ᐅ Buying a Kitchen More Than a Year Before Completion?

Created on: 7 Apr 2016 15:30
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Hagiman2000
My wife got in touch with our future neighbor. They have already ordered and paid a deposit for their kitchen (completion of our semi-detached house is July 2017). Now my wife wants us to buy the kitchen as well. I think it’s a bit too early.

Of course, you should know the kitchen layout before submitting the electrical plan, but there are still several months until then. If I am supposed to submit the electrical plan after the shell construction, that would be around the beginning of 2017.

She said that kitchen deals are currently very good. When I occasionally browse through the weekly newspaper ads, I always see offers from one of the many kitchen studios and furniture stores.

I can also imagine that nowadays you can buy a kitchen for €10,000 (about $11,000) and have it installed only after more than 12 months. What are your experiences with this?
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ONeill
7 Apr 2016 17:55
We also purchased a few weeks ago, and the expected completion is early 2017.
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larina
7 Apr 2016 18:17
We purchased in January because we needed the installation plans for the selection process. The positioning of the (finished) house is scheduled for July/August.
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ypg
7 Apr 2016 19:04
The drainage plan is usually submitted along with the building permit / planning permission application. It should clearly show where the wastewater pipe will be installed in the kitchen. The general contractor, construction manager, and builder prefer to have this once the kitchen layout is finalized. In our case, the construction manager requested it, so the kitchen was the first thing in our house planning—11 months before handover. This is common practice.

However, you should ask your builder and not just copy what your neighbor is doing.
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Legurit
7 Apr 2016 19:07
It is certainly not a bad idea to purchase or at least plan the kitchen early on.
Whether this needs to be done more than a year in advance is, of course, debatable.
Buying too late is also not ideal, as kitchen manufacturers do have delivery times—often around two months.

There are always offers... they are always either equally good or bad... no one ever thought, "Yes, in April 2016 we will reduce the profit margin to zero%"
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olivenbaum
7 Apr 2016 19:34
We also bought our kitchen last year in March, and it will be installed in May.
We basically planned our house around the kitchen.
It was a showroom kitchen with glass fronts and a large island, and I immediately fell in love with it.
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Hagiman2000
7 Apr 2016 19:39
@ypg

We don’t want to copy the neighbor. I was surprised that something like this is even possible or, according to feedback, is apparently standard practice. What happens if this kitchen line, color, cabinet type, countertop, etc., is no longer available in 12–16 months? I can think of a thousand things that could go wrong, up to the extreme case that the factory burns down (I know it’s a bit far-fetched, but the fire at the Wiesenhof factory shows that it can happen).

That’s why I was surprised that choosing and paying a deposit today, and having it built months later, is considered normal.