Hi,

Just flew on EasyJet yesterday and whilst flipping through the in-flight magazine, came across an advert for a kitchen company - called 'Kitchens'.  The advert shows a photo of part of a kitchen with solid wood units and a granite worktop.  

To quote the advert (I nicked the mag): "For example, all the real wood cabinets, doors, cornice, pelmet and accessories featured above, including solid granite worktop can be yours for only £1495.00"

Pretty cheap.

As the wife has been starting to ask about a new kitchen lately, I was wondering if any of you have heard of this company. Are they any good, or should they be avoided like the plague?

My main worry, stupidly enough, is that there was no website address on the advert - very strange for any reputable company nowadays.

Cheers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/reports/homes/homes_20061010...

Thanks for the warning - sounds like a nice bloke, this Vance!

There's no way of telling whether this is the same company, as the phone number in the advert is an 0871 one, so I can't tell where they're based.

Anyway, if it is a different company, they probably want to change their name sharpish!

Cheers.

CWatters wrote on Oct 29^th, 2006, 10:13am:

It's the old "you get what you pay for" thing, though (all that glisters is not gold?). There is granite and granite, and just like so many things you don't know the difference unless you've compared items side by side (or seen them after they've been in a place for 10 years). Templating is still a skilled job, though. As to granite delivery installation - if you want to do it yourself, then fine, go put your back out. It has often been said that a good joiner can make a even a second rate kitchen fit well and look good - that's still true.

Scrit

Quote:


Oh, how  "SHELLfish" of you , does your wife know!!???

and cheap Granite, probably the old MDF with a bit of "granite" type sticky backed plastic on it!!!

TIMBA-WOLF wrote on Oct 29^th, 2006, 11:13pm:


You may not be far off the truth Wolf, you can buy sheets of 10-12mm granite to overlay your existing worktops with and strips to glue to the front edge, only giveaway is the sheets come 1000-1200 long so there are loads of joints, even Screwfixare selling them, hope they use stronger boxes that their usuall ones

They are probably chinese granite which is grey stone with a black resin dye that will start to fade in a couple of years.



JAson

The client had obviously been inspired by Fu -tung Cheng, have a look at the gallery, I really like the combined wood/concrete countertops.

Jason

scotspark wrote on Oct 30^th, 2006, 6:17pm:


Not entirely true, I've fitted a few cheap flat packed kitchens for people I know don't have a lot of money and if all the joints are bonded and sealed even a relatively poor cabinet should easily last 10 years, maybe a lot more.

oooops! nearly forgot, thats the sort of idea W/S... the guys wife was/is a Yank and it has been the IN things for ages over there in Yank land!!!!

Hence the requirement!!

Quote:


and a few of us have seen mega bucks units disintigrate within a few months!!!!

theres a place not too far from me (and they shall remain name less , but its in CHISLEHURST!!!!)     and  a 1000 base unit, in "timber" not chip/mdf board starts from £860 .. YEP!! EIGHT HUNDRED AND SIXTY QUID!!!!

and they lasted all of 10 months before warping, splitting etc etc etc, and a hinge broke within a fortnight!!

real class too!! (NOT!!)

Quote:

Knowing the pompus ass who's home they are in , THAT would not surprise me!!...

scotspark wrote on Oct 31^st, 2006, 8:31pm:

The melamine edging is pretty much the same wherever it comes from - universally nasty. It is true that the better quality manufacturers use a better quality MFC, such as Egger, for the carcasses and nowadays use a PVC edgebanding instead of melamine (although it's still sub 1mm thick) - both of these can make some difference to longevity. But drawer quality these days is pretty good in most cases - even the cheapest kitchens use Blum Metabox drawers (or copies of that design) and they are very durable indeed. The door quality issue is still with us (although very few people have used melamine-faced doors since the early to mid 1980s) - if you buy cheap foil wrapped (really just printed paper) MDF doors they are not going to have the lifespan of a decent vinyl wrapped door or a wooden door, but even there it depends how you treat them.

This year I've refaced several kitchens with relatively low cost units where the original installer had taken the time to add extra screws, glue joints and seal the backs and exposed edges and I was surprised to see how well they've actually fared, whereas a 12 year old "quality" kitchen had to be ripped out and redone once I got the tops and plinths off - the maker hadn't used adjustable feet (the carcasses went down to floor level), so several floods had done for a number of the carcasses whilst there wasn't a single sealed edge anywhere in sight. Had that kitchen been properly installed it would have lasted longer (up to 20 or 25 years) and cost the customer less.

Scrit