I trained as a singer and actor, and currently teach singing as a specialist teacher at primary scho...
I trained as a singer and actor, and currently teach singing as a specialist teacher at primary school level, as well as for Stagecoach Theatre Arts. I'm also doing up a flat that I bought with my Fiancee in March and pontificating at my leisure...
B&Q make kitchens. So do Homebase, Ikea etc. My wife and I decided to purchase a kitchen at B&Q as, after working out what units we wanted and what we would need, it worked out at the cheapest deal. We decided to do-it-ourselves. This is HUGELY less expensive than an installed Kitchen, but of course much more difficult to do. In fact hugely more difficult if you use B&Q.
Why? Because you have to order exactly the right things, and because lots of information is inadequate or just plain wrong. And they don’t plan on making it easy for you…
------------------ Styles ------------------
B&Q carry around 20 different styles of kitchen, 3 of which you can buy off the shelf (and which are fairly nasty) and between 5 and 10 of which are usually on “special offer”. The range is good, and there is a wide variety in the pricing from relatively cheap but durable laminate doors to expensive solid wood doors. We chose Modern Cherry, an order only Kitchen, which was 50% off.
----------- Planning -----------
The most important first step in buying a B&Q kitchen (or any kitchen) is planning. I cannot emphasis this enough. Measure the walls of the kitchen and decide how far you want units. Then it’s down to the boring job of deciding which units to put where. B&Q give you a floor planning guide on-line which you can print out and draw your kitchen on.
Once you have worked out exactly the units that you want and fitted them all in, rip up the beautiful kitchen plan and re-plan your kitchen after taking into account the following information which is NOT available on-line, and which the staff will not tell you. Only the kitchen installers actually know about these – and of course the hapless mugs who have purchased a kitchen from B&Q.
1) When using a 1000mm or 800mm as a corner unit, bear in mind that the 1000mm unit is going to have to be 7 cm out from where the side of it meets the corner, and the 800mm unit is going to have to be 27mm out. Yes 27cm. That’s a lot of cm.
2) When using a 1000mm or 800mm unit as a corner, you will need a corner post. B&Q do several different corner posts. If you get one that actually works without you having to invent your own way of installing it, give yourself a pat on the back.
3) Whichever corner post you get, make sure that you then leave a 10cm gap for it.
4) Start thinking about how you are going to seal off the gap in the concealed side of the 1000mm or 800mm unit. They won’t give you anything to use you know.
In other words if you have a horseshoe shaped kitchen with two corners, you need an extra 20cm just for the corner posts, and you can’t save much space by using an 800mm unit as a corner. This means that if you planned
your kitchen and only left say 5-10cm leeway on any side, you are going to be completely stuffed when the order arrives.
-------- Units -------
As well as standard 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 and 1000mm base units, with or without single drawer, B&Q offer a 500mm triple drawer unit and an 800mm triple drawer pan unit. There is a full corner unit but this needs a fairly large kitchen. The drawer units are very good quality and the pan unit is very strong and durable. It does come with some bizarre chrome pipe work that fits over the top of one large drawer which is totally unexplained, and which I didn’t install. The wall units are equally varied with full and mid height units at 300, 400, 500 and 600mm. Joining units are available to go over fridges for example. There is even a 15cm unit for spices and suchlike. No wine rack one though.
All of the units are strong and have a good clean design. You can by premium quality drawers, but to be honest the normal quality ones are very good. They have thick strong bases and screw together securely.
---------------- Worktop ----------------
Worktop comes in 3m strips and a whole cornucopia of different styles. It’s easy enough to work out the one you like and then work out how many strips you need. The really irritating bit is that you can ONLY get 3m strips. This means that if you need for example 3.5m of worktop to complete your kitchen you are going to have 2.5m left over.
You will also need to buy corner joints and end caps.
B&Q do lovely matching laminate end caps. Unless you are a professional joiner – FORGET THEM! In order to be able to use them, the end of the worktop will need to be cut expertly with a circular power saw. They will also be prone to coming off. The end caps are much more effective. Just don’t expect them to come with any screws.
If you have corner joints, make sure you order the colourfill for your worktop. This will be very useful as it acts as a glue. Many worktop colourfills are not available instore and they will still try to charge you £20 to deliver the package later on. When they do deliver it, it will be the wrong one. Black Quartz for example apparently is very easy to confuse for Black Granite even though the order number and serial numbers are totally different.
