cheapest way to fit a small kitchen

want2bmortgage3

id like to fit a kitchen doing as much myself as poss. money is quite tight and i need cheap units, but reasonable quality.

can anyone point to a good supplier. ive got a few in mind: screwfix, selco, focus takeaway, wickes takeaway.

anyone got any experience of fitting their own kitchen and buying the units?

oh and howdens look good but does anyone know how i can get a trade card?

t_obermory

We replaced our kitchen at the end of last year with a Focus takeaway one that was in the sale. I went onto the Focus website where they have a kitchen planner that I found really useful as I could plan where I wanted everything and move it around as necessary. All I would say is measure everything twice I made a mistake with the worktop measurments and had to go back to get another one.

We hired a guy to fit ours but he was an idiot basically and for the cost of buying a decent jigaw it would have been easier and cheaper to do it ourselves. I guess the only tricky part would be fitting the taps but I'm sure there must be websites out there that tell you how.

So my advice would be do it when a sales on, the units are a lot cheaper then - I've been told Wickes have the best take away kitchens as ours from Focus wasn't perfect.

HTH's.

hollydays

We bought a kitchen from Wickes in the so-called 50% off sale-then got them to give us an extra 10% off. I used a branch further away than my local one because i rang a few until I found one that responded well over the phone. I then could keep popping into my local one to look at the exact units in the plan,until I could work out exactly what i needed without them knowing who I was and being a pain.

I Bought only the units from them-also found the salesman not great at planning,and already had done a lot of work beforehand deciding what sort of storage I wanted(tricky as I dont have many wall areas I can put wall cupboards on. Their sinks ,taps and worktops were overpriced,and we bought the taps and sinks on the internet and got top quality ones for the Wickes price. Also,the salesman tried to sell us about £600 of worktop end support panels we did not actually need!! I pored over the price list and then rang round a few local branches to quiz them about his plan (this is how I found out I didnt actually need those extra items!) Also i originally went for a carousel unit,but after looking at one later,at my leisure without a salesman behind me,decided a shelf would do the job just as well . i plan to buy the storage bits from ikea as they are a lot cheaper eg plate stackers and cutlery drawers. You could also play them off against MFI.,and get MFI for example to do a plan for you.We have our own fitter too.

want2bmortgage3

hi, well i've been looking for about a month, but haven't been sure what to go for. in the end (as usual), it comes down to money. so i am going to have to do most of the fitting myself and find cheap but ok quality units.

my main aim is to learn how to do it, save money, and have a tidy kitchen nice enough that i can rent out my flat if i need to.

i've seen the wickes ones, they seem to come with fixed handles, no choices. has anyone bought from trade places such as screwfix, selco or howdens? has anyone got a howdens account, they seem the best quality trade place?

ormus

why on earth would you want to buy some kitchen units and change the handles?
esp if you renting the place out?
beats me.

majjie

Wickes seem to be the best quality of the DIY places. Focus are cheap but nowhere near as good (15mm carcasses as opposed to 18mm, 3mm backs instead of 15mm - metabox, not soft close, drawer runners).

Most cheap makes of kitchen have only a limited range of unit sizes - but Focus is very limited indeed, making it difficult to come up with a reasonable design for any but the most basic of kitchens.

You need a trade account to buy from Howdens - so need to persuade them that you are in a related trade. Some people have done it by claiming to be property developers.

hollydays

Handles are about £3 each(from wickes for example)Presumably they could be removed and you could buy others to fit.I only just found out that wickes did the carry out kitchens in their shops.You can also usually see a small display of them in the main kitchen showroom.The doors are a lot or a bit lower quality IMHO,but They would need to be about half the price to satisfy me re value in that case..If you buy the kitchen from the showroom you can negociate,which you cant do withthe flatpack

bockster

just a small point, but i would allways go for units with adjustable legs while your at it.

want2bmortgage3

i think the handles make a big difference to the overall look, but perhaps im getting too personal ?

anyone got a howdens account here ??