Does anyone have any views on which kitchen units are the best, in terms of
value for money, robustness etc etc.
I haven't done a kitchen for approx 15 years and things have changed
somewhat, in the past I used MFI and found them satisfactory, however things
have moved on and I was thinking to use B&Q as superficially they seemed
good value. MFI and Focus seemed expensive? What does the team think? Any
recommendations appreciated.
Regards
Tom

"Tom" wrote in message
...
Does anyone have any views on which kitchen units are the best, in terms
of
value for money, robustness etc etc.
I haven't done a kitchen for approx 15 years and things have changed
somewhat, in the past I used MFI and found them satisfactory, however
things
have moved on and I was thinking to use B&Q as superficially they seemed
good value. MFI and Focus seemed expensive? What does the team think? Any
recommendations appreciated.
Regards
Tom


Was looking at this subject myself recently, I thought B&Q were quite
expensive, even with their half-price doors offers.IKEA are much cheaper
than they used to be - so much so that they were the best on price I
thought. Worth taking a look.

Of course **if** you can get an account with them, Howdens are hard to
beat....

Tom wrote:
Does anyone have any views on which kitchen units are the best, in terms of
value for money, robustness etc etc.
I haven't done a kitchen for approx 15 years and things have changed
somewhat, in the past I used MFI and found them satisfactory, however things
have moved on and I was thinking to use B&Q as superficially they seemed
good value. MFI and Focus seemed expensive? What does the team think? Any
recommendations appreciated.
Regards
Tom



FWIW we're buying an ALNO kitchen from (and fitted by) John Lewis. IMHO
far better VFM than any of IKEA/MFI/B+Q/Kitchens Direct/Stoneham. This
is based on; my parent's IKEA kitchens, the Kitchen Direct units that I
ripped out of my kitchen, looking at the 'sheds' offerings before
visiting ALNO and my mother in law's Stoneham kitchen.

Very flexible design options.

This is intended to be a 'fit and forget' kitchen. My father thinks
that IKEA scores over the MFI types in terms of price, but it doesn't
seem to be very durable.

HTH Richard
--


Reply to RJSavage at Bigfoot dot com

"Tom" wrote in message
...
Does anyone have any views on which kitchen units are the best, in terms
of
value for money, robustness etc etc.
I haven't done a kitchen for approx 15 years and things have changed
somewhat, in the past I used MFI and found them satisfactory, however
things
have moved on and I was thinking to use B&Q as superficially they seemed
good value. MFI and Focus seemed expensive? What does the team think? Any
recommendations appreciated.
Regards
Tom

The top end MFI are ok.
I was pleasantly impressed by a B&Q kitchen fitted by a friend recently and
they have the advantage you can get and fit it the same day unlike MFI where
you have to wait weeks for delivery of yr order and there is always
something missing/broken although cust services are quite helpful.
OR the dreaded Ikea who never have everything you want in stock, even if you
check before you travel there..

Suggest you google the group for a thread I kicked off recently entitled
Would you buy another kitchen from Wickes?

--
RRH

To reply by email, take out insurance.

"Coherers" wrote in message
...
"Tom" wrote in message
...
Does anyone have any views on which kitchen units are the best, in terms
of
value for money, robustness etc etc.
I haven't done a kitchen for approx 15 years and things have changed
somewhat, in the past I used MFI and found them satisfactory, however
things
have moved on and I was thinking to use B&Q as superficially they seemed
good value. MFI and Focus seemed expensive? What does the team think?
Any
recommendations appreciated.
Regards
Tom


Was looking at this subject myself recently, I thought B&Q were quite
expensive, even with their half-price doors offers.IKEA are much cheaper
than they used to be - so much so that they were the best on price I
thought. Worth taking a look.


Ikea I thought were absolute ****, no service chanell behind the cupboards,
no way to true them up to the wall, unusually for ikea stuff I found the
general quality dreadful.


Of course **if** you can get an account with them, Howdens are hard to
beat....

Suggest you google the group for a thread I kicked off recently entitled
Would you buy another kitchen from Wickes?

--
RRH

Thanks for that, the previous thread makes interesting reading including the
telephone abuse you received, however I'm still not sure which to go for.
It's a small kitchen so I may go and pick some units from B&Q and fetch
them
home myself.

I did that recently with 4 small 300mm units to make bases for shelf units
(nothing to do with kitchen) and found the construction was fine, similar
to
the MFI units I built years ago but they used to stock them in MFI in those
days, Ahh well, happy days.
Things don't seem to have changed a lot in construction terms except the
drawers which seem to be made of bent mild steel and look a much better and
stronger design than the old ones.
Thank you all for your comments, much appreciated, Will try and get a
catalogue from ALNO before deciding, I don't think I'll go down the IKEA
road.
Cheers
Tom

I'm sure the John Lewis/ALNO ones are better quality. However, I'd suspect you
are talking 2-4 times the price of IKEA and that's quite a trade off. I managed
to get round 6 suppliers in one day last week and the one supplier that I felt
I could exclude immediately was MFI. Their expensive ones looked OK, but then
you are in the John Lewis/custom made bracket, but I thought the Hygena range
build quality, in particular the drawers was the lowest of all I looked at
(Ikea/MFI/B&Q/Wickes/Homebase and local custom build place) and they aren't
even particularly cheap. I thought Wickes were probably ahead on build quality
(excluding the custom kitchen place) but that Ikea was not far short and a lot
cheaper, though I'd probably be happy with B&Q or Homebase. I've seen several
remarks about Ikea units having problems with space behind, but I'm not too
worried about that as it's going into a completely refurbished space, and we
can ensure it's not needed. We're not ready to buy/order yet and I expect the
final decision will rest on what offers the various suppliers have on the type
we want when the moment comes, but it won't be MFI (even though I have no
complaints about my current 24 year old Hygena kitchen, but that's a different
thing altogether from what they call Hygena now).

Peter

but I thought the Hygena range build quality, in particular the drawers
was
the lowest of all I looked at

I'm happy with my MFI units. They were just about identical in price and
quality to B&Q units, but had a far wider range of styles. B&Q only had
around 10, and only 2 of those were real wood fronts. They mostly
concentrate on cheap modern MDF designs. I don't know what you mean about
the drawer units. Perhaps the display had the "standard" runners rather than
the proper "deluxe" ones.

I fitted some B&Q ones for my parents around the same time, and there was
nothing to choose between them in terms of quality, apart from the B&Q door
buffers, which can be easily fitted to the MFI units.

Christian.