Cheapest way to do a kitchen

jamie_128

Carcasses are too old to put new fronts on.

I know going to b and q etc i will get my eyes ripped out.

Whats the best way to do it but not do it myself as i wont have the time or patience.

There will be a bit of plastering needed after the tiles are ripped off, maybe a couple of sockets needing moving and the oven fitted. I could maybe take down the kitchen thats there now.

What would a kitchen fitter charge to fit a full kitchen if i use a independant? Ive been told ikea fitters charge like 2 grand im trying to get that price down, id order the kitchen from ikea or howdens or diy kitchens.

Kitchen is 3 x 3m.

FreeBear

Don't bother with B&Q - Their GoodHome range is by all accounts, very poor quality.
Howdens, you'll get stitched on price, and value for money is highly debatable.
If you look at the Wickes offerings, go round to Benchmarx and haggle over prices there - Benchmarx & Wickes are both part of the Travis Perkins group, and Wickes kitchens come from Benchmarx.

If your oven is an integrated model with a 13A plug on it, get the electrician to fit a socket behind the oven housing. Then anyone can plug the oven in, slide it in to the housing, and secure in place.

As for cost, how long is a bit of string, how many units, layout, number of joints in the worktop, and so on.

MovingForwards

Location?
Any additional fittings required eg more sockets?
What style of kitchen?
Are you moving things around eg sink from current location to somewhere else?
How many walls will need plastering?
Are you keeping the existing flooring or is that also getting done by your tradesman?

Have you contacted some independent fitters and asked for quotes, to at least give you are starting point?

jamie_128

North.
Most sockets will be fine where they are.
Shaker style in white.
Sink in same place.
3 walls plastering, just skimming as itll only be where the tiles are knocked off and left a mess.
Probz do own flooring.

bjt2019

If you're doing flooring yourself, Lifestyle Flooring UK are pretty good for price. We bought Karndean from them just before Christmas, was a bit dubious but Trustpilot reviews looked good so went for it. Vinyl flooring and laminate are supposed to be cheapest for flooring?

Agree with the above for Howdens- absolute rip off. Can't see where they get their pricing from when quality seems to be no better than anywhere else. Try independents near you? where abouts are you?

dunroving

Some ideas to save money:

Figure out what you can do yourself (e.g., rip out old kitchen)
Consider buying a used kitchen
Consider a non-fitted kitchen, or a hybrid (fitted in some places, freestanding in others)
Go for freestanding appliances
Do research for some used or bargain basement elements - tiles, backsplash, worktop, for example.
Don't move utilities from one end of the kitchen to another, or switch from electric oven to gas, where there's no gas supply to the kitchen
For the fitted bit, buy aftermarket elements like fancy carousels, etc.; places like Howdens get huge profits from very expensive fancy bits like this.
Visit Ikea - their stuff is very good value and you could use ingenious Ikea storage, etc. to save money

Go to your local library and read past issues of Style at Home, Home Style, Your Home and Real Homes. Or buy the (only £1.99 per issue). My sister-in-law gave me a bunch of back issues and I got some great ideas for saving money from there.

-taff

|Post #16
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6093130/kitchen-on-a-budget

suki1964

Ikea are fantastic for what they offer for the money, esp if you wait til their kitchen sale which is usually Aug/Sept time I think

We got great help with the kitchen design there - FOC, we spent hours in there sorting out a layout that worked incorporating everything we wanted

We ripped the old kitchen out and sold it on Facebook.

Where we needed new sockets, lighting etc we done all the tracking ourselves so the electricians time was minimal

We also tracked out for the plumbing ourselves for the moving of the rads

Flooring we were open about what we wanted and hunted around to we found what we liked at a price we were happy with. I have porcelain tiles for the kitchen area and karndean for the dining/sitting area ( that was an add on extension a few years later ). We tiled ourselves

We built and fitted the kitchen cabinets ourselves, took a full day for two of us and a half day for one

Electrician and plumber were in for a couple of hours each

The one thing we did splash out on was the granite worktop. But even then we spent wisely, got a great price for supply and fitting and we had that as splash back and up risers and window cills - no tiling required

A plasterer for a day repairing the walls and ceilings

Kitchen paint for the walls

Hard work - yes

A lot of mess - hell yes

And of course the hassle of not having a working kitchen for 10 days. We managed with the fridge in the hall with the kitchen table set up with kettle, sandwich toaster and microwave, used paper plates as much as possible and washed up what we had to in the bathroom

Savings - huge

Satisfaction - 100%


Decide what jobs you can do ( and believe me Ikea units are easy peasy ) and stick to those, spending the money on the jobs you can't do. We cant do electrics ( we we can but you need the certificates nowadays ) but we could do the tracking ready for the tradesmen

Take your time on really deciding on how you want your kitchen to work. There was actually nothing wrong with the kitchen I had here, only it didn't work for us but we lived with it for 8 or more years until we had the time and the money to do it how we really wanted it. We spent a lot of time in plumbers merchants, kitchen shops, tile shops etc getting ideas and advice, I think I changed my mind a million times about what I though I wanted but I eventually got my "must haves" sorted and then the kitchen was designed to incorporate them

Jimmy54321

I got the cost of my new kitchen reduced quite a lot just by taking each companies quote to other competitors and playing them off against one another, it was surprisingly easy to get them to knock down prices just 'a little bit' which of course then had a snowball effect when I showed it to other competitors. You will of course reach a stop point with this tactic eventually but I was very surprised at how much my final price was in comparison to the first quotes I got. I followed a similar approach with fitters and again achieved a significant reduction in the cost to fit.

Some above advising against Howdens but they actually turned out to be the cheapest for me and I went to all of the other major providers such as Wickes, Benchmarx, Wren, Diy Kitchens etc.

One other way I saved a bit was buying my sink and any other additions such as cutlery trays from different companies to my kitchen supplier. I was able to pick up good sink and tap in a B&Q clearance sale for much less than howdens were quoting me. I also managed to find a bunch of MK socket covers that I needed in the same clearance so that saved a little bit on electricians bill.

Finally, I also saved a considerable amount by doing some of the leg work myself. I pulled out my old kitchen and every day I would dump the fitters waste at a local amenity skip. This meant the fitter did not have to hire a skip or anything and obviously saved on his time if he had to pull out the kitchen. I also laid my own floor when the fitter was ready for me to which depending on how confident you are could save you some more, its very achievable for an amateur but keen diy'er.

I don't think there is any great secret to saving on a kitchen, for me it essentially came down to shopping around/haggling and doing as much of the 'basic' work myself.

Good Luck

alan_d

I did mine last year using units from DIY kitchens. Units supplied pre-built saved time, recommended.
I HAD booked a plasterer to skim walls and ceiling, but after he failed to show up (and no kitchen after ripping it out) I had no choice but to learn quick and do it myself. An hour with an orbital sander once dry resulted in a good finish!
I did all the plumbing and electrical work myself, mostly like-for-like replacements so no issues.
I fitted all cabinets but did pay for quartz worktop to be supplied & fitted by a local specialist - about 1/2 the price that Wickes quoted for the same finish.
Afterwards tiled and fitted flooring.
Bought from whoever was cheapest - many appliances bought months in advance on eBay when 10% off deals came up with AO etc, and stored. Used PayPal credit (0% over 4 months) to spread the cost. Even found an ex-demo Neff extractor hood for 1/3 the new cost, had only been fitted in a showroom!
End result is a great looking kitchen, but on a shoestring budget!