Where to buy a kitchen is a really good question – one which I asked myself for months before making a decision. I want to take you on a little journey – it’s not long (not for you anyway – it was for me), down the road of deciding on a solution for our kitchen that we are over the moon about.
Initially, Andy and I decided that we would get someone else to install our kitchen but, as we went along the investigation path, we changed our minds. I’m going to list the quotes we got for you from highest to lowest, then I’ll tell you where we shopped and what we got. As you would have read in my previous renovation post (https://www.livingareallife.com/posts/lockwood-renovation-kitchen-plans), we had designed the kitchen ourselves so all we really needed was the price for purchasing the components.
This was the highest quote we got – at around $39,000 (this included installation). We decided not to go with this one for two reasons – one, it was much higher than any other quote and two, the cabinet doors were sprayed MDF, not thermal wrapped.
I’m sure that any kitchen your purchased from Kitchen Studio would have been amazing. Their designer, Fiona Dalziel was very talented and, as soon as I showed her my Kitchen Pinterest board, she knew exactly what I was on about. Their quote for kitchen and installation was $24,850.
By this time Andy and I were thinking that installation couldn’t be that hard, bearing in mind all the other work we have done over the years, so, we decided to change tack a little and investigate the flat pack companies.
We weren’t impressed with PlaceMakers at all – I had used their online Design Planner to draw our plans (which was really good) but at the time they couldn't transfer those plans into the software they use to quote. It took them 7 days to create the quote and it was $14,128 excluding the bench tops.
I don’t have the exact amount of the quote from Mitre10 (lost in my emails somewhere) but it was around the same price(slightly lower) than PlaceMakers. Their service was excellent, they spent an hour with us and talked us through all the options.
I was really reluctant to go with Bunnings. I didn’t feel that the quality was that great. Their service was really good and their quote came in at $20,164 including bench tops. To compare apples with apples, the price of the bench top was $9,333 leaving the cost of the cabinets, sink, etc (the same components as quoted at PlaceMakers and Mitre10), was $10,830.
We were all ready to order our kitchen from Bunnings when our neighbour (who's a builder) mentioned that there was a company who provided good quality kitchens at great prices. I went Googling for this company but somehow I managed to download the catalogue for Project Kitchens by happy mistake. The catalogue contained all the prices so, because I already had my design, I could work out exactly how much it would cost - their prices were really great. The door designs were also perfect - like none we had seen, so I emailed them and their response was fantastic.
The branch we dealt with are in Tauranga and I couldn't be happier with their customer service. They told me that their philosophy is Ikea style kitchens at Ikea prices. I liked what I saw, so we decided to investigate further. I have a friend who lives in Tauranga so I asked him to go and check out their showroom kitchens. He reported back that they were impressed with their excellent quality.
So what was the price?
$9,614 for the cabinets alone, so slightly higher than the Bunnings quote but the quality , customer service and design made up for the $300 difference in price. I was also really impressed that the freight to get it to Wellington was only $360. We were sold, so we took the plunge and ordered the kitchen. Hugh, from Project Kitchens, worked with me over a few weeks to nail down the details – I like to ask questions and he answered them all. We talked on the phone and emailed – he became my new best friend.
The kitchen ordered, now it’s time to find some bench tops and boy – do we have a lot. A huge 1m x almost 3m island, another run 900 x over 3m and one 600 square. Onward and upward – I’ll tell you about those adventures in the next post.
In the meantime, here’s a peak at some of my kitchen inspiration images.
UPDATE: If you would like to see the finished kitchen click here. For more updates on the renovation, check out the Renovate section of my blog.
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December 30, 2019
Hi, my name is Carol Karl. I live in little old New Zealand. My family and I strive to live the most ‘real’ life we can – by that I mean that we eat real food, we live real lives and just generally be our most authentic selves.
