Vocal Voices

We have been doing a bit of pricing kitchens for the architect to add an estimate to our overall costings. Last week we went to two, quite liked one and were unsure about the second one, so we were waiting for the quotes from them. In the meantime, over the weekend we were talking to the co-owner of the studio where we dance, he is a flooring contractor and I understand has a mansion of a house. He recommended a different firm, one we hadn't heard of, so today we headed off there.

When we got there, the boss had nipped out to a nearby shopping centre for a drill bit and would be back soon if we didn't mind waiting. So we had a good mooch around what was available in their showroom, as they are revamping it (seems to be a common thing at this time of year, judging on last week). Then the boss John arrived back, no smoothie salesman but a man who works alongside his employees - very friendly, looked at our plan, made really useful suggestions, said "If you can hang on 10 minutes I can give you some figures" and did just that. We felt comfortable with him, discovered in chit chat that he and his wife have been on a few cruises. Then we spoke briefly about our friend G who recommended him, and it turns out that John's three employees all enjoy going dancing so we ended up talking to them about dancing Now do you think that might be the firm for us His quote is slightly above the other one we quite liked, but we liked the quality and we both agreed that we really took to him. Obviously we won't be at the stage of making a decision for quite some time, but I would say John would be favoured by us both - isn't it funny how you can get a "feel" for someone and we know our friend who recommended him would have no truck with anyone who didn't do a good job.

Yes, I think instinct is important with big decisions as well as logic!!!

This is all getting very exciting - can't wait to see what you choose!

As someone here who believes in good vibes and a 'feel' for people I'm in the dancing camp.

Kaz wrote:can't wait to see what you choose!

What we are going for is high gloss cream handle-less units with a granite worktop, not sure of the colour of that yet. Because we will be having open plan kitchen/living/diner, we need to keep it simple and clean looking to maximise light and not have the kitchen area dominate the rest of the room.

Sounds wonderful

It doesn't really matter if it's just a bit over what you thought Osc. If you're happy, go with it and him. Gut feeling is seldom wrong.

Looking forward to seeing the finished kitchen

That does sound like it'll be lovely Osc! And yes, if your instinct is telling you to go with this company then do!

We had a kitchen extension at our old house and had quotes from four builders and the one we chose wasn't the cheapest but he was the one we felt most comfortable with and who we trusted to do a good, honest job and we were right.

As someone who ended up with the kitchen fitters from hell, I'd definitely say go with your instincts. Mind you, we had no inkling our's would turn out as it did. We still owe them £1,000 13 years later

One of the things they did was sell my washing machine I had paid for. When everything was delivered there was no washing machine. I rang them, oh sorry it wasn't in stock it will be delivered next week. Hang on, it was in stock when I paid for it last week, because you showed me it. Silence. And that was before they had even unloaded everything

Oh dear MM - that was not good.

We used Magnets for ours and got some really good deals. This was about 17 years ago though Grumpy fitted it, so it worked out cheaper, for us.

Absolutely right Osc, you'll be living with this kitchen for ever, a little bit over is well worth it