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our mates a builder and has accounts with mkm and howdens, so said if we get a kitchen from them he can get it a bit cheaper and sub out to a kitchen fitter.
we've had both round, got the mkm quote, and going to howdens saturday for the er..... hard sell 'presentation'.
kitchens about 3m square, mkm quote comes in at 10k with decent worktop, 7.5 with laminate. first of all, wowzers, is worktop really that expensive? a very rough guess is around 6-7m needed, but 3 different directions so i guess 3 lengths.
secondly, maybe im living in the past, but 10k? for a 3m square kitchen? by the time we've paid for new floor and wall tiles and fitting, its going to be a pretty penny.
both have said their first price is just an initial quote and they expect to have us knock it down, and howdens have said theyll beat mkm's quote, so i guess there can be a bit of playing one off against the other but still.....
tempted to have a go myself, but i swore id never do it again after fitting our last one 😀
lastly, if worktops are the deal-breaker, are there any online alternatives that might be a little more palatable? we'd really prefer solid ones rather than laminate as our last ones chipped on the edges and looked crap after a couple of years.
cheers
Worktop Express is who I've used before.
Kitchens are expensive, which is ridiculous considering how simple the bones of them are.
Compare the cost of getting what you need from DIY Kitchens. I've used their carcasses several times and like them.
I bought our granite secondhand and cut it into match it all up. Getting people to do worktops seems spendy.
Solid wood? If you can take care of it? Easy to work with and cheap (ish)
I bought our granite secondhand and cut it into match it all up.
I'm curious, what do you cut granite work top with?
An angle grinder?
How do you cut it straight?
How did you move it?
My wife is campaigning for a new kitchen. I've looked at the price and am suddenly even happier with our current fully operational kitchen
Solid surface worktops are around £400-500 for a linear meter. There’s quite a cost for templating and fitting included in that. Laminate worktops from Howdens are £100-200 per length, plus around £500 fitting fee from a kitchen fitter.
£10k isn’t unusual for a kitchen these days, especially with solid surface.
Bought from DIY Kitchens for our self-build 4 years ago - it was half the price that Howdens quoted (thinner carcass, flat-packed, not built). The builder pushed us to Howdens - they even created their own design without even consulting with us and got all sniffy when we told them we wanted something different / on a fixed budget but they wouldn’t tell us how much it was. After weeks of back and forth they finally came back with a design that was twice our budget - told them to sling it. The other benefit of DIY was that they do more cabinet widths and heights so you can make more/better use of your space - Howdens units were shorter and couldn’t offer an infill panel to the ceiling, which just looks shite/is a dust trap - I have a 5m wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets. Howdens also charge £10/unit for ‘soft close’ hinges - it’s a £1 click-on damper.
I bought a quartz worktop from Worktop Express. I sent them a detailed drawing and they sent me a drawing with errors back. Got that fixed but it then disappeared in transit for a few weeks before finally arriving in 3 parts - it was only packed on a flimsy pallet. Fortunately the crack was mainly hidden by the induction hob and couldn’t face another 4 weeks of unfinished kitchen. Some of the finishing on edges was poor. I’ve had custom granite and marble installed previously so was a bit disappointed - but it was relatively cheap.
It was £8k for the kitchen - 2x 5m of cabinets, and £1k for the worktop
I can't bear the pricing structure of those kitchen companies. Think of a number, add a bit, then give a random discount, then another discount if you ask nicely. Much prefer dealing with IKEA. Everything has a price. You can easily see if something is expensive, swap some options, try different layouts and get an instant price.
I did put in our kitchen. Way, way less than 10k. My dad came over and helped build cabinets. We had them fitted in a day. Worktops were a bit trickier but probably another day in bits. Went for wood, not the most durable but I like the way it it wears and it's easy to touch up.
Would do the same again (although not with my dad unfortunately). I'd never go to one of those "trade only" type places.
Get Howdens to price match DIY kitchens? Definitely haggle.
I worked there for the last 8 months.
Try someone local to you for the quartz. It’ll be a lot cheaper than Howdens.
Howdens carcasses are prebuilt, saves the fitter time ( and you money) although they do sell flat pack, it is cheaper?
