Hello everyone,
Until now, I’ve mostly followed the topics here quietly, but I thought I might ask for your experiences this time 🙂
We are building with Schwörerhaus, and our current task is to plan our kitchen so that we also get the layout for the utility connections. We thought we’d get three quotes, compare them, and then decide. But it’s not as easy as we thought.
So far, we have visited two kitchen showrooms. Both told us they only plan and sell the kitchen with the appliances included, and during the consultation, we could only specify which functions are important to us for the appliances.
After all the planning, we got to see a finished rendering on-site and were given a price. However, we were not allowed to take any pictures or printed plans of the final kitchen. Also, no exact model numbers or similar details about the appliances were provided. We were told the brand, but a supplier usually offers more than one appliance of a brand.
This all seems quite unprofessional to me. The advisors’ argument was each time that they put in the effort, and then I might take the plan and get it done somewhere else. In the end, I determined the layout, number of cabinets, etc., myself at both places—and naturally chose the same for each to compare.
But without the details, I can hardly compare. In the end, I don’t really know which appliances are included. If company 1 says it costs 25,000 EUR and company 2 says 15,000 EUR, I have no way of understanding what causes the difference. Both kitchens are roughly identical in layout and the number of cabinets, so it must be the appliances? It would be nice to have that listed so I could maybe choose cheaper appliances in one kitchen or more expensive ones in the other if something is “missing” or however.
What are your experiences here? Does anyone perhaps know a good kitchen studio in Berlin/Brandenburg where you can get everything listed clearly?
I’m a bit unsure right now... I wouldn’t want to pay such an amount “just like that” without knowing exactly what I am paying for in the end.
Thanks in advance for your insights.
Best regards,
ElaVogel
Until now, I’ve mostly followed the topics here quietly, but I thought I might ask for your experiences this time 🙂
We are building with Schwörerhaus, and our current task is to plan our kitchen so that we also get the layout for the utility connections. We thought we’d get three quotes, compare them, and then decide. But it’s not as easy as we thought.
So far, we have visited two kitchen showrooms. Both told us they only plan and sell the kitchen with the appliances included, and during the consultation, we could only specify which functions are important to us for the appliances.
After all the planning, we got to see a finished rendering on-site and were given a price. However, we were not allowed to take any pictures or printed plans of the final kitchen. Also, no exact model numbers or similar details about the appliances were provided. We were told the brand, but a supplier usually offers more than one appliance of a brand.
This all seems quite unprofessional to me. The advisors’ argument was each time that they put in the effort, and then I might take the plan and get it done somewhere else. In the end, I determined the layout, number of cabinets, etc., myself at both places—and naturally chose the same for each to compare.
But without the details, I can hardly compare. In the end, I don’t really know which appliances are included. If company 1 says it costs 25,000 EUR and company 2 says 15,000 EUR, I have no way of understanding what causes the difference. Both kitchens are roughly identical in layout and the number of cabinets, so it must be the appliances? It would be nice to have that listed so I could maybe choose cheaper appliances in one kitchen or more expensive ones in the other if something is “missing” or however.
What are your experiences here? Does anyone perhaps know a good kitchen studio in Berlin/Brandenburg where you can get everything listed clearly?
I’m a bit unsure right now... I wouldn’t want to pay such an amount “just like that” without knowing exactly what I am paying for in the end.
Thanks in advance for your insights.
Best regards,
ElaVogel
T
Traumfaenger17 Jun 2022 22:38K a t j a schrieb:
50K sounds like a lot to me. Of course, it depends on the size and so on. But I wonder if the carpenter might actually be a bit more expensive in the end, given a similar level of quality?
