New kitchen

Thecrazy1

Hi my mum has moved for the first time in 50 years and wants a new kitchen.

Is it better to have a company do everything? Supply, fit, electrics, flooring etc. Or buy units separately and TRY to find an independent fitter who can do everything, or would it need to be individual trades, in that case it would be difficult.

We have looked at magnet kitchens so far with a budget of £15,000 for kitchen, appliances, flooring and decorating. The room would need about 12-15 cabinets.

Adezoo

I believe it depends, if you’re not able to shop around for the items it might be easier to get a company to do it for you. Although if you do have the time, go for a good independent fitter. Make sure to make your research. It might save you a couple of ££ but if it’s not a good fitter it might not work long term! Hope the best 

another_casualty

Best to find a local builder / Plumber imho  if possible . 

It's a bit daunting either way , but if you get the right tradesperson they are worth their weight in gold . Finding a good reliable one is the hard part .
Maybe try next door website for recommendations if you have trouble finding one .
If you do go down this route, they may well have kitchen designs that may be cheaper but of equal quality . Just make sure you have an agreement in place as to payment . Pay in stages as and when , and not 40% + before anything is started .

I've seen a few stories on here  where the big companies agree everything in store , then send contractors out . Long delays can occur and sometimes the wrong parts are sent etc

Horses for courses 🏇🐎 . 

Other posters will advise . Best of luck ..

Rosa_Damascena

Magnet seriously over-charge. Within that budget you should be able to get good quality for a lots less. I have just had my kitchen and utility rooms done in Symphony, and both rooms are large spaces with a total of 50 handles (that's cabinets and drawers), massive quartz worktops and island unit and the unexpected cost of a hot tap, and that came to around £20k all in. As I say it is a BIG space.

FreeBear

Rosa_Damascena said: Magnet seriously over-charge.

As do Wren, Howdens, B&Q, et al.

If you want a complete design & fit service, you'd be much better off going to a small local company. I had one quote for doing a small utility room, and their price for supply & fit was less than a Magnet supply only.

Thecrazy1

Rosa_Damascena said:

Magnet seriously over-charge. Within that budget you should be able to get good quality for a lots less. I have just had my kitchen and utility rooms done in Symphony, and both rooms are large spaces with a total of 50 handles (that's cabinets and drawers), massive quartz worktops and island unit and the unexpected cost of a hot tap, and that came to around £20k all in. As I say it is a BIG space.

Did they do everything like tiling , electrics etc or just the kitchen and then you had to find other trades?

phoebe1989seb

FreeBear said:

Rosa_Damascena said: Magnet seriously over-charge.

As do Wren, Howdens, B&Q, et al.

If you want a complete design & fit service, you'd be much better off going to a small local company. I had one quote for doing a small utility room, and their price for supply & fit was less than a Magnet supply only.

Same here, although this wasn't recently but about twelve years ago. We had quotes from Magnet and Been & Queued that were roughly twice the price of a much better quality (in-frame) kitchen from a small, independent company (back when we lived in Essex).

In the end we purchased from the independent place and fitted ourselves (well, DH did, I merely laboured for him!), saving even more. Our (granite) worktops came from another independent supplier and these were templated/fitted on the two days leading up to Christmas 😃

We had used Magnet previously, but the quality of the cabinets from the small independent place were in a different league....and considerably cheaper, not to mention that when the Magnet order arrived lots of components were missing/incorrect. The owner of the small company checked the orders and delivered them himself so there were no such similar issues.

More recently we've bought our cabinets from Handmade Kitchens of Christchurch, who were - again - surprisingly less £££ than the big *shed* type places and HKOC quality cannot be faulted, imho....although current lead times are apparently off-puttingly long.....

pinkteapot

You can haggle hard with all the big names, so while Magnet, Wren, etc may appear to over-charge based on their first price, they may not be so bad. Get designs and quotes from a few then haggle them against each other. My mum got a Wren kitchen that started at £12k for less than £7k. 

However, she had a terrible experience with them (partial deliveries, delays to fitting, faulty bits that took ages to replace, etc), so definitely wouldn't recommend!

plumb1_2

Magnets and Bowden’s have their annual October sale starting now.
yes you can get cheaper elsewhere, but I always haggle with them, I always use them because if something is damaged or missing I can go in next day and get a replacement, no hassle. So it’s worth it to me as time is money.

Rosa_Damascena

Thecrazy1 said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Magnet seriously over-charge. Within that budget you should be able to get good quality for a lots less. I have just had my kitchen and utility rooms done in Symphony, and both rooms are large spaces with a total of 50 handles (that's cabinets and drawers), massive quartz worktops and island unit and the unexpected cost of a hot tap, and that came to around £20k all in. As I say it is a BIG space.

Did they do everything like tiling , electrics etc or just the kitchen and then you had to find other trades?

Fair point - this does not include trades because it was part of a bigger building contract.

FashionHeart

Thecrazy1 said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Magnet seriously over-charge. Within that budget you should be able to get good quality for a lots less. I have just had my kitchen and utility rooms done in Symphony, and both rooms are large spaces with a total of 50 handles (that's cabinets and drawers), massive quartz worktops and island unit and the unexpected cost of a hot tap, and that came to around £20k all in. As I say it is a BIG space.

Did they do everything like tiling , electrics etc or just the kitchen and then you had to find other trades?

Saying from my personal experience, a lot of small independent kitchen suppliers don't provide plastering, tiling, electrics and gas services.