There is a big price difference between the frontals. The carcass is the same whichever range you pick.
our Ikea kitchen is ten. there are some minor damaged areas but overall it's going strong. the worktop is ok, but has faded / scored to white if that makes sense. It's a walnut laminate with an underglued sink.
Since the original install i've removed two carcass and swapped them around to install a dishwasher. the big drawer is now ever so slightly off level.
Howdens prices for us were absolutely mental. 18k for a small kitchen with MDF fronts and quartz worktop, no appliances. Our builder was gobsmacked.
Went to DIY kitchens, ordered too much so we had some units to alter (nothing in our house is square) and it was less than 8k (without worktops, but solid wood fronts) for worktops we used a local company who were great (Planet Granite near Coventry) they were great, measured everything with fancy lasers, and the resulting quartz top fits our wonky house perfectly. We would have loved wood, but everyone I know with wood worktops seems to regret it.
Depending on your employer, check their discount schemes, my wife's scheme gave her significant discounts off various suppliers.
Unfortunately kitchens aren't cheap, but there's no need for them to be Howdens prices
My recent Ikea kitchen was around £5k without appliances, 15 units in total. Worktop is an amazing looking granite, 3 sections totalling about 5.5m with 200mm upstands instead of tiling. That was £2.4k. Very happy with both. Could not fathom the other bit of granite I saw in the van after they fitted mine. Plain black seems utterly pointless.
It's been about 6 years now since I bought Howdens kitchens and worktops.
The units were ok but the worktops are the biggest pile of donkey poo ever.
Two different kitchens and both have got the top surface of the worktop lifting away from the worktop base.
When cutting one of them it looked like glass mixed in with the wood 😱
DIY Kitchens & Worktop Express worked well for us, id definately use the same combo again
Ive got IKEA in my utility. And wren in my kitchen.
They were bought 6 months apart. Unit for unit the IKEA was considerably more expensive and I fitted both. The IKEA is thin and flexible and it makes for fitting fun. The front door of the big floor to ceiling unit has warped after 4 years due to lack of hinges along it's length. 2 cabinet hinges and it really should be 4.
The wren units on the other hand are thicker carcass and doors more rigid as new despite much more use.
15 units ,2 under drawer set, and 3 lengths of 40mm oak , AEG hob and double oven , crap CDA fridge and neff dishwasher. 7k
6 units in the utility from ikea - 1.5k not including solid oak worktops that came from worktop express. 2 of the doors arrived damaged.
But it was a whole lot more convenient than wren.
Didn't bother with a quote from Howdens
Would probably use DIY kitchens next time.
We got an IKEA kitchen fitted 2 years ago, and we're very happy with it. The units are solid - nothing like the cheap 'n cheerful Billy bookcases or whatever, they're decently built. The design process was excellent, with a clear breakdown of costs etc. The worktop's laminate, and seems fine, although the plastic bit that sits on top of around the edge against the wall (to stop water/crumbs/dirt getting down behind the back of it) is a bit crap. It'll be cheap and easy to fix if need be in the future, though.
So yeah, another vote for IKEA.
My only advice would be to avoid black granite. I hate ours.
DIYK online planner useful for baseline pricing (don’t forget to click the VAT and panels buttons). Howdens and I expect Wren will price match DIYK.
There’s an FB group that’s useful for ideas and cost fiddling even if you don’t end up choosing DIYK. I’d link, but putting anything other than text on here ended up in the too fiddly bucket.
When herself went part time and took pension there was a budget for a new kitchen. We approached a local place and asked for a quote. The very nice man took a lot of measurements and started marking paper out. Herself then says she want to spend less than £25k! The very nice man said £20k would just about buy the cabinets, no worktops, appliances or any other nice to haves!
We apologised for wasting his time and said he had better go. We were shocked at the costs of units locally made in some type of particle board.
