A question of Kitchens - and worktops....

[polybear]

Bear is undertaking a kitchen refurb (brick walls upwards.....)......

Has anyone had any dealings with this supplier please - internet searches seem to show they are well thought of:

https://www.diy-kitchens.com/

 

Also, I've yet to decide what sort of worktops to have.  Laminate?  Wood?  Some sort of stone (granite,quartz etc)?  Any personal experiences much appreciated please - thanks

[ikcdab]

Laminate every time. Why would you want to go for anything else which is just fashionable and difficult to maintain. Laminate is very easy to look after, much cheaper and far more practical and less faddy. But do pay for the best quality of laminate. I have never regretted our choice.

[micklner]

Dont use Wren dire rubbish. Howdens very good qulaity and price. Granite worktops no chance constant maintenance.

[teaky]

Very happy with our granite worktops.  Installed over eight years ago now.  Maintenance consists of wiping them down with a cloth every time they are used.

[gordon s]

Did our kitchen a few years back and was very pleased with Howdens units. Good quality with the carcass pre assembled. Just had to make up the drawers and various runners etc. Several years later and it still looks as good as when it was first installed. I did push the boat out a bit and went for solid oak worktops from Norfolk Oak. Very pleased with their service and great quality.

 

https://www.norfolkoak.com/worktops

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by gordon s

[sjp23480]

A kitchen fitter I knew always rated IKEA units, no personal experience of them myself.

 

We have granite/quartz composite tops laid on our original laminate surfaces. They have been very hard wearing and look great. Hard wearing but not cheap.  If we fancy a change, we will probably keep the surfaces and carcasses and just change the doors. 

[chris p bacon]

It doesn't really matter what supplier you use as the underlying product is the same (there aren't that many chipboard suppliers) settle on a design and play one against another for a deal. The last kitchen I purchased came from Benchmarx, which is part of the Travis Perkins group.

Wren Kitchens are fine, but I think they're aimed at those without any DIY skills   and who like to browse shiny showrooms.

As with any supplier of building materials I would be wary of paying a deposit (which they'll all want) as not all can supply to their advertised timescale. I usually offer £50 as a gesture and if they don't accept I walk.

As for worktop...you should be able to do the new fashion for polished concrete....bit of mesh and you'll be away.. 

[boxbrownie]

44 minutes ago, teaky said:

Very happy with our granite worktops.  Installed over eight years ago now.  Maintenance consists of wiping them down with a cloth every time they are used.

We had Granite tops for over thirty years in our last house, cleaned and polished with just a good car polish (I used Autoglym) every six months they were looking like new when we moved, they were indestructible, would take any heat and never marked.

 

As for cabinets must use 18mm carcass.

 

Our new house, well to us......is now 28 years old and we thought we would need a new kitchen but the cabinets are made by Miele (I never knew they made kitchens, but did 25 years ago) and the carcass/draws/mechanism and doors (solid oak) are still operating like new, so we had the doors painted and will be installing granite tops.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, micklner said:

Dont use Wren dire rubbish. Howdens very good qulaity and price. Granite worktops no chance constant maintenance.

Agree with your Wren comment, a friend had them and had no end of issues with quality and the fitting.

 

Id like to know about your constant maintenance for granite though? 

[tigerburnie]

Laminate is alright if you don't drop anything on it and damage it, once you do, water gets in, it swells and you need a new kitchen unit, for me the problem with a laminated kitchen is not the work tops, it's the doors, I have replaced most of ours as the covering splits quite quickly. Next one will be solid wood carcasses and the tops can be whatever SWMBO wants. I don't want any mdf, chip board or any other glued cheap and cheerful it just does not last more than about 5 years.

Edited December 24, 2020 by tigerburnie

[Ron Ron Ron]

We looked at natural granite, as well as the various granite composite options and settled on Zodiaq worktops, made by DuPont, the creators of Corian.

These are completely solid and not the sort mounted on an MDF or chipboard sub-base and very hard wearing and durable.

They’re also incredibly heavy, as each large section of worktop required up to 4 fully kitted up men to carry them into the house and lift them into position, on the carcasses.

