I went for integrated dishwasher, fridge, freezer and washing machine and a drop of soft closing doors.

one of those ones on the door which opens as you open the door?

yep, bigger the better though.

We had ours done, for about 5500 all in, through one local company.

That was with twin oven, integrated microwave, (above cooker in a tower), integrated dishwasher, hob, extractor hood, under cabinet lighting, tiled floor, tiled walls, sink, taps . . . .

The appliances were all CDA by the way, they're German, but inexpensive compared to the big boy's, no problems with any of it so far, about 6 months in!

Nothing fancy and fairly small kitchen, bout 12ft x 9ft area, we've got loads of cupbords though.

We did it quite close to the nail, cus we're on about selling it soon.

It has to be said that if you're fitting units from a DIY store and 'normal' fittings (Inset steel sink, normal worktop etc) then fitting a kitchen is no harder then assembling flat pack furniture and screwing it to the wall. We did ours between us in our last house. MrsPP assembled the units in the garden, I screwed them to the wall, did the plumbing, wiring etc. I'd never done one before and it was a fairly small kitchen, but it turned out very neat indeed. This is it the day we moved out –

(I also did the suns on the glass above the door, and fitted the 2 lamiate floors you can see there. Look at the neatness of the edging into the dining room! 😉 )

We need to do our new place in the next couple of years and want some of that fancy worktop that's all one piece with the sink, and there may be some knocking about to be done as well, but I think we'll get some mug someone to design it for us, fit, plumb and wire what we can ourselves then get the worktops fitted by a pro. I'm certainly not paying someone to do something that easy for me! 🙂

I bought a Homebase one and fitted it myself…cheapest we could find that we liked and could supply 1000mm drawerline base units. B&Q only did them in their premium range, cheap range you had to buy them without drawers or x2 500mm units which bumped the cost up considerably.

Narrow kitchen so we used wall cabinets at floor level down one side, open Ikea shelving instead of proper wall cupboards, turned out really nice 🙂

Saved about £100 by getting the handles from Screwfix instead of the DIY sheds.

From:

To: (before Ikea Shelving)

Good job spooky. We did the design and fit ourselves too – used the IKEA thingy. Sourced tiles/ handles etc locally and did our own open shelving. Looks fine. As previous, much easier to keep the fridge separate.

This is really handy as I have just had an offer accepted on somewhere that needs a whole new Kitchen and bathroom. It's given me a few tips on where to look etc.

We did the Ikea thing. The online design program was great the build quality appears excellent. We went for the solid wood work surfaces which ned to be treated with oil for the first few weeks but look very posh . We had a local fitter who we know and trust install it .People who see it are impressed and it is nice to use.

Friends have real horror stories about the HomeBase style of operation where there seems to be comunication issues between store, designers and installers.

Got my units from BnQ they had a good deal on and they quoted £7K to fit(tiling electrics and removing a wall) decided to do it myself.Its not rocket science and you can always ask the STW massive I did!
It took 3 weeks and had to get a tiler in to do the floor as it was originally 2 rooms and the floor were not level.Granite tops were done by tradesman.
Have a go and build up your power tool collection!
And go intergrated! 😆

Howdens are similarly priced to everywhere else (B&Q & Wickes etc) but the cabinets are built up. Someone did mention that their Howdens supplied one is losing it's doors – these are put on by you or your joiner.
When getting a joiner make sure you get one that has been recomended for finishing of the worktops as it's the hardest bit.
A good quality kitchen can be done for just a few thousand but will look nasty if you skimp on the finishing.