Hi,

We're trying to find a kitchen cabinet supplier for our new kitchen
extension, and starting to lose hope that we'll find a range that we like
within our budget. We're (probably) looking for a shaker style with solid
wood doors, and our budget is about £3,000 or so for the cabinets. We've
been round the obvious places such as B&Q, Magnet, MFI, Wickes etc, but
either we don't like the styles available or we're unimpressed by the
quality of the carcasses and/or doors. The only suppliers we liked were the
local specialist shops (plenty in Harpenden) selling cabinets from Beckerman
and RWK, but at a price - £7k+.

We've come across an internet company, Arena, based in Inverness that has
had some favourable comments on this newsgroup. We like the range of doors
available and cost (about £3,500 for the 18 cabinets we'll need). However,
given our obvious pickiness I'm very nervous about buying blind. I'm
actually considering flying up to Inverness to look around their showroom -
I'm only 2 miles from Luton airport and Easyjet do a return fare for about
£60 - but first I thought I'd ask for any recent experience with this
company. What do people think of their cabinet and door construction? I
think these are supplied assembled, but are they using KD joints or glued &
dowelled? How about the service - how easy is it to change damaged or wrong
items?

Thanks for any advice,

Andy