 

 

 

.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Ron Ron Ron

[33040]

In the last 10 years I have purchased four kitchens from Selco and one from Benchmark for different properties. The have all coped well with everyday family use.

 

I would recommend rigid, not flat pack. They are more expensive to buy but faster and cheaper to install. 

 

Avoid "contract" kitchens as they are the cheaper end of the range.

 

Avoid butcher block wood worktops as they need maintenance and are prone to water damage.

 

I have always used laminate worktops without any problems, and request biscuit joints.

 

I have recently ordered one from Wren. Good design process but getting a follow up appointment to revise the design was not easy. The kitchen has not been delivered yet.

Edited December 24, 2020 by 33040

[polybear]

42 minutes ago, sjp23480 said:

 

All I'd need to go with them are kitchen cabinets made from railway sleepers........

 

42 minutes ago, sjp23480 said:

A kitchen fitter I knew always rated IKEA units, no personal experience of them myself.

 

 

The one issue with Ikea cabinets is that they have no service void at the back - so either the cabinets need to be spaced away from the wall (meaning wider worktops needed), or the pipework runs thru' the cabinets (or underneath, if you're lucky).  However, they make good cabinets for railway rooms etc., as the lack of service void means the cabinets are the best part of 2" deeper inside - meaning more room for all those unbuilt kits you've collected..... (I've used them in my own Railway Room)

[micklner]

52 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Agree with your Wren comment, a friend had them and had no end of issues with quality and the fitting.

 

Id like to know about your constant maintenance for granite though? 

I have been told they can stain and have to be re sealed , plus they are daft prices . Laminate for me either way .

Wren diabolical customer service and general quality, the fitters were useless too. My son had one "fitted" , regularly has doors etc  etc fall off , got £5000 back in the end , but he is still stuck with "it".

[teaky]

It has just occurred to me that the OP was from Polybear.  Why aren't you just carving your kitchen from solid ice?  Are you concerned about climate change?

[laurenceb]

Friend of mine has just had his kitchen done by Wren. I learned a few new naughty words!

[polybear]

11 hours ago, laurenceb said:

Friend of mine has just had his kitchen done by Wren. I learned a few new naughty words!

 

When I first started looking at kitchen suppliers I very quickly crossed Wren off the list, as it seemed that virtually everything I read wasn't good.  The one thing they are good at is taking your money - it's the bit afterwards they struggle with....

[Giles]

We did an extension 2.5 years ago and had 5k left for the kitchen, and went straight to a company that cut, supplied and fitted stone worktops. We got the tops for a large island, sink with drainers and another small top in 30mm black granite for £1800, and it is superb.  Much better than Corian, absolutely beautiful now, and even better than we envisaged. We wouldn't have anything else with hind-sight.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Giles

[iL Dottore]

I think, dear Mr Bear, a lot will depend upon how serious you are about cooking. As I have posted elsewhere, I am slowly replacing “domestic” with “professional” - but that’s just me.

 

One half of my kitchen has a stainless steel countertop, the other some sort of composite (I have no idea what the base units are). Most of what I do in the kitchen is done on the stainless steel side. If you decide to go down the stainless steel route there are three things to keep in mind: stainless steel can come in either gloss (i.e. highly polished/shiny) or matt finishes, go for a matt finish otherwise you’ll be forever polishing the metal; no matter how careful you are, the steel will acquire a fine patina of microscopic scratches (which is OK by me) and finally, you’ll need to have cutting boards as good quality knives are not friends with stainless steel.

If you don’t mind used items, the fact that (sadly too) many restaurants will be forced to permanently close due to the pandemic, means that you should be able to acquire a restaurant grade kitchen fairly inexpensively (given the cost of kitting out a restaurant kitchen from scratch with new equipment, it’s fairly easy to get high quality, refurbished, restaurant kitchen stuff).

ID

[polybear]

38 minutes ago, Giles said:

We did an extension 2.5 years ago and had 5k left for the kitchen, and went straight to a company that cut, supplied and fitted stone worktops. We got the tops for a large island, sink with drainers and another small top in 30mm black granite for £1800, and it is superb.  Much better than Corian, absolutely beautiful now, and even better than we envisaged. We wouldn't have anything else with hind-sight.

