What are the costs of a fitted Kitchen?

Cost of Fitted Kitchens

How much does fitting a kitchen cost?

The time has come for you to invest in a new fitted kitchen. This is an exciting time with the prospect of your dream kitchen on the horizon; a place to entertain, cook for family and friends, relax in. However, it can also be a stressful time with the amount of stores now offering fitted kitchens and the seemingly vast differences in prices you’ll be quoted.

This minefield of information can seem daunting so we’d like to help to explain the differences in costs of fitted kitchens with this blog and discuss the pros and cons for each option.

Does everyone charge the same for installation?

The short answer is no. You will find a vast difference in the cost of installation from company to company and there are very simple reasons behind this.

The installation costs of a kitchen vary mainly due to 3 factors

1. How much the tradesmen get paid
2. Whether you’re paying the tradesmen direct or paying the company
3. What services the company you choose provides

Let’s go into these factors in a little more detail.

1. How much do the tradesmen get paid?

We all know how important it is to get the right tradesmen to do the job. Not only do they have to be skilled in their given trade, they also need to be warm and friendly and treat your home with respect. The installation is the most important part of a project as it doesn’t matter if your design is fantastic and the product of a high quality if the tradesman installing it does a bad job! This is why it’s important to think in terms of value for money instead of how cheap can I get this.

There are a lot of tradesmen out there who are willing to work for less but in our experience, you pay for what you get, which is why it is worth paying a little more for your tradesmen as it is always money well spent.

The consideration of the amount your tradesmen are being paid should only apply to kitchens you are buying on a supply only basis with you hiring your own tradesmen. When buying the installation from a company, there should be an expectation that the company is paying their tradesmen well.

Expect to pay an average of £1500-2000.00 for joinery, plumbing and electrics when hiring your own tradesmen

2. Who are you actually paying……the company or the tradesmen direct?

As you shop around getting quotes for your fitted kitchen, you’ll come across companies that effectively run as a supply only company but claim to offer fitted kitchens. This is definitely something to be wary of and a lot of questions should be asked when dealing with this type of outfit.

It is common with these companies for you to go through the entire design process under the impression that the service provided is a fully fitted kitchen but when the final costs are being discussed it is pointed out that you will actually pay the tradesmen direct instead of paying the company. This will often be sold to you as a huge benefit as there is a real cost saving to me made. To be fair, it is true that there is a cost saving but once again it comes down to cheap versus value for money.

The danger with this kind of arrangement is that you will not have a guarantee from the company as they will tell you that you didn’t have the kitchen installed by them. This should be a major concern if you want to have a kitchen that lasts and somewhere to go if you have issues in the future.

Bespoke Interiors offer a lifetime guarantee on their installation which means that any issues with plumbing, electrics or joinery work is taken care of for the life of your kitchen. It may mean that you pay marginally more for the installation than you would if you were paying the tradesmen direct but we believe the value of this and the peace of mind it provides is more than worth it.

We cannot stress the importance of clarifying your position on guarantees when you’re being asked to pay the tradesmen direct, it’s a question that you may end up wishing you’d asked if things go wrong!

Although you are paying the installers direct, you will usually pay a little more for this than if you found your own tradesmen. This is because there is usually an arrangement for the tradesmen to pay a commission back to the company for passing on their details.

Expect to pay £1800 – £2200 for this kind of installation.

3. What service is being provided?

There’s a vast number of kitchen companies in Newcastle and the Northeast and they all have their own way of providing a fitted kitchen and the differences often effect the costs. A few of the more common approaches are as follows

Flat pack and mass produced kitchens

Kitchen companies that supply flat pack units or mass produced standard sized units tend to be more expensive when it comes to installation than some of their smaller competitors. This is largely down to the fact that they’d rather not be installing and would much rather sell kitchens as a supply only to avoid the complications of installation. A lot of our clients will tell us they were quoted as much for the installation as they were for the kitchen itself and that usually is enough to put people off.

People that do opt to pay this higher installation fee tend to find that there is little involvement from the company during the installation.  Essentially the installation team becomes your point of contact and they project manage the job. This can lead to a disconnect in service as the designer you worked with will no longer be involved. This type of installation service usually only comes with a 1 year guarantee that is given to you buy the installer on behalf of the company.

Expect to pay an average of £4000 fully fitted.

Independent Kitchen companies

A lot of small to medium sized kitchen companies opt for a project managed service. This usually entails a dedicated installation team that reports to your designated project manager who oversees your project and is your point of call during this installation.

At Bespoke Interiors we operate with a project manager who oversees the day to day installations but our project manager works hand in hand with our designers too for the following reason

A design process is meant to be thorough and can often take several hours of conversation and design tweaks over several weeks. With the best will in the world, it is impossible for a designer to transfer all of that information onto paper or verbally to your project manager. Inevitably items get missed, parts of the kitchen aren’t made the way you’d envisaged it and the relationship that you built with your designer has disappeared as they are no longer involved. Having experience of companies that operate in this way, we have found that this disconnect from designer to client, fosters a careless attitude from the designers as they know that they will never have to deal with any issues that arise and a “sell it and forget it” attitude inevitably develops. This can be very counter-productive and very frustrating for the client.

You will have spent hours building a rapport with your designer, you will have put your faith in this person to an extent where you have agreed to place your order for a kitchen with them and the company they work for. This trust is something that shouldn’t be dismissed, it should be valued.

That is why your designer still creates the kitchen order that our workshop works to when manufacturing our kitchen, ensuring his design is manufactured the way it was meant to be. Your designer also liaises with the project manager on any design questions that may arise. Your designer will also be available to speak to at any time should you wish to discuss any aspect of the design or installation.

It is a relatively unique way of managing installations as it requires an amount of technical skill and experience that most designers lack. Quite often within the kitchen industry you will come across salesmen who have been taught to design. At Bespoke Interiors we take a completely different approach. All of our designers are joiners who have learned to design over decades in the industry. This allows our designers to create technical orders and work with our project manager on technical fitting issues as they have the background of having installed kitchens themselves.

Expect to pay an average of £3000- £4000 fully fitted

As you can see you can pay anywhere from £1500 to £4000 for an average full installation including plumbing and electrics. We hope the information in this blog will help you make your decision when choosing your fitted kitchen.

If you’d like to read more about our company then please check out our About Us page