Even more humorously they may try and send it in a huge lorry rather than say a jiffy bag. Or both.
---------------- Accessories ----------------
B&Q provide a fairly large range of accessories from carousels and corner solutions (which can be very expensive) through to pull out ironing boards, cutlery trays and detergent racks. Make sure you choose these before you order as many are not available on the shop floor and must be ordered.
Top tip: If it says it fits to a door, try to check this in-store before drilling any holes. This is because the packaging actually lies. For example, when I ordered it, the detergent rack claimed to fit to a 400mm, 500mm or 600mm door according to both the website and packaging. Unfortunately when fitted to a 400mm door there is no way to close the door. I note that since I complained about this, the rack has now been changed and is now a 380mm detergent rack.
-------------------- Sinks and such --------------------
If you purchase your sink from B&Q I would recommend ignoring their recommendations as to the plumbing packs you will need. Out of 5 packs ordered we used 2. The plumbing packs give no clue as to how they should be put together, and you will need to use some common sense and planning to work out the best way.
------------ Ordering ------------
This was relatively easy. Just sit down with the nice but dim Kitchen assistant and give them the unit numbers and door packs that you need. Remember you need base units and door packs. Don’t forget the corner posts, end panels and trimmings. Try and sit so you can see the computer and make sure they put the right things down. Don’t forget things like drawer sets and such.
BE WARNED! The sale kitchens can often have a long lead time for delivery. Even if they don’t when you order the kitchen, they will when you want to replace the items that have been delivered damaged.
------------- Delivery -------------
This is free usually because of the amount of the order. They will not deliver things at a time convenient for you. They will often not even bother turning up on the right day. They will however bring all the packages in and fill up whichever space you tell them to put the stuff in.
Bear in mind that the worktops come in 3 metre lengths and therefore can be difficult to get into flats. The nice men from B&Q will offer to chop up the worktop for you, but you need to know what length you need before they turn up.
When they have delivered the stuff, you will be given a chitty and sign off the job for them. At this point, make yourself a coffee, get some handy package opening tools and resign yourself to checking the contents of EVERY package.
Trust me – you really need to do this.
I made two equal piles. One pile of “damaged goods” and one pile of undamaged goods.
Top tips:
1) Put your undamaged pile somewhere safe. You aren’t going to get your replacements any time soon.
2) If you have several of the same base unit that are damaged try and make your own undamaged one out of the component parts of the same boxes.
3) Accidentally leave out a set of legs and a bits bag. They will be needed later on, almost certainly.
At this point, you are supposed to contact the dispatch centre (a freephone number that is answered once every hour) and inform them of which goods you need replacing. They will send out fresh goods.
Because you now have a smaller delivery, this will be made by any of a number of different delivery services including Parcelforce. You won’t be in when they try to deliver. This isn’t a problem though as they will just leave it on your doorstep for someone to steal or to get wet.
When the delivery arrives, you will have to check the new packages. Add the undamaged ones to your store of things to keep and put the damaged ones on the damaged pile. They won’t collect the damaged doors or units. Ever.
You can repeat this process until you have undamaged goods, OR, once you have a full set of undamaged doors, just take the damaged doors and base units back to B&Q yourself and get any base units you need off the shelf.
Top tips:-
1) When you take the damaged units back, get a refund for all the units whether you need to replace them or not. It’ll cover your petrol costs and your reasonable charges for taking their stuff back to them as they can’t be bothered.
2) Employ the B&Q method of choosing base units. Open up the box of the unit you need, and check it. If it is damaged, open another one (you will probably find a collection of opened boxes) and find a piece to replace the damaged piece in the first one. You have about a 1 in 10 chance of finding a completely undamaged base unit.
3) If, at a later stage you discover that, for example, your larder unit didn’t have its back panels inside the box, just pop into B&Q and take a couple. Try and have some units to replace when you do this, and that way you can just squeeze the panels into the boxes you are replacing. This is much easier than actually trying to get B&Q to deliver the missing bits – particularly as they will try and charge you delivery for doing this.
----------------------- Fitting the Kitchen -----------------------
This is actually the easy bit. Mostly.
Assemble the units, level them up and join them together. The corners will take you a while as they come with no instructions and require a bit of creativity to fit. Don’t forget to buy something to block off the open side of the corner unit! Not all units will fit together seamlessly so expect to do a bit of swearing. I found that the larder unit was particularly misshapen at the corners. (the routing on the top and bottom did not match up properly with the routing on the sides).
