How much !!!!

[fatowl]

At the moment, we're having a small extension built - with a new kitchen in it. Not a big, or grand kitchen, but the best quote (just to fit out the kitchen) so far is £13,500 !! That includes £2,700 for quartz worktop, and £700 for "templating" - whatever that might be !! I know I'm tight, but this seems a lot - especially when there are so much more deserving causes out there, my AT fund for one!

[tendays]

does seem a bit steep. we had a new kitchen a couple of years before we moved house, nothing special but it was under 4 grand. I think we got it measured up by and got the stuff from Howdens and got it fitted by a plasterer we had used before, 2 days work.

[Jackdaw]

We have granite worktops. £200 per m2. Extra cuts for sink/hob also cost. Templating - are you having odd shapes? Island unit/breakfast bar? What construction is the edxtension? £13 k sounds reasonable for work (until you ccompare it with new bike)

[micksylver]

We had a new kitchen / dining room a few years ago. It was a nightmare! Supposed to be done in 2 weeks - took just over 2 months! Mainly due to shoddy work that had to be redone, sometimes twice. And they left rubbish all over the house and garden. I could go on and on - regarding how bad a job they made of it.

This was done by a well known national firm, better known for their windows and named after a Himalayan mountain. I would NEVER use them again.

[AlanH]

This was done by a well known national firm, better known for their windows and named after a Himalayan mountain. I would NEVER use them again.

As seen on Watchdog.

[lowflyer]

£13.5 K for a kitchen is expensive.
You must have asked for gold lam handles for that price

Depends on what you ( or your boss ) is speccing, but you can certainly get them a lot cheaper than that.

Horses for courses I guess

[fatowl]

We have granite worktops. £200 per m2. Extra cuts for sink/hob also cost. Templating - are you having odd shapes? Island unit/breakfast bar? What construction is the edxtension? £13 k sounds reasonable for work (until you ccompare it with new bike)

No, we have no odd shapes. It seems templating is a new word for measuring up ! We're going to have to make a few adjustments if I'm ever going to get a new bike !!

[thetimkirby]

If you can fix a bike, you can build a kitchen. Most of it is jig built for easy assembly: with a bit of care and a good spirit level, it's quite possible to do yourself. The worktop joins are the challenging bit, but for well under £500 quid, you can buy a proper router and a jig, and the specific cutter bits. The jig comes with step-by-step instructions, and if you cock up the first one, the material cost is still a relatively minor part of the job. If you have a fancy top, buy some cheap B&Q ones to practice on first.

OK, no learning is free, but £13k? If you can do a worktop, the rest is usually straightforward. I got an acceptably good result first time, and I'm definitely no carpenter! The only things I would do differently next time are use a more solid workbench and supports, and choose a higher-quality worktop. And some spare hands never go amiss, the worktops are pretty heavy. And if you don't fancy this bit, you could do the cupboards, units, appliances, etc yourself and get specialists in to do the skilled bits, the worktop, plastering and services.

A word of warning, though: I made the mistake of looking at such a job and thinking, 'I could do that'. It finished up with me building the whole house myself, and now I've got no-one else to blame for the foul-ups. Your choice.

[fatowl]

Thanks for the advice everyone I've managed to get a much more reasonable figure now, by making a few cuts here 'n' there !

[Whealie]

At least you are getting a new kitchen. My roof finally gave up the ghost on Sunday morning 4.30am and dripped on me in bed. I'm just getting a new roof and spending the best part of seven grand.