Magnet sales

moneyistooshorttomention

I've got a kitchen planner from Magnet coming to see my kitchen.

Funnily enough - it's the day after the Winter Sale month ends:cool:

I've not been able to work out very well whats what re their sales programme by googling. As far as I can see - I think they probably have a Spring Sale, a Summer Sale, an Autumn Sale and a Winter Sale each year?

It also looks like they possibly do some "working things out" to book an appointment with you during a sale period - but the designer doesnt come round until after the sale period and says the booking of appointment date with them isnt the one they will take account of.

So I shall go ahead and work out all the info with the designer - but, if I do decide to have one of their kitchens - then sit and wait it out until the next time they announce they have a sale on before I actually agreed to have a kitchen from them.

So - has anyone worked out the exact dates their sales were on in 2016 for instance? So I can figure out when I think the next one is likely to be - and I could go ahead and place an order if I wish to.

I'm mindful of the fact that I've just read a newspaper article of 2014 commenting how the price of one particular kitchen varied to and fro over the course of the year between £3,721 and £4,809 and occasionally went as high as £7,875. Obviously I would want to buy at the £3,721 time of year.

phill99

Of all the places to buy a kitchen, why go to Magnet? Those big stores and high profile advertising campaigns are all built into your kitchen price. There are better value places to get a new kitchen.

Your being sucked into one of their continuous promotions.

leveller2911

Get Magnet,Howdens,B&Q to plan the kitchen and then when they give you the elevation drawings (but not the plan) and get the kitchen from DIY online (if you can find one you like). Magnet have a choice of white or Oak carcase but DIY have numerous colours of carcase .

From the elevation drawings a good kitchen fitter should be able to work out what units,cornice,plinths etc you need and order it online.

If you go down the route of getting your kitchen supplied and fitted by the likes of Magnet etc you will pay a large premium for an inferior product.

Doozergirl

Too echo, Magnet sell exactly the same stuff for more than most other retailers. The sale means nothing.

cddc

This time around they are fairly competitive it seems. They have only done this by lowering the spec of their units over the years though.

It used to be that Magnet were a bit more money than some of the other big players because they were a little bit better quality.

Now others do the better quality for the same money or less.

phoebe1989seb

cddc wrote: »

This time around they are fairly competitive it seems. They have only done this by lowering the spec of their units over the years though.

It used to be that Magnet were a bit more money than some of the other big players because they were a little bit better quality.

Now others do the better quality for the same money or less.

Yes, I remember that when my parents bought a new kitchen from them in the mid 1980s, Magnet kitchens were considered good quality compared to the other suppliers. I think perhaps because theirs were rigid when most other cabinets seemed to be flat pack? These days they don't feature on my radar when kitchen shopping, although we did once plan a whole kitchen around a limed oak Magnet plate rack I found in a second hand shop for £35........we bought the rest of the kitchen new from Magnet and I recall no end of issues with missing/incorrect items

Even then - mid 1990s - they appeared to have an endless sale, irrc

moneyistooshorttomention

Certainly I think, at the least, it will be useful to have one of those 3D type plans they all seem to do - I guess that is what is meant by an "elevation drawing"?

Obviously, I do wonder whether Magnet quality has changed for the worse over the years. I've seen various reviews online of their kitchens. Some of those reviews have said words to effect of "I've had my Magnet kitchen for 20 years - now it's going and I'm going to get another Magnet kitchen" and that would be reasonable to me. But - I'm all too well aware that it may be that 2016 kitchens are rather worse than 1996 kitchens - as it's such a trend in our society to downgrade the standard of goods to what they used to be.

I must admit I'm struggling a bit with what they're like these days. When my father put a flatpack kitchen from MFI in my starter house back in the 1980s - I could see that the door surrounds were definitely "proper" wood and the door panels seemed pretty much the same to me (I presume they would have been veneered plywood or the like??).

I wish I'd asked my father more questions as to what was what then - but what does an FTB'er know?! - so I just walked into the showroom with him and said "That range there" and he selected what he required and fitted it for me.

So - I expected that that was the minimum standard kitchens are made to (and hoping for better).

Now I've started coming across all this mention of "vinyl coated" doors and "foils" and the like and it seems many of the current kitchen units are made with vinyl-coated doors and those doors are really only meant to last a few years - and I'll admit to being shocked. I'm in my 60s and this house is probably going to be a "lifetime house" - and so it has to last around 20 years.

I presume this vinyl-coated door malarkey has been going on for around the last 10 years or so? - and I'm actually going to have to specify real wood door surrounds and veneered wood panels to even get the low standard of finish of my 1980s kitchen:(

Don't suppose anyone has any experience (good or bad) of having had a kitchen made from scratch for them? I just tend to assume the solid wood made from scratch kitchens would cost a fortune and I can't have one then - but I have found what I call a "hippy firm" here (well it is West Wales LOL) that does this and I am wondering what it would be like/cost?

Doozergirl

A Magnet kitchen, being used by one person from one of the wood ranges will almost certainly last 20 years. We are talking about value for money, in the main, ot about kitchens falling apart and de-laminating.

We buy what we can afford. The quality of fitting is the primary feature in how long a kitchen lasts - particularly a cheap kitchen.

There is a bit of snobbery from those that really know kitchens about what is better, but most kitchens will stand up for a good long while. Your budget is decent, we're just telling you that you can have the same for less through outlets other than Magnet.

DIY kitchens gets quite a bit of good press here but you do need to get your head around the component parts of a kitchen and how they fit together. You may not feel up to that.

I have friends with a handmade kitchen from Pineland. It's not particularly expensive but I also don't think it's 'better'. It's lovely looking, but it needs huge amounts more maintenance as knotting comes through the paint over the years and solid wood does expand and contract. It has bags of character though.

moneyistooshorttomention

Good point re "solid wood does expand and contract". I shall bear that in mind.

I think, possibly, that my kitchen should be easier to design/fit in various ways - as none of the units will be bang up against a wall at both ends. It's basically an L-shaped run of units on 2 adjacent walls. On the opposite wall I shall have a breakfast bar and a further wall unit above it (for extra cupboard space).

EDIT; Just nipped off for a quick land at that Pineland firm. Hmm....looks worth a good long read. They may be a possibility for me. Thanks for that thought.

moneyistooshorttomention

Well - I've got through a kitchen design from Magnet now.

Errrrm...I'm not convinced these kitchen designers are very good at their job somehow.

I had made it clear that I would be using a length of extra worksurface as a breakfast bar (but with a bit of the space underneath it having extra cupboard space there). Cue for finding it's been designed differently to the obvious way/my way and it would be literally impossible to sit at the small bit left available to sit at. Duh!:wall:.

Add in a comment about another alteration to the room he had in mind - that wouldn't have worked:wall:

I'm beginning to realise why so many kitchens in this country have boilers and/or pipes on show - a lot of it is probably down to the "kitchen designers" employed by these firms.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable to think:
- It's the customers job to decide what range of units they want/what worksurface/what colour/etc
- Then the "kitchen designers" job to work out how to do it all so that no "workings" of the kitchen show/it's got maximum "time and motion" efficiency built in to the planning/it all actually works.

Doozergirl

The covering of workings above worksurface level is usually addressed on site. The CAD package often doesn't deal well with solutions that aren't provided by cupboards.

Time for another designer. Be open to suggestion though, otherwise you may as well use an online planner if you think you know best.