Which kitchen company would you recommend for the design skills?

kateorg

About to have a kitchen refit as the last person was a DIY fanatic but without any skill or eye on safety  Through the builder I've had Howdens round to measure up and do a design but wasn't impressed by their approach or the outcome. Those people who have had a kitchen refit who would you recommend for their design even if you didn't use the kitchen?

Doozergirl

An independent company.  

Otherwise you're just going in everywhere and seeing what you end up with.  There's no specific design skills needed from the high st retailers. 

My friend was manager of Wren with no kitchen experience to speak of when he started.  He learned a lot from us when we looked over the designs for his own kitchen extension and went on to use them on his own customers!  

Belenus

In my experience, local independents are often better than the large chains such as Howdens.

If you live in West Sussex or East Hampshire I can recommend a company in Waterlooville that did our kitchen a few years ago.

FreeBear

Had Magnet do a "design" for me. Despite telling them what I wanted, they tried to fill all available space with units, add trim panels between each base unit (and completely ran out of room). It was a mess, and not what I expected - They also spammed me with the latest "offers" despite being told from the outset not to - Ended up going in and tearing a strip off the salesman in front of a customer.

If you know what you want in terms of location of key features, it isn't that difficult to come up with a design of your own.

Mutton_Geoff

FreeBear said:

If you know what you want in terms of location of key features, it isn't that difficult to come up with a design of your own.

Seconded. Since most people don't have a "blank canvas" but an existing room with water/drain/window/door locations, there are only limited options to make the "triangle" work (sink/fridge/cooker) then fine tune that with cupboards/drawers.

A lot of ideas can be gained from suppliers websites inc DIY Kitchens and don't forget all the very handy inserts from people like Hafaele that save space.

warwick2001

Don't use IKEA designers. The actual kitchens are brilliant (in my opinion), but the designer we used was utterly useless. Didn't listen to what we wanted, and basically just did a like-for-like replacement with what we already had.

Still bought the IKEA units tho

EssexExile

It's your kitchen and your lifestyle that needs to fit into it, so I'd say the best people to design your kitchen is are you.

We worked out a layout that suited us then gave it to two local companies. One came round, discussed our wants and added a few suggestions of his own. The second came round and measured up, took our design away and came up with something totally different that wouldn't work for us. We went with the first one.

kateorg

Belenus said:

In my experience, local independents are often better than the large chains such as Howdens.

If you live in West Sussex or East Hampshire I can recommend a company in Waterlooville that did our kitchen a few years ago.

I'm in West Sussex - thank you will have a look

mrsmsebastian

I used Ikea kitchen designer and they designed exactly as I have told them.

kateorg

Thanks everyone. I've had a go myself on Ikea and DIY Kitchen planners and am waiting for Kitchenhaus to come back with ideas (although I'd be amazed if I can afford their kitchen). I should have known the kitchen companies are going to make the minimum effort to sell you the most amount of cabinets!

JGB1955

I designed my own  then  got Benchmarx in  just to see if they could better it. They added some items I hadn't considereal but, basically  just confirmed my design was fine.