Anyone fitted a howdens kitchen ???

[Al]

I'm thinking of ordering a kitchen from howdens, however one potential problem is bugging me:

As I understand it, if you buy the equivalent kitchen from MFI, it comes flat-packed. If the sides of any of the units are visible, you can then buy replacement end panels (appropriate wood effect) and as you assemble the cupboards, you discard the white end panel and replace it with the appropriate wood effect one.

However, as the Howdens units come pre-assembled, how do you get the appropriate end panel on the cupboard. I get the impression that you stick/screw the decor end panel to the existing side of the cupboard. To me this seems like a bit of a bodge, cos you will end up with an

18mm panel sticking out of the sides of the cupboards and the edge of the doors won't run flush with the edge of the cupboard.

Has anyone had experience of this, and if so - how did you go about installation. eg. Can you take the cupboard in question apart and replace the end panel or are they glued & screwed ???

Although Howdens is cheaper than MFI, I'm starting to think that I might get the MFI version and assemble it myself so as to avoid the problem mentioned above. Unless anyone has any suggestions !!!

[Alex]

Yes and the carcasses are not very good held together with dowels and some staples on the back,at least MFI hygena scew together,

The end panels only come in one size large and have to be cut to fit

[PoP]

On that subject I discovered that Screwfix sell packs of the cams and dowels so beloved of MFI flatpack furniture:

for "cam" on the site to find the other options.

These are real cheap to buy - £1.60 for 50 cams, similar price for the dowels.

I quite like these cam/dowel arrangements - quite strong, well hidden, and they allow the materials to be taken apart and put back together again on demand.

PoP

[Christian McArdle]

Correct. I went in to Howdens in the hope of picking up some end panels which I had forgotten to order from MFI. They explained how it worked. The display models they had were constructed like this and looked pretty manky because of it.

However, the carcases do look the same. You might consider ordering your Howden's kitchen and just ordering some correct shaded end panels from a Hygena MFI kitchen. Just take a sneaky look to ensure that the holes are indeed in the same place.

Christian.