Kitchen's Kitchen

Lighting.

I'm thinking Philips Hue strips under the pelmets of the high cabinets to light the work surfaces.

Then the new Philips Centris over the sink area: https://www.philips-hue.com/en-gb/p/hue-white-and-colour-ambience-centris-4-spot-ceiling-light/5060731P7

This should give a really clear light at the end of the room, and the spots over the corners of the U shaped worktop means I can throw light across the worktops at an angle and remove any shadows from the under-pelmet strip lights.

Unsure of the light over the kitchen table... maybe a Hue pendant... but I'm tempted by something a little warmer here. Perhaps abandoning Hue for this one light and opting for something like this: https://www.aram.co.uk/caboche-media.html or the smaller one https://www.aram.co.uk/caboche-piccola.html

Yup, the 1970s called and want their lighting back... but it's damn nice.

I'm thinking Philips Hue strips under the pelmets of the high cabinets to light the work surfaces.

Be wary of where the shadow of the pelmet falls - if it falls on the counter top at all, it will drive you insane.

Good call, I'll have them look at the depth and angle... inclined to tell them to ensure the light exactly ends at the edge of the worktop and let this be their problem.

Paint samples ordered...

• Dulux Heritage Sage Green for the cabinets https://www.designerpaint.com/products/dulux-heritage/sage-green/62842
  
• Dulux Heritage Potters Pink for the walls https://www.designerpaint.com/products/dulux-heritage/potters-pink/62674
  
  

Yup... pink walls. I was looking at blues, shades of whites, light clays, greys, bluish pinks, and settled for a light pink as the colour that on screen looked best alongside the Sage Green.

This feels radical... a pink kitchen, but I will get the colour samples and paint a few standalone boards with it and move them around and look at them at different times of day and see how they feel for me.

Obviously if I go pink I'm not going to have an amber crystal light.

Probably will go with a black Hue then.

we had a pink bathroom in our last place - it was a very warm and inviting colour. we're thinking about getting a similar shade in our hallway now. we just rush finished the decorating of that space when our extension finished and chose plain white, and it's very cold with the black tiled floor and dark grey stairs, needs something more gemütlich

We went for dried plaster by Craig and Rose - it’s really nice paint and cheaper than F&B.

subbed... going to go through a similar journey soon. I've been having some initial discussions with Matthew (https://www.matthewwoodworks.co.uk/) although the suggestions in this thread are interesting too!

Have drawings (I'll clean them up later so I can post them) and quotes.

In essence:

• Harvey Jones kitchen = £32k for cabinetry, fitting, painting, supply and installation of Miele appliances (about £9k of the cost).
  
• Builders = £10-15k for clearing out everything, new boiler location and move of flue hole, floor tiling, new radiator installation, new fuse box, new electrics, new plumbing, painting. The variance in quote range here is due to an unknown, the floor tiles today don't go to the walls under cupboards and appliances and there's a risk any water leakage, etc may mean more major flooring works.
  
  

This means £47k is the upper bounds of this quote.

Not included:

• Granite worktop, roughly 8m2 of granite @ £450 per sq m = £3.6k
  
• Sink - No more than £500
  
• Tap - No more than £600
  
• Lights - No more than £250
  
• Radiator - No more than £500
  
• Tiles - No more than £500
  
• Boiler - £1k
  
• Dining table - £1k
  
• 4 dining chairs - £150 ea = £600
  
  

This means about £8.6k more in costs

So I am probably looking at £56k for everything.

Don't scrimp on tiles. Cheap ones won't last. £10k+ for builder seems a bit mad.

Not scrimping on tiles. Not quite going for ridiculous Victorian ones where the patterns are a mosaic of many smaller tiles, but am looking at good quality encaustic tiles.

£10-15k on builder.

