Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 Jun 09, 2010 1:51 pm Hi Everyone, My wife and I are looking at buying our first house and we really like the idea of buying something older and then renovating it and doing as much of it as possible. We have some family/friends that are in a trade so we can call in a few favors. As we're 'fairly' young we are trying to keep costs down as low as possible without comprising the quality too much. I'm looking for some advice and maybe some ball park figures on what sorts of costs we're up for in terms of cabinets and bench tops. We' either want stone or timbre bench tops and as I understand it we're looking at somewhere between 2-4k, is that about right ? obviously it will depend on the size of bench top(s). What I'm really struggling to find information on is where to find the best quality vs. cost kitchen cabinets. We're not opposed to flat packs and we know a carpenter who should be able to help us fit it all together but what are the options: Ikea ? Custom ? Bunnings ? Something else ? Any information advice would be very much appreciated. Cheers, Pat Re: Kitchen Advice 2Jun 09, 2010 2:15 pm Pat - welcome to H1. Few things would help roughly decide costs:- * Whereabouts are you situated ? * Rough design of kitchen? Size? * Likes / dislikes? For instance in the past 3yrs we have renovated an older house & installed flat pack kitchen as well as built new home and had custom designed kitchen installed by professionals. The flat pack was from a local company that helped us design the kitchen when we went in with a rough diagram. We chose Laminex diamondgloss benchtops and laminex doors. This is for a home that we were living in at the time but is now one of our rentals yet once again. With the kitchen / appliances / flooring / plumbing it probably came to under $10k. The kitchen and appliances was $7.5k alone. Our new home's kitchen was a little more detailed. We have ceasarstone tops - 80mm main tops along with a raised servery 40mm. The island has waterfall edges on both the main bench and the raised servery. The cabinetry is all two pack white gloss or white starfire glass with stainless surrounds. The cabinetry was approx $9k whilst the stone we got at a bargain discontinued price of $1k, stonemason set us back another $3k then our custom splashback (glass with panoramic photo) was another $1k. Flat pax are good fun if you are handy and you want a straight forward design - nothing too fancy. The ranges seem to be getting nicer too - Bunnings had some quite stylish doors on display. The company we went to for our flat pack has over 200 choices for doors / benchtops so the sky was the limit. Some things are worth waiting for. Re: Kitchen Advice 3Jun 10, 2010 5:42 pm Hi Pat, I definitely think you've made the right choice to try & go for something old & renovate. IMO the best quality to cost ratio would definitely be Ikea kitchens. They have a 25 year guarantee & I think you'd get 7 years from a kitchen company. They have laminates, painted finish or even solid timber. Some of their oak kitchens are lovely. I have used their kitchen planner software in the past & found it very useful. Don't know what size your kitchen is but you can do a small one for 3k. Re: Kitchen Advice 4Jun 13, 2010 11:56 pm It definatley depends on the size of the kitchen, and stuff like if you want drawers they cost more than cupboards etc. We bought our first home 4 years ago and have just done the kitchen. I estimated $20k, but it ended up costing closer to $30. Not flatpack and we had some tricky/customer parts however. We've also redone the laundry using Bunnings Flatpax and an Ikea benchtop, and it looks really good too. You can tell the difference in quality, but it is fine. You get what you pay for!!! IMHO, you should probably go into something thinking at least $20k for kitchen and $15k for bathroom renos, because if you are doing it for yourself, you always end up spending more!! PS. Stone is expensive. In our kitchen it was $6k Recently moved to a 60's home in need of some improvement! http://s797.photobucket.com/user/leenii ... ch%20House Old house: http://s797.photobucket.com/albums/yy25 ... loo/House/ Re: Kitchen Advice 5Jun 23, 2012 12:14 pm Hi Pat, As someone who has just gone through the same process, with countless visits to various cabinet makers and retailers, here is my two cents: - IKEA: Good quality doors and hardware (blum drawers), however low quality cabinets that use a clip system and a thin ply back. Their in-store service is great, with designers on hand to help you design. They work out the cheapest on cabinets but more expensive than others on doors, so probably not the cheapest solution overall. - Bunnings (Flatpax/Kaboodle): Their doors are low quality with thin foils and have an orange peel effect on the door edges. Their cabinets are better than IKEAs but are made in China and unfortunately have cheap hinges and drawer runners. No in-store service really and their on-road designers were terrible in our experience. Overall works out cheaper than IKEA, but average quality. - Masters (Profile or Principal ranges): The Profile range is stocked in store and uses Australian made cabinets with Hafele hardware and soft close drawers. Surprisingly, they came in the cheapest when we compared quotes and for far better quality. Their doors were made in the UK, Germany and China and were thicker with a much better finish (equal to that of IKEAs doors). Their Principal range is a semi-custom option with better quality hardware (such as Italian soft close hinges) and is backed up by Designers in store. - Mitre 10 (Imagine): Australian made cabinets, basic hardware (hinges and drawers). More expensive than Masters and Bunnings but probably a good option for those not close to a Masters store. The range looked better quality than the Bunnings Kaboodle and a similar price overall. - Strata Kitchens: These guys are an online option who friends of our purchased through. In line on price with M10 & Bunnings, cheaper than IKEA and more expensive than Masters. The kitchen quality was great though with Australian made cabinets and probably a good option for those regionally located. We ended up purchasing a Principal kitchen from Masters and having it installed also. Absolutely wrapped with the quality and even though we had a few hick-ups with communication with the store, the product and end result more than made up for it. Re: Kitchen Advice 7Jul 03, 2012 6:26 pm I hope Pat has his kitchen done by now as he posted this up in 2010! Cutting Edge Kitchens and Cabinet Making http://cuttingedgekitchens.net.au http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cutting-Edge-Kitchens/290484196676 Mobile : 0419 430 575 PH: 9452 4772 Fax :9452 4772 cuttingedgekitchens@outlook.com Versaloc is a mortarless besser block system that still needs a properly engineered footing. If you just do a 400x200 footing it will fail in time. At 17m long you need it… 1 15641 I was being kind to the builder. With the amount charged for the upgrade the builder is probably charging closer to 100% margin. There are a few variables as I… 5 14303 Levelling compound Ardit is the best but buy a bag of sand and make sand dam to protect your wood floor 2 15244 |