home base kitchen quote

Hi,

I know there are tons of threads on kitchens but nothing exactly fits this and anything similar is from a few years ago...

Basically I bought a house with a 5m by 3m kitchen dining room with a kitchen that had it's day about 15 years ago. I just got a quote from homebase for 10K-12K for everything including tiling the room, sorting the electrics, the plumbing and general installation such as cutting corner units to fit a pipe column in the corner. The kitchen roughly includes an integrated washing machine/ dishwasher/ ceramic hob/ double oven/ small sink/ extractor hood (not getting the expensive brands either). It's a high gloss white finish.

The guts of the kitchen will run along the 3m wall with a bit around the corner running for approx 2m. It also includes a 140cm kitchen island that will include a set of wide drawers and an under counter built in fridge. I guess the big attraction for somebody like me is that I don't have to track down a good plumber/ tiler etc. However I was a bit surprised at the price and I would be really grateful to get some opinions on it from anyone with more experience or expertise in the area. I think we can probably get something similar kitchen wise from cash and carry for circa 5K but then it will be up to us to arrange the tiling in advance and the plumbing etc.

Also I would be interested to hear if anyone has any experience of homebase recently. Thanks in advance.

If you think you can get the same kitchen for 5k elsewhere then you are effectively looking at spending 5-7k on tiling and fitting?

Anybody looking at a new kitchen should look at Ikea as well. Excellent value and high quality, you can use their kitchen planner and get a quote from that, adjusting your requirements to fit your budget. They also do appliances, if you are getting new appliances. I have an Ikea kitchen (fitted by a general contractor, though with non-Ikea appliances) and I couldn't be happier with it.

If you get a general contractor he will be able to arrange the various people you need for you, so you only have to find one person (rather than several).

Hi thanks for the reply. It did seem a little dear but I found it hard to assess given the inclusion of labour and tiles and tiling. Hope you don't mind me asking but how much did you pay on top of the kitchen price? You can pm me if that suits better. Thanks again

It was part of a bigger job so I can't remember how much just for the kitchen. My contractor was Creedon Construction, if you're in or near Dublin (http://creedonconstruction.ie/, ph 087 966 6749). No harm to get a quote anyway, you could end up saving a lot, esp if it gives you more supplier options.

Hi Just wanted to say thanks very much for your help. I will give these guys a call and see what kind of cost I am looking at.

Have you had a look at Google on the reviews on the Homebase kitchens and installation

Hi Sue Ellen, thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to take a look at Ikea kitchens to see what they will offer. There seems to be a lot of bad reviews for Homebase - I'll post my experience over the coming weeks in case it helps anyone else.

Ok so this is a bit longer than a few weeks later, just haven't been on this site much since.
But on the basis of better late, my impressions 9 years later are:
1. Installation team were not great. It was supposed to take 2 weeks but took over a month.
2. The kitchen itself is very nice and still looks well 9 years later. It was well designed and it was the design guy in Homebase Nutgrove that drew me in.
3. I recently tried to change my washing machine and found that the washing machine plumbing was poorly installed and the outlet pipe was run across too long a space (against the advise of the machine manufacturer). This probably explained why our machine occasionally leaked. The new machine installation went from being a 1 hour task to a 1/2 day job where I had to hire a guy to setup a new plumbing arrangement which was tricky in a tightly fitted space. This makes me wonder about the wiring too.
4. The appliances were overpriced - if I was doing this again, I would buy appliances from somewhere like Power City. The argument against that at the time was that I would have my appliances delivered at a different time to when the kitchen work would start and so I could end up storing them for a while. But this happened anyway, the appliances were delivered and the kitchen work was delayed and we spent about 3 weeks with our living room stuffed with boxes.
4. I would go with Ikea next time I think as they have a better range of options and hopefully better installers.

mir2001 said:

I would go with Ikea next time I think as they have a better range of options and hopefully better installers.

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I have heard a few kitchen installers say over time that Ikea kitchens/doors are totally different sizes to standard units so can be hard to match at a later stage.

I've seen a few of their doors where the foil wrapping lifted off the door because of the steam from the cooker etc. destroyed it.

Oh that's interesting to know. I have to say the Homebase cabinets and doors have been really robust that way. We didn't have any small children around so that could make it easier but we haven't been overly careful in our use of them either. The large drawers are stuffed with heavy casserole dishes and plates and they are still in full working order. I guess the issues we had were related to the installer team, the kitchen itself was fine.

Also, there was a problem with the supply of the Homebase counter top so they let us buy from In-house kitchens and as a result we got a much nicer counter - same basic type but just looked a lot better than the Homebase equivalent.

I have heard that the Ikea installers are very pricey relative to the cost of the units. Also I have heard of parts missing/extra parts and big hassle tracking down missing bits maybe many weeks later when installation eventually done.

These previous threads might give some advice also.