Buyin a kitchen

Dammam

We've narrowed the choice down to 2 at the moment.
Ikea would cost us about £1100 and Hygena about £1800 - the Hygena planning looks like it would be better fitting and better looking, but there's that £700 difference! I'll do most of the fitting and building myself, but will get a carpenter in to finish off the bits I'm less confident about.
I also need to add a bit to the price for a sink with Hygena and an extractor hood for both.

Does anyone have any opinions, good or bad, about these two suppliers? Or perhaps a better option?

Thanks.

Pink.

Dammam,

You will probably get more replies to your thread on the In My Home board, so I hope that you don't mind if I move it over there.

Pink

Ted_Hutchinson

Dammam wrote:

O perhaps a better option?

If you could have a look at HOWDENS you may find that although it's a Trade organisation they may be able to help (its quite easy to get an account)
build quality appears very good and Trade prices very reasonable.

Alison_B

Take a look at Wickes (they are online). I believe they have good quality kitchens at a reasonable price. We got ours from MFi and have been very happy with the quality and build and it has been fitted for 8 years now.

santana-mx3

We plumped for Hygena from MFI. It was quite a bit cheaper than B&Q. Ikea had some nice units with some neat storage solutions but it was easier to get a Hygena design to fit our kitchen and there is also more choice with Hygena both in terms of styles and units available within each style. I think the quality of Hygena kitchens is fine, though some people still slate MFI (furniture from MFI used to have a bad reputation in the 70s and some of it has stuck). I have heard that MFI are prone to sending some wrong parts or leaving out some essential fittings. These things are always resolved but for some people have meant unnecessary additional trips.

The other neat thing with buying from MFI is the ability to use Tesco Clubcard 4x deals to hep narrow any gap in price (if you have spare clubcard points - though you are not likely to have enough of them to cover the £700 difference unless you have been saving them for a while). You also earn clubcard points when you spend at MFI and can use them in future.

Mr_Proctalgia

I might be able to help a bit here.

Wickes and Howdens are one and the same, (Howdens carcasses are pre built) Nice thick backs on them too.
B & Q carcases are OK ish, but I think their doors are pants

IKEA make good units and have a better selection of sizes so you can make a more interesting looking kitchen - BUT!!! Their carcasses are flat backed so no service void behind them, everything needs to go across the floor. ALSO their carcases are slightly deeper so you have to get their worktops or faf around with creative tiling techniques and/or upstands IIRC they are 616mm not 600.

That being said (and having just finished a kitchen) I would go with IKEA again.

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10101&storeId=7&categoryId=10652&langId=-20&parentCats=10110*10652&cattype=sub

Dammam

Thanks for the comments all - gives me some food for thought.
Mr Proctalgia - when you say the units are flat backed, do you mean there are no holes for pipes etc? If so, is it a simple enough job to cut them out yourself?
Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick here?

At the moment I'm edging towards Hygena over Ikea due to the cabinets fitting better in the space available - but that £700 difference is VERY upsetting.
I have about £1.20 on my Tesco card - every little helps
Will check out Wickes/Howdens later.

Mr_Proctalgia

What I am referring to is the fact that most base units have the back panel recessed by 50mm (2" in old money) This gives you the opportunity to run pipes and cables and waste along the wall by cutting slots in the sides of the carcases. Witht the ikea stuff it has to go along the floor

GreenB_2

Mr_Proctalgia wrote:

What I am referring to is the fact that most base units have the back panel recessed by 50mm (2" in old money) This gives you the opportunity to run pipes and cables and waste along the wall by cutting slots in the sides of the carcases. Witht the ikea stuff it has to go along the floor

Which in itself seems a good idea till you realise you are losing depth which in a small kitchen is very important! Often you can route the pipes differently or actually allow them to go through the cupboard itself (which is fine for undersink cupboards etc.) which gives you easy access to make changes and the like.

I guess it really depends how your layout and how services are provided, where they need to go etc.

Happy_saver_4

We used Howdens and will use them again.
The units are sold by MFI and Curry's at a far highrer price..

With Howdens you DO NOT pay up front deposit or anything. You have it on account. We've found their service brilliant and any damged bits are replaced immediately. We've got a local store and just call in to exchange etc.

MFI and Curry's have not the same level of customer after sales service - probably because they've already got your money. Curry's actually admitted that if pushed hard for a spare/replacement damaged bit they go round to the Howden store to get it.

We've found nobody to beat Howden's prices and I don't think it's too difficult to open an account for a complete kitchen fit etc. Their internal doors are also a very good price.

No - I don't work for Howden's - just a very satisfied customer of the Carmarthen branch.

se999

Hi,

Last 2 kitchens we've done have been IKea units, and they are very good and well priced for things like the accessories (e.g. everything from a walk in pantry fitted into two 60 cm base units with pull out wire baskets). The units were easy to assemble. Also choice of handles etc makes it so you can add your own touches, you don't have to buy IKEA handles.

If you have a small kitchen the extra space not lost on the wall units is very important. The useable space makes it a lot better. Do shop around seperately for extras like built in hobs/ovens/extractors. We saved a few hundred pounds just buying the hob/oven elsewhere the last time. We also had stainless steel backplates/splashbacks, and the price varied phenomenally for them too!!

For very small kitchens you can give an illusion of more space by using open shelving, or wall cupboards with clear glass doors and glass shelves.

Solid beech block worktops used to be very cheap at IKEA too, we used them to make extra shelving to coordinate other areas into the same scheme.

I wasn't really surprised at the difference in price betwen IKEA and elsewhere. But have you added cost of the little extras like the bins/racks that you'll want to fit inside. For these IKEA were so much cheaper last time we did a kitchen.

Good luck with the kitchen.

P.S. You say the Hygena planning fits better, can't you just swap the Hygena plan for IKEA units, they're normally a standard size?