Kitchens - buy here or there?

[Janeandalan]

We are hoping that our new build will be ready in the next few months. Although getting our new home together is a long term project and we can't afford to do everything at once we do need to put in a kitchen. We don't want anything expensive but they do appear more expensive in France than here, especially as there appears to be some good dela st Homebase for example at the moment. Spoken to one of the removal companies from FPN today and they reackon between £1400 -1600 to take a kitchen and beds down for us (to Herault) they will even take the units fully assembled. So we are trying to work out what is the best thing to do - any views very welcome.

 

Jane and Alan

[Liz]

I think a lot depends on how urgent it is to get your kitchen up and running. If you are in a hurry and can't spare time to go round the various outlets when you get here it may just be worth buying in the UK. If all you want your removal company to bring is kitchen cabinets and beds and can spare time to look around I would buy locally. You can get a lot of kitchen (and beds!) for £1400 and, IMHO, the quality is better here, even at the bottom end of the market.

Brico Depot catalogue quote, for example, 8 units from 528 Euros. They show a mid range set of 8 units for 1153 Euros. Also try BUT for fairly modest prices or LaPeyre, slightly more up market. There are bargains to be had here, if you can hang on until the July sales it could be worth your while.

Liz (29)

[JohnM]

My place needed a kitchen but as I only go for a week at a time and a kitchen was needed on the first visit, I took flat pack from the UK because I wanted to install it as soon as possible, rather than order locally and then wait while it was delivered. The exceptions to that were the work top, cooker, sink and plumbing as that was all available off the shelf in France. The drawback with this method is that if something is wrong you need to bring it back to the UK.

Because I am equipping the place as and when I can afford it, unless I am "given" second hand furniture I buy things locally as (for me) transport costs will outweigh any savings I might find in the UK.

 

[James]

Hello,

If I was you I would personally buy in France as the cost of transporting the items to France you could buy a new kitchen in France.

We have a holiday cottage about an hour and a half from Cherbourg.

We spent six months renovating and bought the kitchen with us from the UK. We bought 1, 600 oven housing unit, 1, 600mm pan drawer, 1, 500mm base unit, 1, 600mm base and 1, 1000mm base. Wall cupboards. 1, 600mm wall 1, 500mm wall and 1, 300mm wall. I think I have thought of them all. They were in pine. Named Arran.

We bought a built in electric oven an hob and standard extractor for about £100.00 in the UK and so as it was a bargain we had it. It was in brown. The kitchen units and cooker we bought at Focus. The sink we bought in France as they are smaller than UK ones.

We also bought 2 3metre lenghts of 40mm granite effect worktops with us too.

We bought a trailer in the UK and so filled that up with all of the kitchen units and cooker etc as well as some bedside cabinets. The worktops went on the roofrack on my volvo 740 estate.

In total we paid £750.00 including cooker. It was a 50% off sale in Focus at the time. Hope you find your perfect kitchen. All the best James.

[Janeandalan]

Thanks very much for your mails. Urgency is quite key for us as we will be taking a few weeks off from work to get the basics done. We are like John having to get things as we can afford them. Do you know if we can buy decent kitchens "off the shelf"? We would also like to get the work tops mitred - do the big DIY stores do that - there is a big Castorama in Beziers.

Jane and Alan 

[zeb]

You can buy off the shelf at Leroy Merlin (some of their range), Ikea and Bricodepot.

As far as I know, you have to order from Castorama, Lapeyre and Hygena.