I can strongly recommend that a new kitchen is not fitted in December. Just don't, really!
seems to be a lot of love for DIY Kitchens so ive been playing around with the planner, but im not having much joy, so maybe better to let the experts loose on it.
also had a look at IKEA as yes id prefer the price to be the price rather than that silly 'discount' game that they all seem to play. i suppose i just dont know what size units would go where, its hard to tell the quality without viewing in the flesh, howdens and MGM are local, we've been to view, and my mate has an account with both.
im still half tempted to fit it myself tho, altho thats only cutting out the cost of my mate/subbie, the kitchen will still cost the same.
and id prefer ready built units so only the doors to fit. wife would like oven on the other side of the room too so thats electrics to fiddle with too.
no, i wouldnt choose a wooden worktop either, we really would like solid resin/quartz/whatever and just choose the cheapest version of that.
i'm off to howdens in the morning, determined not to play the game, im almost certain i'll be walking out without a deal. i suppose it makes it easier that ill be on my own, so "ill have to check with my wife first" 😀
thanks for all the advice and suggestions, much appreciated.
We had IKEA units installed in our kitchen back in 2017-2018. IKEA anniversary discount too if I remember correctly. Solid wood worktops.
only problems so far:
- mismatched stainless steel bar/handle on one of our cupboards as we had brought that from our previous house and didn’t think to replace it at the time.
- ‘twirly whirly’ shelves in corner cabinet lower mount screws worked loose last year. I need to get around to putting some bolts in.
- cleaners robustly clean the wooden worktops so I need to re-oil them more frequently than I’d like.
- Our cockatoo sometimes like to chew the worktop edges. Easily fixed with some sanding and oil. Not sure we’d get the same OK outcome with resin
installation - our joiner/builder friends did this well. Their complaint was that the cupboards do not have a void at the rear for cables and pipes and the like.
A friend in Belgium went for the same wooden worktops and, annoyed by spillover from their sink, used yacht varnish to finish them. Looked very good.
If I were buying again I’d consider stone or glass worktops but the wooden ones have worked well so far and made replacing a range with a hob very easy and fairly cheap
Howdens kitchens are shit. They dont last well and their pricing/discounting is a joke. I wouldn’t touch them. There are much better big co kitchens both uk made or German. We’ve had magnet, mereway (the most solid, used to supply John Lewis but went bust last year) and Schuller. Key is finding someone who’ll do supply only as there’s loads of scope to discount (the company’s we’ve used don’t seem to be about but a search foundthis)
Much prefer dealing with IKEA. Everything has a price. You can easily see if something is expensive, swap some options, try different layouts and get an instant price.
this. I know people who make high end doors and fi them to ikea carcasses. They’re flat pack, so you’re doing more work but all solid if fitted well. Doors are pretty good.
worktops - find a local worktop supplier and go direct. Any kitchen supplier will outsource it and add a mark up.
I disagree with the above TBO.
I’ve been fitting Kitchens and Bathrooms for 30 years and have fitted countless Howdens kitchens. They’re ok, not the best, not the worst. They’re easy to fit if you have the basic skills required. The cabinets are mostly sturdy and more importantly everything is available either straight away or within a few days if (when) mistakes or damage occurs. A good fitter will get a good, long lasting product, unfortunately a lot of people have theirs fitted by their builder, which may or may not have the small details (the ones that matter) ironed out, which is what makes it last.
Most kitchen suppliers have positives and negatives, but I’d have a Howdens in my house long before I’d fit an Ikea, Wren, B&Q or Wickes. I’ve tried DIY Kitchens, but just found their site confusing and when all priced up, like for like; not actually that cheap.
These days I mostly fit Hacker kitchens from Germany via a design house I sub for, which are in a different price point and you can tell, night and day different to UK made stuff.
Bloody hell! We 'only' paid £25k for an 6m x 6m kitchen – including removal of a load bearing wall and steels put in, appliances, flooring, final fix, plastering, decorating, the lot – and the kitchen units themselves were higher quality than Howdens etc (some German make from a local independent kitchen installing company).
We had a Howdens kitchen fitted about 3 yrs ago. We went for acrylic over quartz/granite. It was a a fraction of the price and looks ace.
The problem we had was that several of the appliances we wanted had 12 months lead time due to the post-covid chip shortages. Hopefully that's not an issue anymore!
A good fitter will get a good, long lasting product, unfortunately a lot of people have theirs fitted by their builder, which may or may not have the small details (the ones that matter) ironed out, which is what makes it last.
