Kitchen Refurb - Lots of questions & pics wanted!!

[happy-chick]

Right we were gunna get a company in to do the whole lot but have realised that although its alot quicker and easier it costs alot more so I have made the brave step and decided to look into planning it myself and get seperate tradesman in to do the jobs that need doing I must be crazy

Right so I already have a general idea of what we want and what needs doing, we plan to get lots of quotes and do lots of planning before we actually start. I know various people in various trades (Tiler/Plasterer/Joiners/Electrician) so alot of those are already sorted if they have the time to do what we need doing but I need to find lots of other tradesmen.

I have lots of questions so if you can answer any u want to then I'd appreicate it!

1/ Do you have any tips on finding good tradesman?
2/ How long did the planning take for you?
3/ How long did your referb take from start to finish?
4/ In total how much did the referb cost you?
5/ Are there any areas you wish you had spent more/less on?
6/ Did you have a company in to do the refurb or did you do it yourself?
7/ Did you have any disasters?
8/ Would you do anything different if you did a kitchen refurb again?

Would love to see pictures from before/during/after or even if you havent done your own refurb i'd love to see your kitchens for inspiration!

Thank u!!

 

[lea m]

1/ Do you have any tips on finding good tradesman? Cant help that one, My dad did mine!
2/ How long did the planning take for you? Not long! I went on the Ikea website and it has a thingie (lol dont know what its called) that helps you plan it!
3/ How long did your referb take from start to finish?About 2 days! But my kitchen is very small and we didnt move the sink or anything!
4/ In total how much did the referb cost you?Less than a grand! I would say about £850-900 total!
5/ Are there any areas you wish you had spent more/less on?Nope! Totally happy with it! Oh exept I wish I would have gotten a new cooker too!
6/ Did you have a company in to do the refurb or did you do it yourself?My dad did it!
7/ Did you have any disasters?Nope!
8/ Would you do anything different if you did a kitchen refurb again?Nope!

Here is my kitchen before and after!
Before : (the red wall thing is where we had a shelf thing and didnt paint behind it haha

After!:

Now we also have a blind up etc lol!

 

[happy-chick]

Looks fab lea bet your really pleased with it!! We're gunna go for simular colours (I think) although we're still looking! Thanks for answering x

 

[samandbump]

your kitchen is gorgeous lea m

 

[Summer.]

1/ Do you have any tips on finding good tradesman? Cant help that one, My dad did mine!
2/ How long did the planning take for you? Not long! I went on the Ikea website and it has a thingie (lol dont know what its called) that helps you plan it!
3/ How long did your referb take from start to finish?About 2 days! But my kitchen is very small and we didnt move the sink or anything!
4/ In total how much did the referb cost you?Less than a grand! I would say about £850-900 total!
5/ Are there any areas you wish you had spent more/less on?Nope! Totally happy with it! Oh exept I wish I would have gotten a new cooker too!
6/ Did you have a company in to do the refurb or did you do it yourself?My dad did it!
7/ Did you have any disasters?Nope!
8/ Would you do anything different if you did a kitchen refurb again?Nope!

Here is my kitchen before and after!
Before : (the red wall thing is where we had a shelf thing and didnt paint behind it haha

After!:

Now we also have a blind up etc lol!

You have great taste. I will be wanting something like this myself.

 

[lea m]

Thanks ladies!
Ikea! I love it! lol!

 

[Rock-Angel]

Thanks ladies!
Ikea! I love it! lol!

I want your kitchen!! How much was it can I ask!?!

 

[lea m]

[quote="lea m":zjwhg268] Thanks ladies!
Ikea! I love it! lol!

I want your kitchen!! How much was it can I ask!?![/quote:zjwhg268]

Not too much! I think in total it was about £850 -£900!
But it is rather small! I have 2 double top cupboard, a top cupboard that has a space under for my microwave, a big corner base cupboard with a carousel inside, and another double base/sink unit! New sink, taps, tiles, flooring, paint etc!

 

[kalia]

1/ Do you have any tips on finding good tradesman? Ask friends, family, everyone you meet until you get someone who is recommended.
2/ How long did the planning take for you? Not long. I don't really remember but it could be planned in a weekend.
3/ How long did your referb take from start to finish? We weren't living in the flat at the time so it didn't matter to us and we took our time. Sockets were repositioned, lino put down, appliances installed etc. It was over a month because I made sure each thing had happened before arranging the next.
4/ In total how much did the referb cost you? Including appliances, lino, units etc. about £1500
5/ Are there any areas you wish you had spent more/less on? We spent more on th appliances and I'm glad we did. We got a dual fuel cooker (gas hob, electric oven) and it was definitely worth the extra money!
6/ Did you have a company in to do the refurb or did you do it yourself? The oven had to be connected to the gas by a corgi person. The lino was laid by the carpet people. I made the units up and installed them. It was pretty easy to be honest.
7/ Did you have any disasters? No. i do have a lazy shortcut - I have the end panel for the units but it needs to be cut to size. I still haven't bothered to do that (it was finished over 2.5 years ago!) because I realised OH had a chin up bar that would work perfectly It looks fine, just like a metal post.
8/ Would you do anything different if you did a kitchen refurb again? If I were going back in time I'd do the same again. The only thing I regret is using natural wood in some places as it is not good in the kitchen - it soaks up water, takes forever to dry and needs coated in stuff regularly. I knew I didn't have the budget for an amazing kitchen so I made a really nice looking kitchen that didn't cost much. I got good appliances because I knew that when I had the money for my dream kitchen I would keep them. In my dream kitchen I will have expensive worktops that won't scratch - but the £20 ones from Ikea are fantastic for now. I will but a new sink because gorgeous though the belfast sink that is original to the house is, it's too deep so you have to bend a lot while doing dishes.

