Why we favoured a Howdens kitchen over a B&Q kitchen
This is not a B&Q kitchen review
If you're looking for a review about a B&Q kitchen well this isn't actually a review. It’s not even a Howdens kitchen review (who we eventually went with).
You see, we didn't actually go for a B&Q kitchen in the end. What we discovered is going to potentially help you to make your kitchen supplier decision. We can’t speak from experience as to B&Q’s quality - they do have some visually appealing options, so they shouldn’t be discounted purely based on the information in this post. Definitely do your research. We were actually fairly close to going with B&Q.
Choosing a kitchen supplier
Choosing a kitchen supplier is a bit like choosing a school for a child (stick with us on this one).
You'll have to deal with consequences of your decision for many years (maybe decades).
You're possibly going to find out some of the bad bits once you've made your decision.
Once you've made your decision, it's pretty difficult to back out of it without causing issues.
Understandably you are going to need to do your research, and it's all well and good looking through Instagram and saying "I like that kitchen, because it's beautiful" (everything is beautiful on Instagram isn’t it?)
There are a host of hidden factors that Insta-worthy photoshoots do not portray at all.
Howdens or B&Q?
When we were choosing our kitchen there weren’t any blogs like this out there to give us the lowdown so we had to learn the hard way through making wrong turns and happenstance conversations with contractors, by using our blog throughout your project you have an advantage so make sure to download our free kitchen guide to help you save money and time on your project.
There were a few suppliers we 'courted' (to use a word that my grandma says). Howdens, IKEA, B&Q and Wickes were the main ones.
The two key things that form your decision making process are the:
Style of the kitchen and;
Price of the kitchen
Right?
What if we told you that there was another factor to consider?
Well that would be the cost of fitting it.
Realising the benefits of ready made cabinets
What we found out when we were chucking around options with our family friend and contractor Steve was that there could be a difference in fitting costs with a flat packed kitchen.
At first we were talking about an IKEA kitchen, Steve said "You do realise that IKEA kitchens come flat-packed" it then dawned on us that if a kitchen fitter had to build a kitchen from scratch, this would mean that they obviously would need to charge more for the job since it would take longer.
The amount of times we’ve heard a tradesmen on a day-rate huff and puff and thought - “I wonder if that problem they’re having is going to end up costing us?” – obviously!
When our Howdens kitchen delivery came (who offer ready-made cabinets) seeing them coming off the truck and straight into their places in our kitchen put it all in perspective. Have you ever tried to build flat packed furniture?
We’ve built numerous ‘simple enough’ but ultimately aneurysm-inducing pieces of IKEA furniture over the years. If we were kitchen fitters, we would have a flat pack charge just because of the additional stress of searching through 30 bags of nuts, bolts, and screws.
Hold on, what about saving on costs AND fitting with flat pack?
Where this gets a bit complicated however is that flat packed kitchens can actually work out cheaper for the materials (since the kitchen supplier doesn’t need to build it for you). If you’re a keen DIY’er with plenty of patience to put a flat pack kitchen together on behalf of the kitchen fitter you might find that you can make a saving - if you don’t mind getting a few grey hairs in the process.
If money is really tight for you, our advice would be to ask for a quote from your kitchen supplier AND kitchen fitter for both flat packed and ready made cabinetry, then make your decision on whether you can manage the building of the bits yourselves.
If you like this post you might like to read our review of Howdens kitchens or our post about Howdens kitchen prices
Want to learn more about the process so that you can start to get prepared? Download our free guide on designing and ordering a kitchen.
A step-by-step process to getting the kitchen of your dreams
Tons of tips and ideas to get the absolute best out of your kitchen design
See how we optimised our design and how we got an amazing kitchen we adore
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