Thursday 14 February 2013

A little bit of lateral thinking !!

Consider the old adage ...... "Buy cheap, Buy twice !"

This statement has never been more true these days. Prices are being driven down for everything we buy and while you may think " this is great !, I'm saving money " have you stopped to think why ?

If something's cheap, there's usually a reason, it's not necessarily rubbish but the cost has been driven down by using cheaper and cheaper materials. This has a massive impact on how long it lasts.

Don't be lured by slick marketing if you are offered a "free" dishwasher, be suspicious immediately, do not be taken in by this .... you've paid for it somewhere ! If it's being offered to tempt you to buy a really cheaply made kitchen, they will have hiked the price to cover the dishwasher ( which is also probably the cheapest one they can find ). This means that you're paying more than you should be for a cheap kitchen that probably wasn't worth it's original price anyway. 

There no such thing in this industry as a free ride ! 

When buying a kitchen, THINK ..... it's the hardest working furniture in your house and with the upheaval of the installation work to fit, can you face it all again in a 2 to 5 years time simply because your bought cheap to begin with ?

A lot of people buy kitchens purely on outward appearance ..... because it looks nice.

Wrong !   ....... Pay a lot more attention to the structure first ie: the cabinetry on which it's built, then consider the outward appearance

You will save money longer term  if you're kitchen is built on a good structure initially. 

How ? ....I'll tell you !

A good, well built set of cabinets, well fitted will give you a good solid base for your worktops 
( the single hardest working part of your kitchen ) and make them last longer.

In our case, we would be extremely upset if our kitchen cabinets didn't last you at least 25 years and still keep going, some of our original kitchens are doing this now ! You get much more value for you're money.

My advice to anyone is concentrate on the 3 things that really matter in your kitchen;

Layout:  it's essential to get this right from the start, it means you will get a good workable space. If not, alter the space !, you're probably only going to do this once, so it's crucial to get this bit right.

Cabinetry: A good structure will give your kitchen the ability to take the knocks of every day life and still bounce back

Worktops: Chosen well and fitted well to a good structure and you now have a strong basis on which to fit the "happy bits" the doors, handles, appliances, tiles etc.

Even if getting this bit right means you have to choose cheaper doors because of budget demands, it's dead easy to upgrade your doors a bit later on when the situation permits.

Our kitchens are totally refurbishable, if in 10 years time your doors start to look old or dated we can refit them with a new set with minimum fuss and disruption, much lower cost than replacing the whole kitchen and we have the confidence that your kitchen will go on to last another 10 years and beyond and still do it's job.

The green implication of all this is that if your kitchen purchase was from our Eco range in the first place then materials were saved, energy was saved & carbon was reduced, you saved money buy choosing a well made, well priced kitchen and your cost savings go on into the future by saving a shed load of money by Eco refurbishing your kitchen later on.

The planet wins, everybody wins ... so it's a no-brainer really, we need to talk before you make a big mistake !!









The continuing story of going green:

Once, having completed our first recycled content kitchen and standing looking at it, feeling rather smug, we soon realised that whilst it was a success, we had then to follow it up and increase the range to offer more choice of style and colour.

So, off we went again !

Creating Eco2 gave us our second green kitchen and ticked the boxes we wanted to tick at that time, finding materials was getting a little easier but still hard work. We were rapidly realising why no-one else was doing this !

EcoSelect was much easier to bring on board being a stripped down version of Eco2 but still based one the same quality cabinet structure. This ticked a fresh set of boxes by successfully bringing down the cost to enable us to compete with lower cost, mass produced, and I have to say, lower quality kitchens than ours !!.
EcoSelect was deliberately produced to show that you can have a damn good quality eco friendly kitchen for not a lot of money.

EcoSelect is every bit the quality of the rest of our range but only differs in a reduced range of colours, a reduced range of sizes and no soft close fittings.

Eco Elite came next, well, ..... what can I say ........ it's a technical nightmare for us to make, very labour intensive and you really need to concentrate when laying out the timber to start with. But the results when you actually see it in the flesh are absolutely b****y gorgeous. 

We are so immensely proud of Eco Elite, not just because it's brilliant but because most people who see it, stand there drooling !! 

Including the respect we've had from "real dyed in the wool" furniture makers who have said they've nothing but admiration for our courage in trying it and our success in making it work!!

Value perception of Eco Elite is incredible as people who've had it never thought they could afford until we priced it up. To say they were pleasantly suprised is a gross understatement,