….
These days I mostly fit Hacker kitchens from Germany via a design house I sub for, which are in a different price point and you can tell, night and day different to UK made stuff.
The ones I’ve seen were well fitted, but seemed to show their age quickly. On was a sprayed “handle less” with a groove handle at the tip of the door. Because it was machined mdf the finish in the handle was crap (not smooth). The paint also seemed to have chipped badly elsewhere on the doors. Maybe just a poor choice of doors but interior of cupboards didn’t look great at either.
the British made mereway were (at least 12 years ago) way better than even high end German cabinets were completely solid freestanding - solid tops, 19mm board, glued and doweled, thick backboards with no flex
I always wonder where the money goes on most kitchens as the shells are crap, hingers are crap, drawers are crap etc,. and they then just have fairly crap doors put onto them.
I would rather spend more and actually get a proper made kitchen with all wood, dovetail joints, brass hinges etc,. Just had a DeVOL kitchen fitted which was exactly that and it is absolutely lovely. Well worth the additional cost especially given how good the overall service is (I have never had better from any company)
We've had two kitchens fitted over the years, by me! IKEA one about 15 years ago with an oak worktop. Think that was a out 10k all in without appliances. You need to be aware of lack of service gap. Looked great when we moved out 2 years ago.
Looked at IKEA again for the new house and the quality didn't seem adls good. So went down to Magnet.
For a roughly 3x4m kitchen with laminate worktops integrated fridge/freezer, dishwasher and a pantry cupboard it cost I think about £8,000.
Also included a few nice swinging shelves for cupboards oh and sink and tap.
Units came pre-built which was nice. We reused our hob, oven and extractor.
They were really good although that price did include a random discount of pretty much 50% but the sales guy just added that on automatically. I'd definitely use them again.
I've just been through this hell.
We had an extension & wall knocked through to increase the size of our kitchen and turn our separate kitchen/dining room into a kitchen diner.
The total space is ~9x3m & the kitchen itself I suppose is around 6x3m of that.
We went to Wren, but the salesman was pushy & he didn't really ask us what we wanted. Just designed something and said there you go. It was very expensive & depending on the 'offers' available day to day the price kept changing.
We had experience of DIYK as we'd had a brick-built cupboard & chimney removed form the kitchen a few years ago & I filled the space with some of their units & worktops.
Quality-wise, there kitchens are really good. But, you need to be completely on top of the planning process & all the bits you might need. You really are on your own there, although they will check the order prior to shipping & highlight any mistakes.
They have two showrooms so you can see their stuff.
I almost went with them, but...
The designer in our local Howdens was very good & the plan he came up with was worked through in combination with our suggestions/requirements. He went the extra mile to accommodate changes & suggest things we might like to consider.
The price ended up close to the DIYK price - it was a little more expensive, but not by enough to worry about and there were a few things in the DIYK quote I hadn't added that would have increased it a little bit.
Quality of the kitchen units and doors is not as good as DIYK.
One of the main advantages for me with Howdens was the delivery time & ease of exchanging damaged stuff or getting hold of forgotten/extra bits. We have 5 depots nearby and sourcing stuff was easy.
We also went with their quartz worktops. This was a bit of a saga, as the first load of quartz that turned up had chips along some of the joined edges and the whole lot had to be re-done. They gave us a discount for the inconvenience & really did try to their best to sort it out quickly.
Howdens quartz was cheaper than a couple of local places we tried by a decent margin.
In terms of pricing, Wren came in at £22k all in, but that price went up & down by over £1k as their offers changed & their salesman chased us - that was for cabinets, appliances & worktops. They were quoting £6k for fitting on top of that 😄. Muppets.
DIYK were about £16k all in, but like I say there was probably almost £1k of bits missing from that as I never got round to fully speccing everything through them - extractor, taps etc.
Howdens were just under £11k for the kitchen and the worktop was £4200 inc. fitting. That includes a full width splashback against one wall (~3m) & another bit of splashback on the adjacent wall of ~1.5m long. One piece is extra wide to make a breakfast bar.
