Oh the infernal kitchen. We have everything else sorted and agreed which is, for us at least, an undertaking to be proud of. We’ve ordered the flooring, the sofas, decided on contractors for the electrical and plumbing work, but not the damned kitchen.
The problem is cost. Ah yes. That. And perceived “value for money” and “service”. Nebulous issues both of them, but none the less important.
The sort of kitchen we’re talking isn’t really the sort you can buy in MFI or B&Q, much as we’d like to (we’re not, ultimately, snobs: We had an excellent bathroom from MFI down in London). We’ve just got a few too many specific needs, desires and requirements that we’re talking to a couple of specialist kitchen companies, but very different ones.
One is the “bay leaf trees outside our showroom” type. All very nice, and they’ve been very patient and helpful. The other is a workshop in an industrial estate that has a tiny showroom, makes the units themselves, but has a team of fitters on the staff for “direct to the customer” purchases. Obviously the quotes differ by some margin.
So, it boils down to cost, trust and service. One is staking it’s reputation on their good service, and on subsequent recommendations. The other is busy, has a small advert in a Scottish Kitchen magazine, and that’s about it. It’s a side-business to get a bit more value out of it’s core business which is making kitchen components for wholesale to the bespoke kitchen trade.
My gut inclination is to go with the bay leaves, as they’ve bent over backwards to accommodate us. One company to complain to and hold responsible, and to go back to if there are problems. The other could get complicated, especially as they’re as busy as they seem. But when the cost difference is taken into account, it’s not as simple. Bay leaves are about 25% more expensive than industrial estate. So, now you see our dilemma: Is the cost difference worth the perceived service/quality we get from bay leaves? Would we get it anyway from industrial estate?
Ho hum. So, we’ve tried the infamous, and normally reliable, “sit down and have a cup of tea” approach to help make a decision. We’ve tried “sleeping on it“. We’ve bent Frances’ fathers’ ear, when he popped around earlier (thankyou Bernard).
We’re now on to the “go down the pub and have a drink” approach (my favourite of all, to be honest).
We’ll keep you posted.
February 10th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Have you rolled back from the pub yet? Face it, there is no foolproof solution to this problem. I should know. I work for a ‘bay leaf’ type company who pride themselves on customer service and yet..I have seen it go wrong, so very wrong!
Grab your courage with both hands, get your teeth round your bank book and leap into the unknown.
Best of luck.
February 13th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
we went with Magnet first time (got bad subcontractors), ‘bayleaf’ style second time (no probs), and (different) ‘bayleaf’ style third time (had to keep calling them back).
I would say that even the time the ‘bayleaf’ style worked out, we kept looking back at the cost, and wishing that we had done it cheaper…and even though the Magnet subcontractors were bad (especially around the sink..and they forged our signature to avoid coming back to fix stuff) the cost of the Magnet kitchen was less than half that of the ‘bayleaf’ style so we could live with it.
Paying a wad of cash AND having to get the fitters back repeatedly (like we did the third time) was the worst case.
I’d say go Magnet - they do all the funky twiddles these days and with the money you save you can eat out
March 15th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
[...] All in all, it’s not good. Frances’ mum has been deployed to help calm nerves, but conveniently the designer/owner of the company we used is elsewhere, and not available - as he promised he would be. After the inauspicious start, especially when you read my musings on who to use, and how it’s turning out. [...]