as a five minute price guide and trying to work out if it's vaguely realistic if I walked into a few kitchen places.

[smifffymoto]

I’m in the process of getting a Howdens kitchen fitted.
I chose the cheapest range and bought my own appliances,gas hob,Samsung oven,extractor and fridge freezer.
The kitchen was roughly £6500 with fitting quoted at £2600 but that's including additional work.

Kitchen is about 4x3 galley style with a door each end.

[Phooey]

I've posted a link below to *real* customer fitted Howdens kitchens - lots of inspiration and links to fitters. equipment etc. The Howdens stuff looks ok - plenty of colours and ranges. I think they also do a free design service - no brainer to give it a go. You could also find a decent local joiner that has a Howdens account. Kitchens can be 5k or 50k. I'd probably start with a free design service and an idea of what appliances you want. Then you want to get a costing for worktops - again these can be 1k or 10k. Taps can be £50 or £500 etc. There's a BIG range in kitchen pricing so you probably want to find your budget and work to that.


https://www.howdens.com/help-and-advice/real-kitch...

[bitchstewie]

Phooey said:

I've posted a link below to *real* customer fitted Howdens kitchens - lots of inspiration and links to fitters. equipment etc. The Howdens stuff looks ok - plenty of colours and ranges. I think they also do a free design service - no brainer to give it a go. You could also find a decent local joiner that has a Howdens account. Kitchens can be 5k or 50k. I'd probably start with a free design service and an idea of what appliances you want. Then you want to get a costing for worktops - again these can be 1k or 10k. Taps can be £50 or £500 etc. There's a BIG range in kitchen pricing so you probably want to find your budget and work to that.


https://www.howdens.com/help-and-advice/real-kitch...

Yeah there's one near here I assumed they were trade but I'll take a look

They sound similar to who I used for the bathroom where they're a massive independent trade warehouse and they design for free and sell the stuff and work with independent but trusted fitters.

Budget is a tricky one because there isn't one it mostly comes down to what I feel comfortable spending.

It's such a small kitchen it just gets used for cooking there's none of this "focal point of the home" stuff so I'd lean towards good quality and I want it to last and look good but that's about as far as it goes if that makes sense.

[Moulder]

Blown2CV said:

are people saying wren is higher end?! We had one fitted 18 months ago and I don't think I'll ever buy another one of theirs.

If that's based on what I said I meant more the range within each manufacturer. E.g. Their Vanden Plas as opposed to SE.

[addsvrs]

We are in the middle of a house refurb. Kitchen prices fitted was eye watering so got creative. As it was a bedroom before it was an clean slate. Peanuts costing kitchen from facebook marketplace, a chippy who along with the missus could design the jigsaw that was said kitchen , changed the colour ourselves, plumbing and electrics, under 3k. Depends on what level of stress and fking about you want !!

[bitchstewie]

The current cooker and hob are gas and if I look on most appliance sites as soon as I tick the gas filter the range literally disappears to a handful.

I'm guessing it'll need some electrical work as I'm not sure how good the ring main behind the existing units are but is there any specific electrical work needed for an electric oven/hob?

There's obviously electrics in the kitchen but I assume an oven/hob needs a beefy supply?

I know this is all stuff that'll come out in the wash but I'm already getting ideas like getting rid of the extractor that eats up a lot of space over the hob if an induction hob with a built in vent can replace it.

[Huzzah]

I have never replaced a whole kitchen.

But if the layout is okay,, and carcasses sound, consider doors, surfaces, tiles & paint.

[muscatdxb]

Blown2CV said:

are people saying wren is higher end?! We had one fitted 18 months ago and I don't think I'll ever buy another one of theirs.

I think Wren is pretty high end. We have one and still looks like new after 8 years. I think it cost around £30k but it’s quite a big kitchen.

[LooneyTunes]

bhstewie said:

Phooey said:

I've posted a link below to *real* customer fitted Howdens kitchens - lots of inspiration and links to fitters. equipment etc. The Howdens stuff looks ok - plenty of colours and ranges. I think they also do a free design service - no brainer to give it a go. You could also find a decent local joiner that has a Howdens account. Kitchens can be 5k or 50k. I'd probably start with a free design service and an idea of what appliances you want. Then you want to get a costing for worktops - again these can be 1k or 10k. Taps can be £50 or £500 etc. There's a BIG range in kitchen pricing so you probably want to find your budget and work to that.


https://www.howdens.com/help-and-advice/real-kitch...

Yeah there's one near here I assumed they were trade but I'll take a look

They sound similar to who I used for the bathroom where they're a massive independent trade warehouse and they design for free and sell the stuff and work with independent but trusted fitters.

Budget is a tricky one because there isn't one it mostly comes down to what I feel comfortable spending.

It's such a small kitchen it just gets used for cooking there's none of this "focal point of the home" stuff so I'd lean towards good quality and I want it to last and look good but that's about as far as it goes if that makes sense.

You have to watch Howdens on pricing. Not transparent at all. The price each fitter gets quoted can be different, and the price you’d get quoted as a one off would be completely different. By way of example, the lads I have working on a site we’re doing at the moment were very open that the rep had dropped by and offered them various incentives if they could persuade me to put the relevant business their way.

That lack of transparency is a large part of the reason I’m not keen on using them, albeit I do have a kitchen recently delivered by them waiting to be fitted so that we could see what the quality was like compared to DIY Kitchens.

Absolutely right though that there are huge variables. Taps can make or break a kitchen design, but quality is variable. Appliances can have huge mark-ups from fitters, especially if you go to someone who does all bespoke design.

[Skeptisk]

New kitchen is a bit of a trigger word for me. I don’t want to think how much we ended up spending (mission and budget creep). Even worse, we thought we were going to live there for a long time then went travelling. It was painful being in rented accommodation thinking about how much better our tenant’s kitchen was! Now back in our home. I’ve told the wife we aren’t moving again until we have got our money’s worth from the kitchen and other changes we made to the house (as we won’t get the money back when we sell it).

£10k sounds like not a lot of money these days. I suppose it can be done with care.

[sfella]

Just before you hop on the convenience bus with an induction hob, gas is much cheaper to run and works when powers out. All you need is a gas safe plumber for an hour max and your sorted, you can get him to plunb your new sink.at the same time anyways.

We've induction by way of what was here and can't wait ti get rid