The units are of fairly good quality and the laminate is fairly durable. When fitting hinges to doors or doing work with any end panels or larder side panels, I recommend using the boxes as a cushion to protect them from scratching or denting.
When putting the legs on, ignore the instructions given if you are constructing an end unit. You will need to move the legs round and check that you can fit in the plinth. Otherwise you will have to scoop out around the legs in order to fit the plinth snugly.
I recommend using full length end panels to reduce the need for this!!
You will find that if you need to move a unit in and out a little (for example the oven unit or sink unit) it is quite easy to snap a leg. This is where that bag of legs can come in handy. You’ll never get B&Q to replace one easily.
When cutting the worktop, the laminate will chip unless you use a proper circular saw. A jigsaw is just not good enough. It’s fine for cut outs but if you want the worktop to look good, a circular saw is the only option. Just BE CAREFUL!
To fit the corner joints, you will need to cut them with a metal saw and then to use very small screws to affix them to the one worktop. Then run a thick bead of colourful along the underside of the joint and push into place. Secure underneath and then smooth out any colourfill excess. This makes for a water-tight and good looking joint.
There is a good amount of trim, including little hinge covers and such. You can also make the kitchen all match up by purchasing some laminate tape – this is essential to make the corners look good. Again you need to order this at the time and not think about it later - or pay a £20 delivery charge.
-------------------------------------- Summary: The finished article --------------------------------------
The kitchen looks very good, and the doors seem quite durable. No-one has managed to scratch or dent one yet, and I am pleased with the result.
However, if you elect to buy from B&Q you should bear in mind the following:-
1) It took me from January 2nd 2004 until July 2004 to fit the kitchen. Yes it took 6 months to get the right parts out of B&Q. The majority of the kitchen was installed at Easter, but several doors and such needed to be replaced.
2) I made several trips to B&Q to take back their units. I am reasonably fit. The units are heavy. If you don’t want a pile of unusable units cluttering up your house, you need to find a way of disposing of them. Ebay anyone?
3) I have made your job easier by finding out many things that B&Q don’t tell you. I’m sure there may be many more though, and the measurements may not necessarily be the same between kitchens. I had to swap several units because the undisclosed measurements meant that units didn’t fit.
4) My worktop was delivered scratched due to the difficulty of getting it into the flat. I decided that the scratches were relatively minor and used colourfill to mask them, as I had already gone through a huge amount of hassle to get the units sorted out.
5) It is worth complaining. B&Q Head office made a settlement of £120 after my letter of complaint. They will give 10% of the purchase price plus reasonable charges for any petrol and phone calls.
6) The quality of the base units is appalling. Expect to make trips to B&Q to get intact undamaged base units. The door quality is excellent, but they do stupid things like send doors by parcel force – who drop them on the corners which are poorly protected.
In summary, I am pleased with the Kitchen but would never recommend buying from B&Q. Why? Appalling quality control, lousy delivery, incompetent staff, deliberately withheld information necessary for designing the kitchen, and the amount of swearing, phone calling and e-mailing required to get the kitchen completed. Expect to spend much time storing your kitchen and calling numbers that don’t get answered.
On the plus side, my kitchen cost £800 initially. I estimate however that by the end of it, this had been reduced to closer to £500.
Buyer Beware!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
We need a new kitchen and was thinking of B&Q, but after reading your review it's highly unlikely. Thanks for the warning.
Crube 07.02.2007 17:27
We have recently fitted a B&Q kitchen ourselves and have encountered no where near the problems you have. Using the online planner allows for the gaps required for corner units and corner post. The corner posts are simplicity itself to fit, and the delivery was fine, ene at a premium time
Everything arrived complete, in perfect order, on time, no problems. We will definitley be using them again when we move to our new house next month.
It seems as though you have had a bad experience with B&Q, but not everyone has - I would recommend taking note of this review certainly, but look at the others too...
lee-moo 29.06.2005 14:52
A fantastic review, very informative. I'm looking for a new kitchen, couldn't decide whether to do it myself, or get a company in to do it. From you review, I think I know what will be the easier option. Thanks.
Advantages: Very modular design, easy to combine units and fixtures together Disadvantages: Let down by the inability of the companies to work together!
Dave_E 16.12.2008 (16.12.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of B&Q Flatpack Kitchens
Sep 8th, 2004
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