Appliances were about £3.5k for: freestanding washing machine (shallow LG one), integrated dishwasher (Beko), 800mm AEG induction hob, single oven & combination oven/microwave (AEG), full-height integrated freezer & full-height integrated fridge (both Hotpoint).
Flooring was extra. We went for Invictus glue-down LVT.
What I would say is, plan, plan and plan again. Get a really good idea of what you want, how you use the kitchen, how is the lighting etc. Are there any pipes in the way that mean you can't put certain things in certain places, can you/are you willing to get them moved? Do you have enough sockets? Do you need more drawers, or large cupboards for storing things like bread makers etc. Do you want sockets adding inside cupboards for vacuum cleaner chargers etc. Since ours has been installed there are already things I would probably have done differently & I spent bloody ages mulling over the details.
Anyway, I'll try to include a couple of pics or else its hard to compare prices people are quoting.
It was a lot of money, but we are happy with it. We have been in the house for 13 years and the kitchen was already looking tired when we moved in, but we've only just got round to sorting it. I could have done some of the installation myself, but the kitchen fitter made it look pretty easy when he really battled some wonky walls due to our crap plasterer. That's another story.
Not finished, so no skirting, pipes need boxing etc.
Top tip if you are looking to save money whilst retaining some quality – look for appliance sellers on places like Ebay that deal with damaged returned goods. For example, we got a brand-new 2m Britannia range oven for less than half-price because it had a big dent in the side, but, as it is enclosed on both sides, the damage is not visible. That saved us a whopping £1,500.
I would rather spend more and actually get a proper made kitchen with all wood, dovetail joints, brass hinges etc,. Just had a DeVOL kitchen fitted which was exactly that and it is absolutely lovely. Well worth the additional cost especially given how good the overall service is (I have never had better from any company)
Yes, DeVol are better than the local box shifters, and so they should be as they start around £50k! They’re about 1/2” a mile from where I’m standing and there’s quite a few fitted in town, but when you break them down they’re only (nicely made) plywood boxes. I see quite a few with cracks in the paint on the shaker doors.
the British made mereway were (at least 12 years ago) way better than even high end German cabinets were completely solid freestanding - solid tops, 19mm board, glued and doweled, thick backboards with no flex
Yes, Mereway were very good, I used to fit a few around 10 years ago until the company I sub to switched to a single supply chain from Hacker.
Howdens kitchens are shit.
Nothing like a blanket generalisation. The kitchens in our offices are Howdens and are standing up pretty well.
A good friend of mine is a joiner and I asked him about doing a kitchen for me. He pointed me at Howdens, a particular branch that he only deals with. Found the consultations to be friendly and pressure free. We popped in several times and changed our minds regularly. Quartz (or granite) worktops had to be laser templated ahead of fitting. Cost was about £17K fitted including all appliances. Very pleased with the end result. Having helped install the last one, there's no way I'd do it myself. YMMV.
Well I've been feeling twitchy over the last couple of months. Spent close to 20k all in, no building or restructuring. Nothing special in my eyes, but my wife likes it. We went to a local company I knew and had spent with previously. Lazy I know. Neff appliances, new ceiling but flooring was already down. Standard 4 bed detached size, no dining. Oh, and the utility units and ceiling. I think I was skinned.
BTW, I just looked at the original quotes, and the units we have fitted are Rotpunkt – nine years on and they still look almost as new (zero warping, flaking, delamination etc) - the only marks are physical damage we have done.
Yes, DeVol are better than the local box shifters, and so they should be as they start around £50k! They’re about 1/2” a mile from where I’m standing and there’s quite a few fitted in town, but when you break them down they’re only (nicely made) plywood boxes. I see quite a few with cracks in the paint on the shaker doors.
Nowhere near £50K. We got a lot of stuff for just £24K - kitchen run, units each side of cooker, bespoke tall glass dresser, double cupboard, 2m table seat thing, 2x1 metre centre table with 4 drawers and wooden top, nice sink, nice brass taps. The side panels are nicely made plywood but the drawer units are wood and the door fronts are wood. They are also sprayed and then hand finished so touching up when necessary is very easily done.
Every single person who comes into the room says 'wow' and rightly so.
