Help needed, which kitchen manufacturer would you recommend?

I do oil our bedroom furniture with teak oil occasionally as it shouldn't be polished, but it is quite a task and does smell quite strong.

*Daisyboots! Brilliant
I have a vision of a large chap jumping into a kitchen drawer saying 'look how strong this is' and it collapsing!!

The product I refer to was brushed on and more a consistency of a fine varnish. I did three coats allowing each coat to dry before applying another coat.

I use lavender wax on some furniture, smells wonderful but blooming hard work?

In our last house we had a Magnet fitted kitchen. However, we had to find our own electrician, tiler and decorator so not exactly a seamless service. We had underfloor heating put in as well. The tiler was hopeless, ridges everywhere on the floor and many cold tiles.

In our present house we used Wren who subcontracted worktops. There was no end of trouble with this. We had 2 Romanian tilers with no English who laid floor tiles in 2 rooms in a day. It was completely flawless.

We have a Howden’s kitchen, fitted by our wonderful local builder, and five years on it still looks like new despite being very heavily used. Having had teak worktops in a previous kitchen I opted for Formica type wood look - we have so much work surface that Corian, my preferred option, would have added 40% to the cost! Despite hot pans and a very careless DH they still look perfect.

I have always opted for German kitchens, the workmanship is excellent. Sadly we employed John Lewis to do the work and they made a pig's ear of it, £45,000 pig's ear.
I can recommend Corian though, eight years and it looks like new.

I used Howdens and they were great. They put together the plans for me and gave me a list of fitters that they had used previously and the result was very good, would definitely use them again

I have found that a kitchen is really only as good as the fitters you employ. Get them on recommendation only. We bought a lovely top of the range kitchen years ago from B&Q. The B&Q fitters (they don't work for B&Q, they were local subcontractors) made an absolute pig's ear of it. Never again.

@JuliaM we've found that our kitchens have been perfectly durable if they are made properly with high quality waterproof MDF. Unlike the old chipboard it doesn't absorb water, though I agree that the very basic quality MDF is not that great.
We have had wooden kitchens in the past and found that they tend to expand and contract with the seasons, which can make doors stick and surface finishes split, even if they are very well finished.
We've never had MDF with a plastic coating, its normally spray painted with a very durable finish, which to date has lasted for 13 years in our kitchen, even though some cabinets are right next to an AGA..

Do these kitchen fitting companies dismantle the old stuff and take it away?

All the kitchen fitters we or members of por family have employed have dismantled and removed the previous kitchen.

My current kitchen has been in for well over 20 years and is beginning to look dated and damaged.

IKEA took out my old kitchen (although it was so rotten it was falling off the walls on its own anyway), they measured and designed the new kitchen, fitted it and, all appliances, and took away absolutely everything within 4 days. I really would recommend them.

We had our kitchen units resprayed last year as there was nothing wrong with the units except I didn’t like the colour. It was a bit of a faff for a week whilst it was being done but the results are incredible and it cost around a third of r cost of new units.

Are there any quality local kitchen showrooms in your county? Last year we worked with MurdochTroon if it helps, you may have not heard of them but they are a small family run business based in Lincolnshire. It took us a while to find the right kitchen for us but they came to our house and provided a design idea and we loved their modern cottage style kitchen cabinets. For us it was the colours that worked so well and the fact that we could have handmade and real wood cabinets at a price that fitted our budget. Since the kitchen has been fitted we also visited their showroom in Louth for some freestanding units and other ideas. Very happy and the kitchen will last for years.