Before & After
For Sarah, a traditional Georgian farmhouse owner, creating the kitchen of her dreams has been a long time coming…
Sarah and her husband bought their farmhouse 11 years ago while still living abroad. Whilst a lot of people choose to renovate the kitchen first, the sheer scale of this renovation meant that some much-needed necessities took priority. “We initially had to put in central heating and completely re-roof it,” Sarah explained. “But the plan was always to add an extension to the side and create a spectacular kitchen/dining space.”
The previous kitchen, however, was far from spectacular. “It was absolutely HORRIBLE!” Sarah laughed. “It was in a different part of the house. It had a lovely AGA, but the rest was awful! We still lived with it for 10 years, painting it different colours and trying to get through.”. Whether you have inherited a kitchen that is completely not your taste, or ‘put up with it’ for years like Sarah did, sometimes a kitchen renovation is just unavoidable. But it doesn’t have to be as big or as expensive of an ordeal as it can often sound…
Finding Rehome
Sarah first discovered Rehome on Instagram. Initially, she considered buying something inexpensive to tide them over before the new extension was ready, but her husband persuaded her to wait. In hindsight, she’s glad she did- “By then, I realised I could get a much higher spec kitchen that I could actually afford if I went through your company”.
Patience was key. “Maybe about 5 or 6 years after first hearing about Rehome, I found the right kitchen… simply because we weren’t ready before, not because you didn’t have nice kitchens!” And when the right kitchen came along, she knew instantly. No, literally, instantly-our kitchen alerts notified Sarah the minute something that fit her criteria was added to her website, and it’s safe to say that it was love at first sight. “It was STUNNING! Exactly the colours and style that we love and I knew it would fit well in the space plus the price was great.” Sarah isn’t wrong- the kitchen in question was an absolutely stunning Martin Moore traditionally English shaker, with timeless two-tone cabinetry and an impressive island.
The kitchen originally retailed for £84,000 but was available at Rehome for £34,999, creating a generous saving of nearly £50,000 off RRP. If that wasn’t enough to make Sarah happy, she put in an offer of £27,000 and to her delight it was accepted. Whilst the savings on Rehome are already a pocket-friendly dream, the majority of our sellers, both domestic and showrooms, are open to offers on their kitchens. This is always something worth considering if you do fall in love with something on our website that is slightly out of budget. By making an offer, Sarah saved a whopping 68% off retail price for a barely used luxury kitchen.
Bringing the Kitchen to Life
Whilst many of our buyers succeed in planning, reconfiguring and installing their Rehome kitchen themselves, Sarah had the support of a skilled carpenter. “He had been a kitchen fitter in a previous life and really had the vision for it as well,” she said. “He made and adjusted things to match so he was really key in the process.”. Whilst all of the kitchens we sell are dismantled into individual units, and so can be moved around to fit your space with relative ease, if you are someone who is not overly confident in your measuring abilities, or simply would like a little help, most builders, joiners, and kitchen installers are happy to work with pre-loved or ex-display kitchens, and can help you plan the layout before installation.
After reconfiguring, Sarah decided to keep the kitchen in its original colourway, which she loved. “We just touched it up and painted any new pieces to match.” Whilst Sarah found a colourway she already loved, all of the painted shakers like this that we sell can be resprayed or repainted.
We like to advise people to not get caught up in the colour or hardware of the kitchens on our site- as long as you love the style of the cabinetry, the rest can pretty much all be adapted to suit your interior tastes. The best part is that you get a kitchen completely compatible with your interior, and even with the cost of repainting or changing hardware, will still be saving thousands of pounds against the high street price of a new kitchen.
Advice for fellow buyers
One of the only challenges Sarah faced was the quirks of the Georgian farmhouse itself… The oak beams proved to be a slight obstacle in getting the kitchen to fit. This is where having a carpenter around helped Sarah achieve the final product she wanted- “The carpenter did a great job of fitting the cupboard around the beam”, and we love the decision to incorporate the beams into the kitchen itself, as it gives a seamless feel to the space, and is though this kitchen had been specifically designed with this house in mind- which of course, it wasn’t. ;-)
Sarah’s experience means she’s full of advice for others considering Rehome, and her top tips align with advice that we always give to buyers... “Buy more ‘kitchen’ than you need, you can always sell bits,” she suggested. “Ours came with a dishwasher but I preferred ours, so I sold it to the kitchen fitter! It’s better to have more cupboards than too few.”. The more units you have, the easier reconfiguration can be. Like Sarah, you can either sell the rest or even use them to create a matching utility or boot room, which a lot of our buyers also choose to do.
She also encourages fellow renovators to be patient. “Keep looking constantly at what is available. Your style and budget will come up if you are patient. Then buy something that maybe has more than you need.”. Even though Sarah waited for almost 6 years in order to achieve the space of her dreams, the majority of our buyers wait only weeks for their perfect kitchen to come along. We add new products to our site daily, and with our kitchen alerts that inform you when something that meets your criteria is added to our site, you will never miss a thing.
A Kitchen Worth Waiting For
From initially spotting the kitchen on the Rehome website, to the whole family enjoying it in their newly extended home, took two years. Most of this wasn’t down to the kitchen itself, but the slow pace of building works and waiting on the extension to be finished. Looking back, Sarah thinks the kitchen was definitely worth the wait, and we couldn’t agree more. The once drab and dated kitchen has been replaced with a stunning and timeless space that looks as though it was made for their space. One of the great things about buying pre-loved and ex-display is that once reinstalled you would never know they had had a previous life, just like Sarah’s…
