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i thought it was going to be easy to hand it over to a one stop shop type company via b&q
Problem is that they subcontract all the fitting so you've no idea who you're going to get. I'm assuming the fitting is at a fixed price and there wasn't a survey by the guys acutally fitting it so it's likely they're struggling to make money on it.
If you want a job done properly, contract directly with the people doing the work and pay them for as long as it takes. Needs some trust though.
I'm assuming the fitting is at a fixed price and there wasn't a survey by the guys actually fitting it so it's likely they're struggling to make money on it.the survey was done by the same contractor who works for b&q...no issue with the amount of work needed...just the confusion in getting the work started...they had to subcontract that out due to delays on another job. the subcontractor finishes today and then its back to the contractor and his fitting team to get cracking on with the install...so far we've lost 1 days worth of work and the knock on effect is that it delays the finish day by more than 1 day due to the work needed to be done...but they've promised to come and do 2 full days over the weekend to get back on schedule
You've seen my kithen Deadly, although you probably didn't study it. Your welcome to look closer when your back. I got it from
http://www.knaggs4fittings.co.uk/
and fitted myself. Knaggs are a tiny place in an industrial estate in Harlow in Essex, not a plush show room, just an office and a few samples. However They've been around a good while, my parents have used them for bits and pieces and I found them excellent. Had no problems at all with any bits ordered from them and they were fairly swift at getting me some extra stuff when I found I'd stuffed up and ordered one wrong door and needed another. good cabinets, solid backs, triple density chip, blum fittings, assemble easily, easy to fit and fingers crossed they should last well barring floods.
I used the ikea website to do all the planning and get the whizzy 3d graphics so i could tweak the layout until happy.
The granite worktops came from somewhere different. cheap but a bit of a pain to deal with....they stuffed up and cut the sink hole in the wrong place, only by about 3mm but it meant the sink wouldn't drop in. I had to take a router to the side of a cabinet to give space for the bowl. not an issue really as not seen, just a faff. I did get ~£100 off the worktop suppliers though which just about compensated for the extra work and a day or so without a sink.
update for you:
so as i had previously said we were behind schedule in the first few day of our installation due to confusion over what the workmen were supposed to do...once the kitchen had been ripped out there was a fair amount of plasterwork to be done which was expected considering the house was over 100 years old and there was plenty of evidence of where the previous owner had taken shortcuts when fitting the old kitchen...there was wiring work that needed to be done to. once the plastering had been done the electrician started but after 1 day went off sick without telling anyone...wife came home after work one day to find no workers there...the contractor had to chase him down...by the end of week 1 we had now lost over 2 full days due to no shows. wife was gong ballistic...refusing to come downstairs and look at the mess. on the plus side they had started to put the unit together just before the electrician had started.
come saturday a new workman turns up to work over the weekend as promised and it turns out he is one of the co-owners of the contractor firm...the manager was one of the other co-owners along with another guy.
when he surveyed what state the work had been left at by the sub contractors he was shocked and apologetic...
turned out most of the units had been put together wrongly as the coloured end panels hadnt been fitted. he spent all weekend putting all of that right before he could even start fitting everything but by the end of the weekend it was finally starting to take shape. the other partner turned up on monday to fit the worktops and get the plumbing and gas work sorted. however he had a long standing hospital appointment later that week but his partner (the one who operates as the manager) hadnt made any provision for his cover and subsequent no show the day after due to the nature of his appointment...so again we lost another 2 days.
after a few more calls to the "manager" the other partner got sent to finish everything off over the remaining week and another plumber was brought in to pick up the gas/plumbing job.
the contractor and B&Q both said the job would take no more than 10 days but after 16 days we finally had a kitchen. the first partner also said to us that if he been on the job from day one it would have been done within 5 days but the "manager" likes to overbook them team as he has no concept of how long a kitchen install should take...which i understood given his lack of building knowledge...both the partners had by now told me in great detail how clueless their other partner was. he was very defensive of aggressively toned whenever i had spoken to him to express my displeasure over his management of our project...he also liked to tell porkies to us and to B&Q.
but eventually the kitchen had been finished albeit the new ceiling and the tiling are yet to be completed but not by B&Q...we've also made a complaint to them over his crap project management but at the same time were full of praise for his other partners as it was quite obvious they were being put through the shitter by their partner.
b&Q have since apologised and refunded us our deposit we p[aid for the kitchen.
it'll be a straight forward installation....thats what we were told both by B&Q and the contractors...
my arse it was!!
We used a local joiner (and MTB-er!) to do ours. The whole kitchen was ordered from diykitchens. The joiner has fitted loads of kitchens and says that DIY do better quality units than any of the other big names - Howdens, BNQ, Wicks, Wren etc. Thicker finish layers on the doors and so on.
[quote=Leebaxter"]I am a kitchen fitter, and can only recommend diy kitchens really. Their such a pleasure to fit, and deal with compared to any of the other brands.
We got ours at diykitchens and real pleasure to deal with.
We had a granite top (5m of it) we didn't want to replace (££££) so I just replaced the units.
Really happy with quality and also the extras... 6 months after I had to do a bit of changing around and they sent me some new paint and harder for free ...
Worth paying extra for good hinges ... and I got some parts like the hidden inner drawers separately on eBay.
I'll update after I've fitted mine in July!! Building work (extension/wall removal) done by a pro, as is electrics/plumbing. Fitting & decor down to me. I think I'm looking forward to it.
Just taken delivery of our DIY kitchens errr kitchen, it's all still boxed so too early to give an assessment of the actual kitchen but the ordering, while a bit complicated is easy enough. My only piece of salient advice is go for the "Gold" (?) delivery, those mofos are bloody heavy, the kitchen was delivered last Thursday and my forearms are still a bit hurty.