DIY Kitchens

pinklady21

Hello all
Doing up a farmhouse and several cottages at the moment. Will need 5 complete new kitchens overall.
Farmhouse is for us to live in, cottages are for holiday lets.
Budget for each max £7000k including appliances and worktops.

Looking at DIY kitchens online.
Any comments on them?
Is our budget of £7k per kitchen feasible if we go with them? (I know that is a piece of string question..... the cottage kitchens will be fairly modest affairs in terms of numbers of units, as these are planned to be holiday lets. The farmhouse kitchen will need a few more units.
Do DIY Kitchens have a showroom anywhere or do they take stands at shows so that I can go and see the kitchens? (I know they will send samples, but sometimes best to actually see and feel them!)
Any comments welcomed! Thank you.

spadoosh

Is that supply only?

£7k is a lot of kitchen for a holiday let. If you look at a kitchen style on the website they have a price and next to it is the price for a 'l shaped' kitchen. It gives you an idea of how mcuh so many units will cost, id imagine the l shape example is pretty spot on for the needs of a holiday let so would be looking to pay about those prices.

Obvioulsy specifics will drastically alter the price, things like solid wood worktops, belfast sinks, ornate handles etc. BUt £7k is quite a lot for a pretty basic kitchen.

pinklady21

Ooh that is encouraging to hear! The budget includes the fitting though, and that is usually the most expensive part!
I agree, an L shaped kitchen for the holiday lets will be fine. Oven and hob, sink and fridge with small freezer compartment, with a few cupboards is likely to suffice.
Folks are more likely to be looking for something that is clean and fully functional for the times they are actually going to be eating in while on holiday.
Anyone know if there is anywhere I can actually go and look at the DIY Kitchens range?

pinklady21

D'oh.
https://diy-kitchens.com/about-diy-kitchens/showroom/
Just found their showroom location on their website. Missed this earlier, as I thought it was just a virtual tour. Anyway - might be planning a trip to Pontefract soon!

spadoosh

pinklady21 wrote: »

Ooh that is encouraging to hear! The budget includes the fitting though, and that is usually the most expensive part!
I agree, an L shaped kitchen for the holiday lets will be fine. Oven and hob, sink and fridge with small freezer compartment, with a few cupboards is likely to suffice.
Folks are more likely to be looking for something that is clean and fully functional for the times they are actually going to be eating in while on holiday.
Anyone know if there is anywhere I can actually go and look at the DIY Kitchens range?

Fitting can be quite expensive, i worked for a diy shed and the general guide i would give out was the cost of the kitchen again to get the total cost (£2.5k of product would typically mean fitting of £2.5k,obviously depending on the nature of works requiring doing it could vary a lot). That was with our fitters that where notoriously a lot more expensive (all be it usually offering better/more reliable guarantees).

You should easily be able to get basic kitchens fitted for £7k. I know DIY kitchens dont fit so thats something you wlil have to source for yourself. Id imagine the bulk nature of your work will provide some economies of scale too.

Brummie85

Does anyone know if you go to their showroom, can they help you with the layout of the kitchen to suit your space?

spadoosh

Brummie85 wrote: »

Does anyone know if you go to their showroom, can they help you with the layout of the kitchen to suit your space?

My understanding is that they put the design and fitting in your court in order to be able to offer the lowest prices. Planning 3 different kitchen designs is time consuming and will often not result in a sale. That and it opens up a can of worms in terms of liability with odering the wrong stuff.

They might give you some tips but i would work on the basis that they dont employ designers and as such probably dont have the reliable expertise of such services.

Obvioulsy there is little stopping you from going to a company that offers free designs and seeing if diy kitchens can beat that quote. Obviously the quote with the free design includes the cost of the free design so ill leave that down to your morals.

Doozergirl

They do have computers in their showroom - when I went it was pretty busy!

They have an online planner and the best thing is to have a go yourself and then get a bit of help once you've done the bulk of it. I'm using it right now and nipping onto here when it gets its knickers in a twist. It's upsetting my macbook a bit but it's good enough!

planner.diy-kitchens.com

You can even submit the design online and they will sense check your design for you.

£7k is perfectly reasonable for a simple kitchen wothout too many frills. I'd recommend Ikea for great value for money appliances with 5 year guarantees. Peace of mind.

pinklady21

Doozergirl wrote: »

They do have computers in their showroom - when I went it was pretty busy!

They have an online planner and the best thing is to have a go yourself and then get a bit of help once you've done the bulk of it. I'm using it right now and nipping onto here when it gets its knickers in a twist. It's upsetting my macbook a bit but it's good enough!

planner.diy-kitchens.com

You can even submit the design online and they will sense check your design for you.

£7k is perfectly reasonable for a simple kitchen wothout too many frills. I'd recommend Ikea for great value for money appliances with 5 year guarantees. Peace of mind.

Sounds like you have used DIY kitchens before! Any tips you could pass on about them that would be helpful to know?

Doozergirl

This will be my first purchase from them but it's certainly not my first kitchen purchase!

The planner itself gives lots of tips on how to design and line things up. If you click 'configure' under each cabinet you choose on the left, you can change carcass colours and all sorts, also easily swap out the chosen carcass with another of the same size.

It also intelligently chooses where decor panels are needed, so it's fairly fool proof.

I've been to the factory showroom; the ranges are just vast and there are more options than other similar retailers.

Pricing look really good to me. I will get a couple of comparisons, just because I want to see exactly how cheap they are compared to the usual suspects.

There are people on here who have already purchased, so perhaps they'll chip in.

scumboss

I'm about to order my kitchen in the next few weeks. Went to the usual lot - Wren, Magnet, B&Q, Sigma3, Howdens. Most were very expensive. Wren was over 12k without worktop and applicances. I've known about DIY because of various forums recommending them. We decided to go there today. Had to book a day's annual leave and stay in a hotel overnight as it's a 5 hour drive. Wow I'm glad we went. Staff are very helpful, they went through our design and double checked everything. Gave us plenty of samples to go away with. My advice is if you decide to go to the showroom go on a weekday and when it first opens. The lady did say it would be difficult for her to go through everything when it is really busy.

Of course we haven't ordered and received the kitchen yet but so far so good. Our order is coming out at just over 4k and that's with curved units so big saving. Even cheaper than Howdens who quoted 5.5k.

My advice to anyone is go around the usual places using them to finalise your design and once you have that sorted use DIY's online planner to put it all together. You're almost there, all you have to do is get DIY to double check everything.