Information explaining the construction
and quality of our Kitchens.
The cabinet box:
Every kitchen built for Dream Kitchens is built under the same strict quality control procedure.
We have listed the following information, to show you our high standards of manufacture compared to some of our competitors.
The "box" section used for the cabinet is the most important part of the furniture to determine whether your kitchen is ready for short or long term use.
Get it wrong and the problems we constantly see such as - loose & bowed backs, sides parting from the bottom panel, drawers not gliding correctly, badly fitted shelves - are guaranteed to haunt you.
One of the largest faults often found on new kitchen units (as well as old) is loose or chipped edging tape. All our edging tapes are PVC, or ABS - which is one of the newer materials for edgebanding, ABS has some very attractive characteristics – it is both acid free and environmentally friendly under incineration. Both of these tapes are guaranteed never to chip. Check your proposed units, are they standard paper based melamine edges or PVC?
The strength of kitchen units are only as good as the board that’s used to make them and their method of construction. We only use 19mm board as supplied by one of the industry leaders,* EGGER.*
You might consider, that the 1 to 4mm extra thickness that our board is from other units may not seem important, but not only is our board the thickest available, but the centre core is extremely hard & dense, this leads to a stronger more durable carcase material, any fixings added such as screws for hinges and drawers, have a much more chance of staying rigid long term, so the working parts stay as they were designed to be - strong and attached to the panels.
Egger Eurodekor® has a density of 670kg per m3 and weighs in at 12.1kg per m2, this is the best you can get anywhere on the market.
We use * Egger Eurodekor®* board as they’re one of the few companies offering such a high quality dense material. This coupled with Egger’s ability to offer most of the exact colours that we require to colour co-ordinate the cabinet with the doors, ensures them to be the most obvious choice.
All the units are manufactured to the sizes we require, e.g a 350mm wide unit is exactly that, not a 500 or 400mm cut down. We can make your kitchen to the exact size you require, whether a height, width, or depth change - so unusual sizes aren′t a problem.
Assembly of Units:
Our assembled rigid kitchens, are manufactured by hand, the joints are wooden dowels, glued together – NOT screws and pins, which can become loose, as offered by others. All the units, including tall larders and oven housings are squared, then squeezed under pressure, to enable tight (gap free) joints, then the doors and drawers are fitted. The only exception is on the very large corner units that are too large to get through the doorways fully assembled and have to be flattened due to their size and weight.
Whichever door you choose, whether it is; painted, vinyl wrapped, high gloss, solid timber, or covered with a fine veneer, you can be assured we continue to use only the best available materials - our aim is to offer you the most trouble free route we can find. Remember, if we don’t have to listen and deal with complaints caused by faulty products this gives us a stress free life.
In the construction of the units, only the best fittings and design have been used, whether your kitchen is in our cheaper or more expensive ranges, we use the same cabinet for both. It is the door style and complexity of drawer that increases or reduces the cost.
The Drawer Boxes:
All the drawer boxes are supplied by 
BLUM, which is the recognised industry leader. Quality is the number one priority at Blum. Blum products are engineered for the lifetime of kitchen furniture - that’s approximately 20 years of problem-free function.
Double click the video image (above left) to see the different storage options. Learn about the five kitchen zones and how your kitchen design can make the best use of these. Drawers have many more functions than just holding cutlery and pans. Look to see how you can use drawer management systems and hands free options to ensure the easiest use of your kitchen, with the maximum advantage in storage space. We can even supply drawers that open and shut electrically.
Our standard drawer is the Blum * Tandembox integrated BLUMOTION* drawer with the integrated * soft-close* system, which catches the drawer in the last part of closing, provides a gentle and controlled ‘softened’ closure, it now makes drawer slamming a nuisance of the past.
SERVO-DRIVE for pull-out Drawer Systems:
This is the new electrical opening support system. Drawers and high fronted pull-outs open automatically using an electrical drive, with just a light touch on a handle-less front or a light pull of the handle - the drawer will open. This ensures silent and effortless closing thanks to BLUMOTION. Also this creates more freedom of motion as well as high opening comfort for any living area.
