Lifestyle Kitchens.
 

I have just reviewed them on a website.

I am also going to post this same review on any others I can find.

"Well, where to start?!

Well we all know these kitchens are not cheap, but they are certainly not good value for money. My mother has just had a kitchen fitted by lifestyle kitchens, and is into the 10th week and it is still no 100% completed!

There are many problems, caused by incompetant and unqualified staff members doing work they should NOT be doing!

Having unqualified people complete ANY electrical work is illegal! Despite lifestyle kitchens making an attempt at saying it is not, there is no arguing with the law!
This work being completed wrong resulted in my mothers life being in danger whilst bare wires were left under the floor, as well as other electrical work being done wrong and illegally by unqualified staff.

This had to be rectified by chanelling out newly plastered walls, again which was poorly rectified, and needs plastering again.

The general build quality of the kitchen is poor, and some of it was actually damaged during fitting!

The after care from the staff has been non existing with people continuing to pass the blame. I assume this is an attempt to fob her off so that she will give up, but their mistake is them thinking she will give up.
If she were to sort the issues out with the kitchen herself it would cost several hundred pounds. Money that she doesn't need to spend, because they need to finish the job.

On the whole, I am very unimpressed with how the whole situation is being handled."

So, has anyone had and dealing with them? Good or bad?

Nope. We're getting a new kitchen shortly, but it'll probably be from B&Q. Money's tight!

Any ideas where else to get a kitchen on a budget?

http://www.howdens.com/

We've got a howdens kitchen, cheap to middling kit..........I think the key is finding someone good to fit the stuff, worth their weight in gold. Even an expensive kitchen fitted poorly will be poor..

Don't buy the Howden Lamona branded ovens / diswashers / sinks etc, a bit too low rent.

Shaun

If you are in no rush then try hanging on for a sale at B&Q or WICKES.

We had our from WICKES in the sale. Gloss black units and oak worktops. Mr P fitted it all, which if you have the time abd the know how, gives better results.
Mr P is not a kitchen fitter, but he seems a lot more capable than some who are!

Try and stay clear of this free fitting gimmick. My mum got conned big time being told this, when in actual fact she didn't save much at all off the full price, it just meant the money was all laid up front!

As much as it may well be considered low rent our Homebase kitchen is great.

All came on time, all the bits were there with clear instructions.

Can't be happier with it really.

I am currently trying to sort out my new kitchen, just trying to get the prep work done. The plastering electrics and plumbing will all be done by people I know and I will get a friend to help me fit the units. The prep work is key, everthything else is easy if you have time. I would never trust a load of randoms from B&Q or wickes to fit a kitchen.

been fitting kitchens/bedrooms for about 13 years now and can confirm the above most of the work is in the prep to achieve a good end result but don't think fitting the kitchen is easy as it is not as easy as it looks I see poorly finished kitchens everywhere even show rooms b@q Wickes etc cornice/light pelmet fitted incorrectly and even corners set up wrong not to mention some of the work top joints if you want a kitchen doing properly get a good kitchen fitter in not a (carpenter) there a difference trust me

Kitchens.....They're for girls.

Another vote for Howdens

We ended up using betta living for supply only, initially we were NEVER going to, they came round quoted around £15k, supply & install. once we said without fitting the price reduced to 7k ish. usual trying to do the deal on the night but we had read reports of the commercial side calling within a few weeks with a better price. ;) true to form, 2 weeks later they are round to quote. The guy left with the order and 6 weeks later our kitchen was supplied for 3k. :thumb: Really nice quality and LOADS or spare parts. we wanted 900 tall wall units so they send you the standard 600's PLUS the 900 side panels so i will make a few extra for the garage. :D:

I am going to build the kitchen with a crap worktop then get the worktop manufacturer to come and template then install the glass worktop themselves.

We went with a local guy who was recommened.

I think it must have cost about 13k with building work, appliances, ceiling and flooring. 5 years old now, but still looks good.

If I was in a house I intend to sell in a year or 2, I would not spend that much.

We've got a Magnet kitchen and our builder who got it for us (trade) and fitted said he wouldn't fit anything else. Granite came from them too but we got all our own appliances except the extractor. Been pretty good so far, coming up for a year since completion.

+1 for howdens, you'll save a fortune compared to B&Q. Make sure you go there near the end of the month though as they have sales targets to meet and you can get better deals by haggling with them towards the end than you can at the beginning. You'll also need to be part of the trade to get a price from them, so if you're not you'll need to ask around and see if you can find a mate who is and has a howdens account.

P.S. my mate just got one, including oak flooring and appliances for less than 5k. He is fitting it himself though so add extra for a good joiner if you're not.

If you get one from b&q and know some 1 over 60 who can buy it for you, they get a pretty decent discount on a Wed with the over 60s card they do.