 

[Becky]

We completely refurbed ours. We knocked through the "dining room" which was a teeny little room, we knocked out the old coal cupboard and the pantry to make a nice big kitchen - the best thing we ever did to the house!

Excuse the pics, the before are from the day we moved in the after ones - well our kitchen is very lived in!!
The washing machine, oven and table are all still in the same places but you can see there's a heck of a lot more space now!


1/ Do you have any tips on finding good tradesman? Just make sure you get a few quotes and go with your gut feel
2/ How long did the planning take for you?Not long really, we'd lived with the "before" for 3 years so had a good idea of what we wanted
3/ How long did your referb take from start to finish?About 1 month to get all the major work done, little bits and bobs took another couple of weeks
4/ In total how much did the referb cost you?It was about 13k but that was because of the work of knocking down walls and levelling out the floor and a new uPVC door and a heck of a lot of plastering and an expensive Karndeen floor
5/ Are there any areas you wish you had spent more/less on?Nope
6/ Did you have a company in to do the refurb or did you do it yourself?We hired one company to arrange it all because we couldn't be bothered to arrange all the different contractors needed. It was more expensive but so much easier than finding reliable tradesmen. Plus if there were delays it was up to them to re-arrange.
7/ Did you have any disasters?No it all went very smoothly
8/ Would you do anything different if you did a kitchen refurb again?Get better/different corner units

Before

After

 

[lea m]

Oh its lovely Becky!!

 

[Becky]

Oh its lovely Becky!!

Thanks Lea - I think yours looks fab too, it looks like it's straight out of a showroom!

 

[lea m]

Aww thanks hun

 

[Urchin]

That ikea thing is fab I've been playing with it... we hope to extend our kitchen soon

 

[happy-chick]

Gorgeous kitchens ladies, im gunna have a look at IKEA website in a bit Thanks for answering my questions! x

 

[sunnyday]

I too can definitely recommend Ikea kitchens. I have used them a couple of times and have not been disappointed. The planning tool is great, but if you want you can just go into the store with your measurements and they will help you design it. The staff are really helpul.

I think we spent about £1500 on units (we went for their most expensive doors as we wanted solid oak). With the second kitchen we splashed out on granite worktops (not from Ikea) and that really finished it off nicely.

One thing about Ikea appliances.... we avoided buying them as even though all their stuff is branded (Whirlpool etc) it still says Ikea on it. I didn't really want my microwave, hob etc with ikea printed on it.

WOuld definitely suggest getting integrated appliances...fridge, washer etc - if you can afford it. I think it gives a more expensive and streamlined look.

 

[Charlie:-)]

Hi Jo

The kitchen was the first major job we did in our house. Initially we had a through lounge/diner and seperate kitchen which was tiny so we knocked through into the dining room and then built a wall to seperate the loung/diner. So now we have a kitchen/diner and seperate lounge. I have learnt so many things from this one project and teh biggest is not to let any friends/family do any of the work for you no matter how less expensive they may be charging you. We had a very close friend of my hubby's do our kitchen and he also found a builder to do all teh buildinig work and plastering. The job took forever, almost a year from start to completion, I was sick to the back teeth of it and I kept having to nag hubby to call his mate all thetime to find ourt when he was coming to finish off. It was so stressful. I wouldnt mind if his mate was charging us mates rates but he wasnt we paid him fair and square, yes it was a damn site cheaper than the kitchen companies quoted us but he was making a good profit on it too. I would much rather pay someone who we dont know to come and do jobs for us now, and I always try and find someone on recommendation, or from the FMB website. When getting quotes ask if you can have a look at some of theor previous work, like if youre using a joiner or a kitchen fitter and they are reputable then they should have no quarms about this. We are in the middle of planning a new bathroom and out of the 5 people we saw all of them said yes we could look at previous work but only 1 provided names and addresses so we could contact them, the one who did also happened to be a member of the FMB. If you don get details of previous work always try and speak to the people at least and find out if they were happy with the work, did they turn up on time and when they said they were going to etc.

I only have 1 before photo of the dining room, not sure why I didnt take any of the kitchen I usually do. Will try and answer your questions now.

1/ Do you have any tips on finding good tradesman? Look at the FMB (Federation of Master Builders) website they are basically a company who recognise good tradesmen. Tradesmen subsrube to become a member and have to adhere to certain things in order to become a member.
2/ How long did the planning take for you? Kitchen about 3 months in total to finalise a design that we wanted to stick with.
3/ How long did your referb take from start to finish? 1 year
4/ In total how much did the referb cost you? All in, including building work, slate floor tiles, wall tiles, appliances, star galaxy granite work surfaces, paint and kitchen units £7000
5/ Are there any areas you wish you had spent more/less on? No
6/ Did you have a company in to do the refurb or did you do it yourself? Answered above, although I sourced a tiller and found someone on recommendation, who turned out to be bloody brilliant.
7/ Did you have any disasters? Oh yes - Lots!
8/ Would you do anything different if you did a kitchen refurb again? Answered above

Please excuse the floor, its looking a bit dull as it needs re-sealing and we just had a new boiler fitted so we now have a lovely hole where our old thermostat used to be.

Dining room from the lounge, wall on right now knocked down into kitchen

View of dining room from kitchen

View of kitchen from dining room

Floor