Arena kitchens - any comments (good or bad)?

Hi,

We're trying to find a kitchen cabinet supplier for our new kitchen extension, and starting to lose hope that we'll find a range that we like within our budget. We're (probably) looking for a shaker style with solid wood doors, and our budget is about £3,000 or so for the cabinets. We've been round the obvious places such as B&Q, Magnet, MFI, Wickes etc, but either we don't like the styles available or we're unimpressed by the quality of the carcasses and/or doors. The only suppliers we liked were the local specialist shops (plenty in Harpenden) selling cabinets from Beckerman and RWK, but at a price - £7k+.

We've come across an internet company, Arena, based in Inverness that has had some favourable comments on this newsgroup. We like the range of doors available and cost (about £3,500 for the 18 cabinets we'll need). However, given our obvious pickiness I'm very nervous about buying blind. I'm actually considering flying up to Inverness to look around their showroom - I'm only 2 miles from Luton airport and Easyjet do a return fare for about £60 - but first I thought I'd ask for any recent experience with this company. What do people think of their cabinet and door construction? I think these are supplied assembled, but are they using KD joints or glued & dowelled? How about the service - how easy is it to change damaged or wrong items?

Thanks for any advice,

Andy

Now as it happens I phoned them up last week to see if they had some narrows depth carcases for a bathroom. Since I like the guy at the other end, it turned into a longish chat.

They have changed..they only really ship complete kitchens - not just the odd bit.

I have the shaker style oak kitchen, and the doors are everything one could wish. My carcases are not what they ship now, but he said the newer ones are possibly even better.

I didn't know they are preassembled - but if they are my guess is that they are just normal screw together - its all you need anyway for a kitchen where the wall and worktop provide most of the stability.

I would strongly suggets a phone call - the guy on the other end is freindly, doesn't bullshit and patronise, and will tell you all you need to know.

I got very good service on the bits that were wrong...not many..I think they shipped one door for a built in fridge wrong...and I ended up using it to build a cupboard rond the CH boiler anyway, rather than shipping it back.

Give them a call and judge for yourself..but I wouldn't bother flying up there - not sure they even HAVE a showroom..they are very much net middlemen who buy trade and ship direct.