Good point well made. If we ever need something from there that will cost a bob or two, we get grandpa to pop along and use his OAP discount.

I suppose we could always ask PS Lewis to help us out in the future. Pete is a friendly chap you know ;)

He's not over 60 though ;)

Indeed. :thumb:

Lol, I know!

Hw is very wise beyond his years though.

I'd heard good things about them too. :)

I do commercial interiors. When customers want fancy kitchens we either use B&q which is good stuff to be fair or howdens. Atleast with howdens you can get pre built. Recently though howdens stuff has been a bit s**t.

you can dress any kitchen up to look alot more expensive than it is to be honest with simple things like the hinges/runners/ edging the face of the units if not colour matched/nice lights appliances etc etc most are 18mm board so there is not a huge difference anyway as I say just the fitting that are better quality usually in a middle of the range kitchen but no matter where you buy from and no matter how many years they tell you they have been designing kitchens for always get a fitter to check over the plan as dont think I've done one yet that fitted how they said or could not have been designed better imo at the end of the day they take a measurement and put what cupboards fit on there computer and all looks great on the fancy picture you get but very rarely actually looks the same when fitted

We used this lot: http://www.avantikb.co.uk/

Only critisim is thier contract fitters are under tight budgets/time limits to get the job done in an acceptable manner. The bloke we had was great and put the effort in, but it would have been impossible for him to have completed teh kitchen in the alloted time hewas originaly given. The only reason he managed it was that I personally removed the old kitchen during the weekend to get some electrical work done beforehand. (plus I sold it on ebay...as although the worktop/units were knackered it had solid wood doors which are always worth a few quid as they can easily be re-finished in any colour/stain ).

If he had to rip out the old kitchen he would have been screwed. I made sure they knew about this and that I would tell everyone I reccomend tehm to the same warning. To ensure their assessor doesn't try and get too tight with budgeting the job at the contractor's expense.


The granite came from here: http://www.justgranite.ltd.uk/ not the cheapest but everything is well machined/templated/fitted. I've since found a more local stone masons nearby who are far cheaper, but their quality/range of granite is not as nice. Plus you can view and pick out the raw slabs before machining so you get the one with your preferred marble/quartz pattern. When picking from samples in natural stone/granite the final product can vary significantly, so if you are picky its best to see the whole slab that is actually being used for your kitchen.


With reference to B&Q and Magnet, I noticed that whilst their kichens look good on the outside, their lower end kicthen units (i.e the instore take-away stuff) are not that brilliant. Notably the wafer thin backboards....push a few plates (or whatever) to the back of a cupboard too hard and they will easily split or pop out of the grooves. The higher-end range of Magnet stuff has much better quality units, but at a increased cost - obviously.


As for applianaces....shop around. I bought all mine from a local independent electrical store after researching models/prices on google shopping. Then giving them the models numbers and my quoted prices (including VAT and delivery etc) and see if they could match it...and they did! That saved me a few grand!

I had a Wickes kitchen fitted about 18 months ago, took about a week to install, we stayed out of the way whilst works were done, day of completion we inspected and found a dull area on the joint between two of the high gloss worktops, called out Wickes to inspect and they confirmed that the lamiinate had been chipped during cutting & joining and just glue back in, said they were unhappy with the joint, couldnt warrant it and that it would need to be replaced ! guess what ?? the whole lot had to come out out !!! tiles off walls, new units, new hob... all at their expense..
Well during the un-install the new fitter came across loads of "cowboy" bits, one included a small fire behind the cooker where some sort of gas connection hadn't been done correctly !!! whole bloody house could have exploded !!!
Wickes very keen to see us right (for fear of dragging them through the courts) and compensated us, paid for all our expenses while kitchen being redone.. All good now.
So to summarise:
Wickes kitchens - very good quality
Wickes themselves - very good customer service
Thier fitters - range from dangerous to very good.
Moral of the story, choose the kitchen you want carefully, choose the fitter like your life depended on it!!!

Mrs J was all set to fire bomb the original fitters house !! -

It goes without saying with electrics and gas works you need to see sight of the qualifications of the fitters (Gas safe and IET). Never assume they are qualified.

In my case I had an Gas safe registered plumber do work on the gas fitting for the new cooker. And I had a independant sparky re-wire the kitchen (moved cooker electric point, and added a new sperate ring main+spurs etc as microwave+kettle+dishwasher+washing machine+toaster was too much load from a single downstair ring main), and make sure everything was up to the new 16th edition regs (17th edition now).

The only thing left for the fitter was to shorten a wire tail left for a spur socket within the kitchen unit for the dishwasher and wire in the cooker electrics to the terminal box - both very simple and pretty idiot proof tasks (unless you are colour blind).