[themoid]

Hi fellas,

we are just starting to think about getting a new kitchen, inc. fitting.

does anyone have any recommendations of companies to talk to / avoid like the plague from your experience ?

cheers

Stu

[Singh400]

We've had a new kitchen from a company called "Kitchens". They delivered and we had a friend fit it for us. "Kitchens" do supply fitters for an extra price. I'll see if I can find a number for ya - might have thrown their leaflet away.

[shahedz]

had a nightmare with MFI. they use third party installers , so have no control over them and how long they take etc, avoid at all costs,

local independents are always best, if you can get some recommendations

[Henry]

Redhill Appliances for the cooker, fridge, oven etc. Very cheap. Excellent service and one whole english pound for delivery! Heartily recommended. Google the name to find them.

[Mr Incredible]

I used a local "independent" and was very helpful, but TBH I have been even more impressed by the units themselves, which are Rational from Germany. They appear to have approved dealer network so you get good quality of goods and service IMO. See if you have a local one.

[Knightshade]

Again, local companies. Certainly not the cheapest options but workmanship is excellent and the fitters were the tidiest I've ever seen.

[stevec46]

Are you intending to get a company to supply and fit?
Reason I ask is that you can save quite a bit of money by buying cookers etc on the web, I suppose the downside might be that the fitters complain if its not the exact one with the exact dimensions that arrives, but you could always order, wait for it to arrive and then get fitters, I saved @£100 on my cooker..

Steve

[la gran siete]

you can always try this lot if you are rolling in it:
www.smallbone.co.uk/

[themoid]

Originally Posted by la gran siete

you can always try this lot if you are rolling in it:
www.smallbone.co.uk/

very nice.....probably cost more than the house is worth

Stu

[themoid]

Originally Posted by Malice

I used a local "independent" and was very helpful, but TBH I have been even more impressed by the units themselves, which are Rational from Germany. They appear to have approved dealer network so you get good quality of goods and service IMO. See if you have a local one.

Cheers for this, looks like the main distributors are about 6 miles away from us will go over and take a look, looks nice gear.

Stu

[Decadence]

MFI completely messed up my folk's kitchen. As stated before, they use 3rd party fitters who are generally crap...avoid!

[Mr_Wistles]

Mfi - Made For Idiots

[JohnD76]

Check out Ikea

[Joe90sDad]

Nothing wrong with MFI kitchens if you install yourself or use a decent carpenter. I've installed 4 MFI kitchens, no problems. For what you get the price is decent. Always plan the layout yourself, the MFI sales guys get a cut and will try and stick as many slim units as they can to bang up the price.

Ikea stuff is also good.

Avoid Moben, Kitchens Direct like the plague.

[Timmy C]

I used Magnet as I wanted someone to supply and fit. I'm sure being a pretty mainstream kitchen company there have been a fair few bad reports but I was pretty happy with them overall. Units were delivered when they were supposed to be and the fitters came the following Monday. All finished in a week with finishing touches completed the following Saturday morning when I was there to inspect everything. You do need to keep your eye on these guys though as I got the impression they would have taken short cuts if they thought I would stand for it.

One thing I would advise if you use a company like this is that you ask for a detailed breakdown of costs before handing over any cash. There was a fair few things I had to have knocked of the bill, the cheekiest one being £40 (or whatever it was 5 years ago) for fitting an appliance. Now £40 to fit a cooker is fine by me but when they wanted £40 to 'fit' the fridge I had to have a word! I pointed out that in actual fact they were charging me £40 to simply plug in the fridge and the guy looked a bit embarrassed and tried to use the excuse that £40 to fit a cooker was a bargain so the fridge evens things up a bit! Needless to say that was knocked off the bill.

The other thing I found is they were happy to price match on cookers,hobs,hoods etc. which made life easy as I only had to stay in for one delivery.

Cabinet and door quality seem good with no problems 5 years on so if I were ever to move and need a new kitchen I would probably consider them again.

[BrianC]

If you can put together furniture from Ikea and put up shelving then you can do most of the work yourself. The only parts that I'd recommend getting in a professional is for the worktops and built in parts like the sink or cooker.

[themoid]

cheers for the suggestions guys.

fitted my last kitchen myself (ikea units), but will not have the time to do it in this house, and would like a more professional finish than i can achieve

Stu

[Ayub]

I have just installed a kitchen, and dfound most companys not helfull at all or over priced. There are kitchen design programs you can buy online, i think there are free ones too. which will give you a good idea. If you have oone installed then heeping the appliances where they are would save you time and money.

A: Plan your kitchen ( cooker and sink position, as moveing them later will bump up the price).

B: Decide on how many units you are going to need ( need and use)

C: The latest item is the "piston close" feture they sell you. They bump up the price by £3 per unit. These can be had from fle bay for around a quid per piston.

D: Finally the units and doors, these are where the money come in. Please see the above post on prices demand a breakdown. Remembering that they go out of fasion to. L.E.D. under the units installed in the plinth might look good for a day but like rose printed wall paper its an eyesore 6 months down the line.Granite is also a good looking feature but its easy markable with lemon juice etc.

Good luck my friend.

[ash]

I would reccomend Magnet, they are very good and helpful
We fitted it ourselves with our own builders, and bought worktops from a local independent. And when buying any kitchen equipment, try to get Bosch, they are the best in quality and everygy ratings

[lightningvictim]

Originally Posted by Henry

Redhill Appliances for the cooker, fridge, oven etc. Very cheap. Excellent service and one whole english pound for delivery!

Agree the prices are good but for some reason they are selective about which postcodes they deliver to - I went right through the ordering process only to be rejected at the last hurdle because I had an AB postcode!

[booyaka]

well just bought a kitchen yesterday.

got it from a local timber merchants who supply kitchens/bathrooms etc also.

I used IKEA's kitchen planner (check their website) - really useful tool to show what your kitchen looks like in 3d etc.

measured things up myself and went and saw what we liked. ordered yesterday. 2 weeks delivery.

Will fit it myself ( ). Cost £1400 for all units,hinges, soft closing doors,work surfaces, extractor for cooker, plinths, end panels etc etc.

All our applicanes are seperate and will be getting kept.

[ash]

Also try "Howdens and ...... " forgot the altter bit of the companies name.

[dino_jr]

Originally Posted by Singh400

We've had a new kitchen from a company called "Kitchens". They delivered and we had a friend fit it for us. "Kitchens" do supply fitters for an extra price. I'll see if I can find a number for ya - might have thrown their leaflet away.

I had a bad experience with "Kitchens"

The kitchens guy came round and designed a kitchen on a paper sheet he had, then quoted a price that he could only guarantee "provided I pay a £100 non-refundable deposit"

I said I was still looking round at other options, and so didn't want to pay any money yet. I said I would ring them if I wanted to go ahead with their design.
He then said that if I chose another company after all, I could just buy something from them up to the value of the £100, and that would be it. So I agreed to buy the worktop through them at the very least.
I then signed the kitchen drawing, saying I agreed the layout etc. (BIG MISTAKE). Apparently this drawing was also the legally binding contract to buy the kitchen! The representative made no mention of this, or the discovery later that the back of the drawing was a ton of small print.

However I eventually went with a IKEA Kitchen, including the worktop. So basically "Kitchens" had had £100 for nothing. I just accepted that as the case.

A few weeks later I get a letter from kitchens demanding £50 for wasting their time! Apparently my £100 was seen as the green light for them to order me their kitchen, even though I had said I wasn't sure yet!


The main problem other than this, was that they have no website. Once the representative has left you can't remember exactly what the kitchen looks like!