re. Magnet kitchens

s_b

katejo wrote: »

If I were made redundant, a kitchen would be the last thing I would spend the money on. I would keep it for emergencies in case I couldn't find another job. Perhaps that's just me...

i absolutely fully fully agree with you
but its not my money
did i mention shes paid the mortgage off too?
at least we got rid of the 5% charge with this one

katejo

s_b wrote: »

i absolutely fully fully agree with you
but its not my money
did i mention shes paid the mortgage off too?
at least we got rid of the 5% charge with this one

OK not so bad then. I would pay the remaining mortgage off first of all despite the current low interest rate. Then i would have an additional cushion but I still don't think I'd buy a kitchen.

shelleyber

My kitchen's units were supposed to be all delivered a month ago. A huge chaos - knocked. scratched doors, un-matched hinges, lots of missing parts etc. The result - I am still waiting for parts (so sare mt builders...) with no fully functional kitchen!!! AVOID!!!

cattie

I had a Magnet kitchen in my last house and loved it. It was very well made and easy to maintain. I now have a Howdens kitchen in this house, but the quality of the doors and cupboards seems nowhere as good as far as I can see. Already has slight damage in spite of having just one careful lady owner.

jenmariew

In my experience the money has to be there in the fist place for the chain stores to be able to give away large discounts and still make a decent profit. Where'as the one man band who doesn't seem to be giving a lot away in comparison cuts his margins instead. You don't have to go to the mutliples to get good prices. Go to your local independent kitchen design,supply and installation company and give them a try and compare like for like quotations and see what the final price is. You might be surprised!

Fed_Up_Tradesman

Leif wrote: »

I guess the problem is that it is so hard to find out solid information about kitchens. What makes the difference in quality given they are almost all chipboard carcasses?

Indeedy.

I just love the greeny customer who go for one brand over another because it has x% more recycled chipboard from manageable smiley huggable forests ...

Only to then employ the fitter from 50 miles away because he's £5 cheaper then the chap down the road...

Hilarious.

Fed_Up_Tradesman

Meepster wrote: »

I have to agree with the consensus...customers ARE stupid...mostly they care about what discount they are getting, not the bottom line figure they will be paying.

Only yesterday I had someone who I priced up for. Not a big kitchen, supply only and only a couple of appliances. My price was £5300, this equated to 60% off the total RRP. They had a quote from another multiple retailer (typical shed flat-pack kitchen) for £4950, which was 55% off the furniture and no disounts on anything else. Also a 3rd quote from an indy for £4800 (rigid built carcase, very similar to ours) but the only "discount" he offered was £500 off the appliances.

So they bought from me because, and I quote; "You're offering the best deal. We would have got it from C*********s if they'd given us more discount"

It's a funny old world

I had one last year who had Magnets plan and quote for their kitchen on a referral from her friend.

Before I quoted against their plan I said I could guarantee the lady a summer holiday with the savings she would make.

On Magent's £9500 quote, I saved her over £2k.

After weeks of toing and froing she finally decided to go with Magnets.

Having already done all the product comparison bit with her much earlier, when I asked why she wanted Magnets she said:

"'Cos my friend's got Magnets"...

C'est la vie.

doug66

We mistakenly bought a magnet kitchen a few years ago.
£500 of the price is for the 'design' by their 'kitchen design expert'. You have to pay it, there's no way around it.
Professional kitchen designer? First, she had a worktop covering 50% of a corner drawer so it had to be redesigned.
Next, she had a dead space in a corner as she didn't realise water ran downhill.
After several more attempts we finally arrived at something we liked, but unfortunately it didn't fit the kitchen as she'd forgotten that if you use free standing appliances (which we'd told her about) then you need a wider worktop so all her calculations were out by 2 inches in all directions, so in the width department we were 4 inches out, this meant we had to have one built in appliance whether we wanted it or not..
We finally got it sorted, sort of but it doesn't look anything like the design.
Now, a couple of years down the line two of the cupboard doors have stared to bubble and crack, so we phoned them up and after a month and a bit of a hassle they sent us two new doors.
Problem is, they are 5mm shorter and 1.5mm less wide than the ones they are meant to replace but when I phoned them up I was told that they no longer make doors to fit our kitchen.
I'm still waiting to hear from them about what we can do but I suspect we'll end up in court.
Magnets 10 year guarantee? IT'S A JOKE. AVOID THIS COMPANY LIKE THE PLAGUE

katejo

doug66 wrote: »

We mistakenly bought a magnet kitchen a few years ago.
£500 of the price is for the 'design' by their 'kitchen design expert'. You have to pay it, there's no way around it.
Professional kitchen designer? First, she had a worktop covering 50% of a corner drawer so it had to be redesigned.
Next, she had a dead space in a corner as she didn't realise water ran downhill.
After several more attempts we finally arrived at something we liked, but unfortunately it didn't fit the kitchen as she'd forgotten that if you use free standing appliances (which we'd told her about) then you need a wider worktop so all her calculations were out by 2 inches in all directions, so in the width department we were 4 inches out, this meant we had to have one built in appliance whether we wanted it or not..
We finally got it sorted, sort of but it doesn't look anything like the design.
Now, a couple of years down the line two of the cupboard doors have stared to bubble and crack, so we phoned them up and after a month and a bit of a hassle they sent us two new doors.
Problem is, they are 5mm shorter and 1.5mm less wide than the ones they are meant to replace but when I phoned them up I was told that they no longer make doors to fit our kitchen.
I'm still waiting to hear from them about what we can do but I suspect we'll end up in court.
Magnets 10 year guarantee? IT'S A JOKE. AVOID THIS COMPANY LIKE THE PLAGUE

Since my original query I have had a Magnet kitchen put in but I did it through a fitter and Magnet Trade not through Magnet's design staff . I am very happy with it .

trailingspouse

I got a quote from Magnet before we put our new kitchen in. They came out 50% more expensive than the kitchen we eventually went with, but they came to the house to do the measuring (Homebase, for example, expect you to do the measuring yourself). The guy who came out to us was very helpful and had lots of ideas of ways to use our limited space to its best advantage. I guess that's more down to the guy himself than to Magnet though!!