New kitchen costs

a_star_3

1 thing to remember about granite as well as marble... the darker the stone the stronger, the lighter the weaker, black galaxy granite is literally "rock solid", where as cararra white marble is somewhat delicate.

There was a time when quartz was considered tacky but its a growing trend with large numbers of colours and variations available its not always cheaper but definately just as nice as granite, personally like what stone gazer said I too love granite.

You can get high grade quartz which will not need sealing but it comes at a price. - If its European manufactured quartz its very good stuff..

fista

Wow! :cool:Looks great. What kind of Ikea units are these and did you install yourself?

vansboy wrote: »

Top save yourself some £$£$, the easiest way, is to get your hands dirty & do as much of the ripping out of the old one, as you can!

That means stripping the units, as well as old tiles, loose plaster, all back to a surface the plaster can more or less get to work on, as soon as he's in.

& do think of Ikea for your kitchen - see lots previous posts. Apply for a Ikea storecard in the branch, then you'll get 5-10% of the value of your first transaction, back in vouchers. Assuming you can clear the balance, of course - else you'll have interest charges.

Appliances are best sourced from other places, unless you're happy with limited range the kitchen supplier offers - as mentioned, they'll sometimes do additional discounts, but still better to choose the stuff YOU want.

Buy the appliances on Nationwide or Shell (petrol) credit card to get a further 12months warranty, free.

Look for some posts by Doozergirl - she's well up on granite worktops!!

Here's our Ikea kitchen for £2000ish (the third one we've had from them)

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii4/vansboyuk/IMG_2101.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii4/vansboyuk/IMG_2100.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii4/vansboyuk/IMG_2103-1.jpg

Bad_Mustard

OddjobKIA wrote: »

With reference to the DANGEROUS GRANITE..

natural grantie is safe you can get a man made granite which is all the dust and small off cuts fron the quarry compressed together and then glued with a resin that can be a little temptemental with extreme temps and heavy smacks (from pans etc etc)..

Granite is not as hard wearing as people think. It's natural stone so is therfore porous, it can suffer from thermal shock if hot pans are put directly onto it straight from the hob and also if you chip/scratch it then it can't be repaired.
Man made stone, Quartz for example, is much better. It has the look and feel of Granite but costs less. Like Granite it can suffer from thermol shock but because it's made up of 93% quartz and then bonded together with resin it's non porous. Also if you manage to take a chip out of it then in most cases that can be filled with resin.

If your after a great deal on your worktops then I would suggest trying Sheridan Fabrications (www.sheridan-uk.com), a friend of mine just had her kitchen done by them and she is over the moon with the whole package they provided (price, quality and service).:j

Lawrence_Crowther

After finally buying our Quartz worktops from T Foley Interiors, forgotten how to link to this but the site is kitchensfitted.co.uk, I've got to say we're over the moon still with our sparkly black quartz worktops and we have and would recommend them to anyone for the great service and cost, which incidentally, Bad Mustard, was almost £300 cheaper than Sheridans quote we also received at the time.
Thanks to MartialArtMan for the microwave advice, we went ahead and bought our Neff from Appliance deals but I did find that not all appliances were cheaper on any one site and that you have to search more on a model number than just assume that one site is the cheapest overall.
Thanks to all who assisted in this. This site is a godsend when you're in the dark about things and worked great for our kitchen. I'll be a regular visitor no doubt when my other half thinks of the next project she wants.