Is this normal - Designing a kitchen with builders?

mwccl · Jun 24, 2014 12:35 am

We are currently finalizing our plans and we asked our sales consultant the following about the kitchen:

1) When do we get to design our kitchen?
2) Will there be someone helping us to design it?

He basically said that we can tell him what we want and he will put them in the plan. That kinda shocked us a little as we were expecting someone to go through it with us just like when we did our kitchen renovations. Basically, someone to help us with the layout of the kitchen and the best use of space in the kitchen and also to help us decide things like the number of pot drawers. Does he expect us to tell him exact measurements of all the drawers?

So we asked him if we can have a chat with the cabinet makers that they are using. He said that we can go them(the cabinet makers) but we would have to pay a fee if we want them to help us plan and produce the plans for the kitchen. The plans would then be passed on to the builders.

We are instead planning to get a couple of quotes from other cabinet makers which can also help us with the design. We would then compare the price and then decide if we should get the cabinet makers to do everything for us(kitchen, 3 bathrooms, 2 powder-rooms and laundry cabinets and also a walk-in robe). They would be installing the cabinets and the stone top. Everything else such as the plumbing and gas will be done by the builder.

So the questions are:

1) Is this normal with builders? Do everyone have to take out their pencils and ruler and start drawing their own kitchen up? I am not sure how else to tell the builder what I want other than to sketch the whole plan up myself which doesn't sound right.

2) Have anyone else encountered the same issue? What do you do?

3) Do you think I am going down the right path by getting the "right" people to do the job?

Any other opinions and suggestions are most welcomed.

Cheers!

AussieMark · Jun 24, 2014 1:09 am

Yep that is basically what I did. I gave rough layout and then we tweaked the design as we went along. They have a lot of standard sort of kitchen builds and it should be pretty easy once you have seen a number of kitchens. I did read a lot on H1 and specified what I wanted, eg wider drawers, no cupboards unless necessary. For the bathrooms we took out the shelves as it was our preference not to have them.

The builder should have a standard design that goes with your plan and then you can tweak it from there. It will be less hassle if you do it through the builder I would think but not sure whether it will cost more.

Sorry not much help......

Ponzu · Jun 24, 2014 6:45 am

This is normal. You also may be im a situation where you can only use the builders cabinetmaker if youve signed a contract with a "no owner supplied items" clause. If you go to their cabinet maker expect to pay more. Just articulate to the builder what you want and don't sign the plans till youre happy. Just be aware - all the hardware (corner pot racks, soft close mechanisms etc) are stupid expensive through builders. So get the layout you want and install the flashy stuff yourself later

Forg · Jun 24, 2014 8:46 am

We're with a project builder; they sent us off to a 3rd party mob for all "selections", which includes the kitchen. The kitchen was a fairly long consultation, because apart from the size of the island bench & the walls along which the cabinetry was to be fitted, ours was pretty much redesigned from scratch.

mwccl · Jun 24, 2014 11:50 am

AussieMark

Yep that is basically what I did. I gave rough layout and then we tweaked the design as we went along. They have a lot of standard sort of kitchen builds and it should be pretty easy once you have seen a number of kitchens. I did read a lot on H1 and specified what I wanted, eg wider drawers, no cupboards unless necessary. For the bathrooms we took out the shelves as it was our preference not to have them.

The builder should have a standard design that goes with your plan and then you can tweak it from there. It will be less hassle if you do it through the builder I would think but not sure whether it will cost more.

Sorry not much help......

Looks like we will have to do that as well - giving them a rought layout.

For the bathroom, you mentioned that you took the shelves out. So it meant that you have the full cabinet height without any shelving inside?

mwccl · Jun 24, 2014 11:51 am

Ponzu

This is normal. You also may be im a situation where you can only use the builders cabinetmaker if youve signed a contract with a "no owner supplied items" clause. If you go to their cabinet maker expect to pay more. Just articulate to the builder what you want and don't sign the plans till youre happy. Just be aware - all the hardware (corner pot racks, soft close mechanisms etc) are stupid expensive through builders. So get the layout you want and install the flashy stuff yourself later

We did confirm with our builder earlier and they said we can supply anything that we want. They mentioned that they can even build us just the box and we can fit everything else ourselves.

mwccl · Jun 24, 2014 11:53 am

Forg

We're with a project builder; they sent us off to a 3rd party mob for all "selections", which includes the kitchen. The kitchen was a fairly long consultation, because apart from the size of the island bench & the walls along which the cabinetry was to be fitted, ours was pretty much redesigned from scratch.

When they sent you to a 3rd party mob, did the 3rd party actually drew the designs and help you with the sizes of cabinets/drawers?

Forg · Jun 24, 2014 1:31 pm

mwccl

When they sent you to a 3rd party mob, did the 3rd party actually drew the designs and help you with the sizes of cabinets/drawers?

Yep, it was all done pen-and-paper while we were there, but the end-result was a CAD diagram with dimensions etc.
Same deal (with the same person) for bathroom furniture (we're getting tallboys for extra storage, which meant redesigning the standard vanities) and also the laundry cabinet.

TinaG · Jun 24, 2014 2:06 pm

Our builder had an allowance for the kitchen, but the actual kitchen (and laundry and bathrooms) design and costings was done by the cabinet maker (3rd party) with our consultation. The cabinet maker used the sketches we gave him, drew them up properly, and gave us advice for sizes and so on.

AussieMark · Jun 24, 2014 2:35 pm

What I meant by taking exposed shelves out was that underneath the vanity part of it was exposed shelves and we preferred drawers.

Jayjay84 · Jun 27, 2014 8:18 am

With my builder ( clarendon homes ) when we initially signed out first tender the kitchen was no where near what we wanted. The sales guy put an allowance in the tender for us. No changes like draws were made at this stage. Couple months down the track once contracts were signed etc we had our appointment with the kitchen company. This is where we spent hours changing this and that( of course at a cost ) and then put ontop of our contract as a variation. Only bad thing was that we handed our contract to our bank only to end up spending 34k extra after kitchen, laundry and internal upgrades. But since I've changed banks with a more accurate price. A lot of people assume that the sales consultants are the ones that change everything. It's a long process but that's how we went through it

mwccl · Jun 27, 2014 5:09 pm

Thanks for all the replies. Looks like I will be visiting the cabinet makers but do the design myself since they will charge for drawing the plans up. I guess that's the "cons" of building with a volume builder.