What did you find frustrating? Also missing information about appliances?We actually found the carpenter to be more affordable because, for a bit less money, he delivered much higher quality. I can’t list everything here, but for example, we have a kitchen island with a seamless stainless steel countertop and integrated sinks and gas stove with insulated control knobs mounted on the kitchen front. The transitions between countertop and sinks, etc., are seamless—it wasn’t his personal work, but this high-quality 5mm (0.2 inch) stainless steel surface cost about half as much from him compared to the kitchen showroom. It goes on like that: the kitchen fronts are double-coated, the edge banding is very high quality, as are the fittings, etc. All the drawers are very sturdy, made from solid wood, and he implemented some nice custom solutions. That would have been unaffordable in a kitchen showroom.Also, as mentioned above, the kitchen showroom was very reserved when it came to price transparency and providing documentation. The carpenter came to our home, advised us for several hours, gave price estimates for every detail, explained pros and cons, and offered alternatives. We could choose each appliance individually, and so on. We finalized the plans over dinner at our home ;-)
Regarding the appliances, I got the impression the kitchen showrooms favor certain brands, maybe because they get discounts for buying in bulk. The carpenter didn’t care about that—in fact, it really felt like he was trying to implement the best possible solution for US (!!!). Of course, it always depends on the individual carpenter. But with the kitchen showrooms, even though we compared several, I always had the feeling that there were two minds at work in one chest....
motorradsilke schrieb:
It just interrupts the flow of the text; it didn’t read well. That’s not my problem. I also read a lot of “not so good” stuff.
Musketier schrieb:
if you can write in italics. When you switch over here from other sites, or the small screen covers parts of it, you just use the keyboard.
If you don’t like it, feel free to skip or ignore me. Honestly, criticizing someone’s— in this case, my—style feels like just plain cattiness to me. Do what you want with that… (yee-haw :p)
Musketier schrieb:
Without a child, I would have left after a few hours and not spent 7 hours there. Define the difference between “a few hours” and “7 hours” 😉
No, seriously, whether it’s dropping off a child or wherever: 7 hours is quite a stretch without needing any excuses.
I’m fine if you want to stay 12 hours there, but using the child as an excuse strikes me as “not so nice.”
Musketier schrieb:
Smaland never wanted our child. Maybe your child wanted Smaland? 😉
ypg schrieb:
Define the difference between “a couple of hours” and “7 hours” 😉
No, seriously, whether it’s dropping off a child or wherever: 7 hours is already quite a lot of time, so coming up with some excuses now doesn’t help.
As far as I’m concerned, you can stay there for 12 hours if you want, but using the child issue as an excuse seems “unpleasant” to me.I don’t really understand what you’re arguing about in this example.The fact is, if you plan 3 hours for the kitchen and in the end the salesperson tells you... no, you won’t get anything now – you’ll only get it in the contract and you only get the contract if you agree and sign right here and now, then you should just go somewhere else. Of course, you can do that. But then those 3 hours were wasted. Considering having to manage the child and repeat this, it becomes 8 hours. Then you do the same at the next furniture store. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 3 hours or 8 hours of wasted time. If you had a proper offer and not just a number on a business card, this wouldn’t happen.
When we bought a kitchen last year (at a furniture store whose Latin name means "gate" in German), we received a consultation lasting over three hours without an appointment. We were able to negotiate the price down considerably, so we ended up only about 800 euros over budget. However, everything we considered important was included. In the end, we purchased directly from there and received a six-page printout from a dot matrix printer listing all the electrical appliances with exact model names. Individual prices were not provided, though. The salesperson told us he was required to give us detailed information on all model names and types or print them out. I looked up the appliances online, and their prices are generally mid-range.
Ironically, when I called there again a few weeks ago because our house still isn’t finished, I was told that the salesperson has not worked there since the beginning of this year 😉 Maybe he was just too generous with the discounts.
Ironically, when I called there again a few weeks ago because our house still isn’t finished, I was told that the salesperson has not worked there since the beginning of this year 😉 Maybe he was just too generous with the discounts.
Musketier schrieb:
I don’t really understand what you’re arguing about with the example now. I’m not arguing at all. You brought up the time factor. (And honestly, 7 hours… :eek 🙂
I’ve already mentioned that if you ask or communicate early enough (with the kitchen planner), you could probably finish there sooner. But apparently, from what some people write here, most seem to just sit at their desks, say nothing, ask nothing, and later wonder if that’s how it always goes.
But I’ve already written this here before—so I’ll exchange this discussion for a good book in the garden 🙂
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