Not quite sure it's too much TBH, it includes the other trades... what they've got to do (incomplete list off the top of my head):

• Remove existing tiles
  
• Remove existing cabinets
  
• Remove and dispose of all appliances
  
• Remove gas boiler
  
• Create new hole in the external wall for flue
  
• Fill in old flue hole
  
• New fuse box
  
• New electric wires across length of house (probably through ceiling, but chased at both ends)
  
• New electric ring in the kitchen (replace all electrics)
  
• New ceiling light fixtures
  
• New floor tiles
  
• Remove radiator
  
• Install new radiator
  
• Install new boiler
  
• Install plumbing to all appliance points
  
• Install all electric sockets and points
  
• New floor tiling to wall
  
• Clean up ceiling
  
• Clean up walls
  
• Paint ceiling
  
• Paint walls
  
  

The stretch £5k is restorative work on floor boards that are around the edges of the room and today hidden by cabinets and appliances. This is depending on level of damage and what they find - based on the existing job only being "tiled to visible area" rather than "tiled to wall".

Given that list... I think electrics would notch up a couple of grand, as would gas/plumbing, tiling £500 - £1k, painting in the same ball park... suddenly the building work isn't looking excessive and given that I'm not going to have my kitchen whilst this work is ongoing, and will lose the boiler for a day or two too... having 1 contractor own the whole thing seems semi-sane.

Drawings

1 Attachment

• Kitchen Drawings 19.09.2020.pdf

Given that you're going premium the estimates for things like lights, tiles, etc seem a bit low.

I'm just sticking with Hue for lights so process are known.

Tiles are only £5.50 each and the cost of them is only £380... Estimating £500 is padding quite well.

Feels realistic. I may be wrong.

did you get any other quotes from similarly priced outfits?

On which bit?

I got indicative quotes for cabinetry - and this was not the most expensive by far, but also not down the low end of the market by any means.

Indicative quotes were based on: hypothetical kitchen, 3 double under counter cabinets, 2 double high level cabinets... and it was purely me attempting to get a comparable idea of the range of prices as the final price was always going to depend on what the final configuration would be.

If I were just doing the cabinets and minor other changes then even with Miele everything I'd be within £40k.

It's the fact that at the same I'm fully replacing plumbing, gas, electrics, and shelling out the ceiling and floor and redoing those - this really pushes the costs.

I haven't got lots of quotes for the builders, only 2 quotes and both were around £10k for the scope of what I've asked for.

Feels like I'm approaching a stop / go decision and either I do all of this and am fully committed, or I just pull the plug now. If I pull the plug I still have to face replacing the boiler in the next year or so, and ripping out the worktop and damaging cabinets to achieve this - and that's ignoring the unsafe electrics and fire risk.

Simply: It's not an order of magnitude cheaper to do this another way (i.e. I cannot get this to £5k no matter what)... but I could possibly get it to £25k if I go cheapest almost everything (but I'm aware that this is what led to the precise problems with this room - someone "value engineering" their way to what was delivered). Feels like there are bands of cost for a full kitchen renovation, a ~£15-25k range for entry, a ~£40-70k for mid-range, and a +£70k for super premium.

Got the quote from the builder.

£16k.

So I am looking at £55k-ish for this.

Status: I am currently assessing my appetite for personal financial risk.

Also sought a quote from a local builder via MyBuilder - based on a pre-purchased kitchen from Ikea and me supplying white goods, etc... all of the major works (bullet list above) came out around £12k.

Because I'm having to set so many wrongs right, and put in safe electrics, gas, plumbing, lighting, replace boiler, etc... and all of the costs to get that done... even if I go cheap I'm still going to be in the £20-25k region.

This is inclining me towards doing the work to a high standard... I'd rather pay £55k and have something significant to show, than pay £25k and it being much the same but without the major risks and issues it has today.

Maybe you would want to try a kitchen fitter as the primary tradesmen?

Looking at the list of tasks there isn't anything you'd actually need a builder for. Kitchen Fitter, Spark, Plumber/Heating Engineer and Tiler is what you need.

I saw builder, but it's a group of individual trades acting as one.

I think I'm going to go for it, and get a new kitchen :D

12k still seems nuts - if you average a day rate at £300, that’s 8 weeks of labour for what appears to be a fairly small room. Are they supplying materials too?

Yes... boiler, pipes, consumer unit, cables, sockets, etc.

I've just given the go ahead.

Total estimate £57k.

excited?

£8k less than I'm spending on renovating a 4 bed, 3 storey house.

😂