 

 

 

Many thanks; do you recall which company you used please?  I'll be looking at a total of something like 5.7m, so I'm guessing I'd be looking at a fair wedge, unless there are more worktops not shown in your photo?

[37114]

I work for a DIY chain so it would be wrong of me to provide recommendations as it is no surprise that I got my Kitchen from my employer and I am very happy with it. I have dealt with many Kitchen suppliers before my current employer and would say that for every horror story there are 9 or so happy customers.

 

Somethings to bear in mind are the key things that tend to cause issues are;

- Fitting by the supplier. I always either fit partially or fully myself as the majority of customer issues tend to relate to the quality of the kitchen installation rather than the poor quality of kitchens themselves.  A pet hate of mine is fitters using impact drivers/power tools to fit doors and and cabinets as it leads to over tightening and thus damage to the carcasses which causes doors to drop over time. Where I need a tradesmen I have some local trusted guys I use.

- Bits missing. A kitchen is a complex project often with bits coming via different supply chains. How quickly can the situation be recovered is key, hence suppliers with a store/local trade counter footprint tend to be easier to address this.

 

Re assembled vs flat pack cabinets,  I have heard  pros and cons for both, but to be honest it comes back to my first point,  a good installer should be able to work with either

 

Good luck with your project! 

[gordon s]

Couldn't post a pic yesterday as I hadn't gone back far enough, but managed to find a couple this morning. Howdens base units and 40mm solid oak tops. It took a while to fabricate a mock up in strip ply as despite appearances walls are never 100% at right angles etc. Once I had created the patterns and given Norkolk Oak a drawing, both worktops were cut from single lengths. One 4.7m long and the other 3.2m. The front top is all one piece, it's just the led lights under the cupboards making it look as though it's two pieces. I did all the work myself, apart from extra bodies when needed to lift the worktops in place. If you can assemble  kits and baseboards, you should be able to do a kitchen. After all it was mostly planning which unit went where, clipping on the doors, feet and handles and just checking they were true before bolting them together.

 

We didn't want to change the tiles, so I had to knock off the bottom row and it took four of us to slide a very heavy worktop into place. All the cut outs and draining grooves were done by the manufacturer. The pop up mains panel on the front worktop had yet to be fitted, hence the fascia panel sitting lower than the worktop. There is still the 75mm splash trim to be fitted  in most places when the pics was taken in 2017.

 

 

There are lots of low cost pop up mains panels, but they all seem flimsy and unlikely to last. This one came in a steel box and is probably over engineered but works first time every time.

 

https://www.the-sbox.com

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by gordon s

[Giles]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Many thanks; do you recall which company you used please?  I'll be looking at a total of something like 5.7m, so I'm guessing I'd be looking at a fair wedge, unless there are more worktops not shown in your photo?

 

There is one more worktop not shown - only about 1100mm though.

 

I'm afraid I can't remember the company- I googled something like 'granite tops' and there were half a dozen companies within ten miles, so I popped round and had a chat. B & Q (who units we used) wanted about 4.5k for 20mm granite.

 

The suppliers came and made templates, then ten days later, came and fitted the tops in about 40 minutes.

[teaky]

21 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Many thanks; do you recall which company you used please?  I'll be looking at a total of something like 5.7m, so I'm guessing I'd be looking at a fair wedge, unless there are more worktops not shown in your photo?

Giles' price per metre sounds similar to what we paid.  The price included fitting which, although straightforward, needs extra manpower due to the weight involved.

 

I suggest you locate more than one local supplier and pay them a visit.  The granite we opted for has a different look in that it has ribbons of colours running through it so being able to select specific sheets from the yard was essential.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

On 24/12/2020 at 19:35, micklner said:

I have been told they can stain and have to be re sealed , plus they are daft prices . Laminate for me either way .

Granite just needs polishing every so often, and not that often at all.........we had a lighter coloured Granite for over thirty years and it never stained in that time and it was used not pampered.

 

As for price you pay for what you get.