Help needed, which kitchen manufacturer would you recommend?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

@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..

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Thanks Kalu

Callistemon, this is the product I used with very good results .I noticed on the back of the tin it is a Howden’s own product but WRK3595 may well be a trade number which could be sourced elsewhere.

I can't recommend any kitchen companies as i live abroad but what I would suggest is getting more 1m wide deep drawer units rather than cupboards because they make everything so much more accessible. Plus those pull out or swivel corner units as we are all getting older and want to be able to reach things easily. The deep drawers hold very heavy weights too as demonstrated by the owner of the kitchen company I used jumping into one of the drawers and standing there saying in Portuguese I weigh 84kg and as you can see it takes my weight. My kitchen is from a German company but almost 7 years on still looks like new

I agree with Bazzer,the installation is paramount. I have had a Magnet kitchen in a previous home.Lived with a rickety old fashioned one in my new home until I had a WREN kitchen expertly fitted last March,had to wait almost 5months for him as in demand.

We used Homebase - never, ever again. It was chaos from start to finish and fortunately we used our own wonderful joiner to fit it which minimised the carnage.

I know people who have used Ikea and rate them very highly but our joiner doesn’t. We looked at Howdens but it all seemed to be a big faff - I just wanted to know how much things were but they only deal with tradespeople who then ‘sell’ you the kitchen. Also found the range in the local showroom to be quite limited.

Bijou a good observation. That made me feel better.
I worked with someone who had an extremely expensive new kitchen fitted but the most she ever 'cooked' was a pizza or two. They always ate takeaways or ready meals.

Then they got flooded and her new kitchen was ruined. I did feel sorry for her, she was so proud of her lovely kitchen. She was a lovely person, just not a cook.

So we used a local company to fit a German kitchen, very happy with the outcome

Indeed its true that Howdens do not sell direct to the public, they specialise in supplying the building trade, my DH was a Joiner for over 50years, and fitted many kitchens including some very large commerical ones. Magnet usedto be his trusted Go-To brand, but when we were shopping for our own kitchen, he was very disapointed in their latest quality and choice.
CC, you mentioned that MDF is often better than natural timber, but the pitfalls of using it in a kitchen arethe effects that heat can have on it, especially next to oven doors and grills, over time the plastic coating deteriorates, moisture gets into the MDF core and causes it to weaken and swell. With a solid timber kitchen, you get non of this, the timber is usually Oak.or Ash renown for its strength and durability, its also totally paintable should you chosen colour go.out of fashion in a few years time, making a makeover a much cheaper option than replacing the full kitchen, something that is not possible with a MDF kitchen which is lightly to swell up with the actions of the chemicals in the paint on the plastic coating, and giving a poor finish. We did have some help to fit our kitchen from a young Joiner who DH helped to train just before he retired, lifting some of the full height wall cupboards was a 2 person job, and we had 21 units in all, all factory built and delivered fully assembled, but a word of warning, you do need plenty of space such as an empty Garage or conservetory to store all the new
components in whilst instalation is in progress. I dont envy anyone the mess and disruption kitchen fitting can bring, the worst bit being the stripping off of old tiles and replastering before any fitting could commence, it does look all rather super now though.

Another vote for Howdens, we had ours fitted two years ago and it still looks brand new. We sourced our fitter from the Trusted Trader web site and he was also listed on Checkatrade. Both useful websites.

Don't get stone worktops. They were installed in our new build bungalow as a ' touch of luxury ', I can't see the luxury in a product that chips and stains easily. Given the choice, I would have white hob and ovens as they are so much easier to keep clean, and don't scratch. The White hob in my last house was eighteen years old when we left, and in perfect condition.

The fitter gets a discount from Howdens. My mother's fitter showed her the invoice, and gave her the discount. The fitter who did our utility room showed us the total price invoice, and kept the discount.