Kitchen Design Advice; our 4 point plan for finding the right Kitchen company
A simple rule of thumb when choosing a company is to measure it against four key criteria:
The layout and the design of your new kitchen
You want to feel confident in your kitchen designer and and a good designer will listen to your requirements and ensure the kitchen is designed to meet your needs.
The key here is not to rush and to make sure you feel comfortable with the person you choose to work with. The process of fitting a kitchen can be frustrating and stressful at times but if you develop a good trusting relationship from the outset the process will run much more smoothly.
If you feel rushed or under pressure; or if you feel the designer is cutting corners now is the time to walk away. You may be living with your new kitchen for many years to come so make sure you are confident, well informed and involved. Your designer is going home at the end of this but you are going to be living with this kitchen every day!
The door style, materials and look of your new kitchen
With such a wide choice of materials available it pays to do some research and get a feel for what you want, this will also have an impact on your budget so doing some research in advance will save you time dealing with the wrong type of company.
Expect good quality materials to cost reasonable amounts of money. As with most things you really do get what you pay for. If you do your research you will get a feel for what things should cost. For example if you get 3 quotes for Granite and one is a give-away price you need to ask yourself why? is it a like for like quote, is it the same specification?
The quality and guarantee
Check the cabinets and fittings, hinges, drawer runners etc. Do they meet your needs ? in most cases the better the quality the higher the price will be so decide what’s important for you.
Again the more cabinets you look at the better educated you will be; don’t be afraid to slam the doors! A family kitchen is going to work hard so you are better off knowing whether the kitchen will last now. This will be reflected by the guarantee – think of the Guarantee as the suppliers belief as to how long they think a product will last before you may encounter problems
Before you sign on the dotted line check all the details and know every stage of the process in advance. If you know what to expect and when the job will run far more smoothly. Nearly every problem that arises when having a new kitchen fitted can be traced back to poor communication.
Also remember if you sign the order for a kitchen at home you have a 7 Day cooling off period under the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000
The price of your new kitchen
Finally make sure you know exactly what the price includes and allow enough in your budget for flooring, tiling and decoration and always allow a 10% contingency for those unexpected costs !
And finally are you protected if your supplier runs into problems? we operate an Approved Supplier database that you may find useful and for more information on working with an Approved supplier take a look at the information here and companies listed here www.thekitchendirectory.co.uk/find-a-supplier
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So that is our 4 point plan; If you find a kitchen company that you feel comfortable with and who tick all of these boxes for you whether your budget is £ 50,000 or £ 5,000 you should be happy.