Sounds about right. Ours was DIY kitchens 1 year ago, 3.3mx2.2m (within a larger room). £9.5k inc. fitting, new plumbing, tap, handles, ~5m quartz worktop (£2.5k from local supplier) but no floor or tiles or appliances. It is a chuffing nice kitchen now though, best room in our house.
Recommend looking for your local stone worktop wholesalers and going there to choose what colour you get, can see the full size slabs
aye, so seems that 10k might be what i'll have to pay then for 3x3. below is the initial design.... we fancy either this dark blue or a sage green type colour and handleless.
should maybe have said before, its replacing a howdens kitchen that i fitted myself 🤬 🤬 🤬 , but its lasted around 12 years, including the Lamona dishwasher that we've just replaced. so the cost will include hobs, cooker and fridge/freezer, no dishwasher.
so i get that some of you are dissing howdens and maybe rightly so in some cases, but that 12 years has given us a bit of trust in them.
oh, our mate will be knocking a wall down too to open it up to a kitchen diner, plus new flooring too so this is going to cost me isnt it 😀
Love how the Howden's design render includes a bloody air fryer littering the worktop!
Also surprised to see a kettle - I don't think our Howden's designer ever even countenanced the idea that they would not be including a hot tap in the design!
Nowhere near £50K. We got a lot of stuff for just £24K
with worktops, fitting and appliances? Colour me surprised if so.
Love how the Howden's design render includes a bloody air fryer littering the worktop!
Shhhhh it's not Howdens, it's 'the other ones' I mentioned 😉
oh, and we do have an airfryer littering our worktop 😀
Looks remarkably similar to the kitchen we went for. I like the lack of handles. Only annoyance is that the matt finish shows up dirty kids greasy finger marks really well, so we're forever wiping the kitchen down. We were going to go for sage green, hence the green clock, but went for blue instead.
And a photo mid install
aye, so seems that 10k might be what i'll have to pay then for 3x3. below is the initial design.... we fancy either this dark blue or a sage green type colour and handleless.
Ours (the pics I posted above) is the Howdens handleless - Clerkenwell, I think it's called - in gloss. We looked at the matt finishes, but was a bit worried they would attract fingerprints like mad. This was from holding a few of the samples at the depot.
The DIYK handless (Luca Gloss) has a slightly more comfortable handle cut-out shape. But it's very marginal. DIYK do free door sample (I think 3 samples are free).
I would be wary of painted door finishes - there is a DIYK facebook group I signed up to for design tips, and that constantly has people complaining about how easily the painted doors chip.
My brother had his kitchen re-done around 4 years or so ago, and still moans that he wishes he didn't have painted doors as he is forever having to re-touch chips in the finish.
I would definitely see how much extra it costs for a full quartz splashback along the wall with the hob, rather than the antique mirror splashback & upstands. It looks really neat to have it match the worktop. The only thing to be wary of is that most integrated extractors take up nearly the full depth of the unit and so the splashback overlaps the extractor surround. I didn't realise this until we'd already ordered everything. It looks fine, but will be a bit of a pain if the extractor ever packs up.
Some companies offer deeper wall units & if you go down this route, it might be worth considering.
Regarding boiling water taps, we considered one but neither of us were actually that fussed. We did get a in-line filter for the tap though & a three-way tap (from Osmio) as our water is very hard & we wanted to get rid of the Brita filter jug thing.
We were originally going to get a water softener, but it would have voided the warranty on our 3 year old boiler so we ditched that idea.
I'm just starting to pull out the kitchen in my new place, it has a classic 70s or thereabouts melamine worktop (exactly the same as my mum and dad had) and apart from a few knife marks it's pretty much immaculate, looking at the price and reputation of new stuff I wish I could timetravel back and get a new one exactly like it tbh. It's going upstairs to my nerd cave to be the worktop up there, it could outlive me.
If going handleless, I’d go for the Ali rail system rather than the J Pull routed into the doors, much better and you pull the door from behind with your fingertips, so the doors get less fingerprints.
the extractor thing mentioned above is indeed a weird Howdens ‘feature’. Their std wall cabinets are only 290mm deep, so integrated extractors only just fit. You need to carefully do the splash back to make the extractor serviceable. They should update their sizes to 300mm + as standard, like everyone else’s.