Best kitchen brands

ian23

Hello, I am about to update my kitchen and wondered what companies people on here have had good experience with please, only for ordering the actual kitchen. I have a friend that will do the fitting. I've only had a quote from Wren so far. Thank you!

MarcTJTD

Personal opinions:

DIY kitchens is a decent shout if you know exactly what you want.
Howdens is great for cheap and basic kitchens.
Benchmarx are "ok", not great but not terrible.
Ikea has weak and annoying cabinets.
B&Q is discontinuing it's entire range; the new stuff may be worth looking at when it comes in.
Wren and Wickes are too expensive for what they offer; very much style over substance.

If you're looking for quality, we deal with Omega kitchens; they've retailers up and down the country.

Very much depends on what style you want, how much you want to pay and what level of quality you're looking for.

pacarter11

Hi,
I know what you are going through! I love The White Kitchen Company. I bought one of their kitchens for my last house, superb quality for a really competitive price. I am now in the process of buying two more kitchens from them..... Happy days, I love designing kitchens!

cattie

Benchmarx & Wickes are both part of Travis Perkins group, so what one place offers, the other will too.

I got my current kitchen from Benchmarx, which was the most competitive quote for basically the same kitchen from Howdens, Magnet, B&Q etc. etc.

Five years on I'm still more than happy with it. I've had kitchens before from Howden, Magnet & the defunct MFI & have to say the quality of the kitchen I now have is excellent & I would definitely go for Benchmarx again.

TELLIT01

Howdens only supply to the trade. If the friend who is going to do the work is a tradesman they are certainly worth looking at.

MarcTJTD

Two things to consider when buying a kitchen from a company that only deals with trade where you have to buy it via your fitter:

You might not get the best price; some companies offer dual-quoting whereby they provide an inflated "retail" quote for the tradesman to give to you and an accurate "trade" quote for the true cost of the kitchen. As an example; you may pay a fitter £5000 for a kitchen he actually bought for £4000 and that £1000 difference goes to the fitter.

You may also suffer aftercare problems as you didn't buy your kitchen from the kitchen company, you bought it from your tradesman and your contract of sale is with the tradesman rather than with kitchen company.

If something breaks inside the warranty period, the kitchen company can reject any warranty claim that you bring to them and direct you to contact your tradesman who will in-turn need to contact the kitchen company as his contract of sale is with them.

Doozergirl

People who sell things are entitled to make money on them. It makes sense that someone providing you with a supply and fit kitchen service is the one responsible for all of it.

That said, in 20 years of dealing with the likes of Howdens, I've never had anyone come back to us with a kitchen element fail. I'm not sure that I'd refer to them as cheap or basic. They're a good, mass market product.

I also think the comments about Ikea are unwarranted. It can be hard to make an Ikea kitchen 'fit' in a space but they do offer great value for money and that does pay back, still, with the extra labour - in my experience.

Again, I've had zero issues with Ikea units. An incompetent fitter will see them deteriorate before their time, though, because they're flat packed too and rely on them being put together well.

There's all this chit chat about which kitchens are 'best' and I don't really feel like there's any meaningful difference at all in the mass market.

I even marvel at what the high end manufacturers are justifying their prices on sometimes. I've just just had a client pick from the non-bespoke Siematic range and the utility room looks like the cheapest Ikea door. They saw her coming.