The Door Hinges:
All our door hinges are also supplied by * BLUM.* We use the luxury CLIP-ON, to enable quick removal of the entire door without using any tools.
They are also * soft-close* and provide the strongest, reliable door hanging, as well as also offering easy door removal with their clip-on, clip-off, system.
The hinges are rigorously tested for wear and fatigue; including many hundred′s of thousands of opening/closing cycles and load and abuse testing to support their lifetime guarantee.
The Blum drawer and door systems work together in creating that SOFT-CLOSE environment. As with the drawers, all doors have the soft closures to make slamming a nuisance of the past - fitted as standard.
Handle-less 'Touch' control front fascia's:
Handle-less fronts are playing a greater and greater role in modern furniture design. We use * Blum TIP-ON (for drawers),* this mechanical opening support system, handle-less fronts for drawers and pull-outs can be opened easily with just a * light touch.*
Equally we use * Blum TIP-ON (for doors),* since no handles or bars are protruding, the stylish handle-less fronts give a smooth sleek design to your kitchen.
Packing & Delivery of Units:
The completely ready-built units are clad in heavy duty protectors and completely wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. Your whole order is collated by the assembly team, then after a mutually agreed, convenient delivery time, delivered to you direct – with us there to unload of course. Throughout, this stringent quality control procedure helps ensure that every kitchen unit arrives to you, in only the best condition.
Our furniture against the Cheaper Alternatives:
All our bespoke cabinets are rigid in construction, have glued joints, are square and robust giving a perfect fit, they will be specially designed to your requirements, unlike a kitchen made from flatpack units, only available in set standard sizes, which are assembled by screws and cams. Often the builder assembles them either in your house or garden. In many cases, assembly is carried out in a builders or fitters garage, so that the kitchen turns up to you looking more superior than its original DIY "flat-pack" box.
Try to climb on an assembled flatpack unit standing in the middle of the floor, and it will most likely collapse. A true "rigid" unit would stay as it says - RIGID.
Don’t buy your kitchen at face value, check out the manufacturer of the internal parts such as hinges and drawers. There are a lot of "cheaper" products imitating Blum and the other leaders, but the quality isn’t anywhere near comparable - despite looking similar.
It seems to be common practice for the "sheds" and companies selling cheap kitchens to inflate the installation charge to fit their cheap units!
Our installation charge is always lower than the "sheds" for a far better value product.
Why?
If you buy a better quality unit in the first place - already fully factory assembled, you don’t need to add the extra labour in putting the flat-pack together.
The kitchen may end up around the same price, but you will get more value for your money, as the money spent is on the kitchen products. As they are of a superior quality they are easier and quicker to fit, requiring less labour. Labour often costs more than the item being fitted, so we try and keep this to a minimum.
On our lower end kitchen range, several times we have matched the "sheds", despite having a vastly superior product, we win on the installation costs.
Remember our units are factory fully assembled, rigid construction, whereas flat-pack units need considerably more fitters effort to assemble. With labour costing more than the units are worth, you have to decide, do you want to pay an enormous fitting charge to Wickes, Homebase or B & Q, when that money can go into the quality of the kitchen units rather than the fitter’s pocket?
Buying supply only?
Remember Ikea, Howdens, Benchmarx, etc, may be the cheapest, but you are not going to get the same quality unit as found in the middle market. You will be surprised how a little extra money spent on your furniture can give you a vast difference in quality. The expression "You get what you pay for" isn’t always true, but it is a good guide 98% of the time.
Our kitchens are designed from a cook’s perspective, creating concepts and plans that balance innovative imagination, functional requirements and aesthetic appeal, with the practicality of a working kitchen.
Before buying a kitchen there are a number of things to think about. Here at Dream Kitchens we can give you all the support you need, when choosing and buying your dream kitchen, simply contact us to discuss your requirements.
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