"Dreadful after sales service and refuse to acknowledge major defects."

Two cabinets were supplied flat packed even though the website and sales team were keen to emphasise everything comes assembled. When opening, the side panels were badly warped and their Customer Services Executive was evasive and tried blamed the way they were stacked (it was their own deliver team that stacked them - they trade on the two man delivery straight to the room). Refused to replace them having seen £14,000 on cabinets. Really poor customer service.

"Excellent Experience"

We had our kitchen and worktop from here and we couldn't be happier. From our initial visit to the showroom, Charlotte & Darren were so friendly, helpful and professional. Our kitchen was small, but far from straightforward. Charlotte & Darren listened to what we needed and went the extra mile to ensure we were happy with our final design. They even liaised with our kitchen fitters during the install to offer advice and support. We now have our wow kitchen at a very reasonable price. We have recommended this local business to friends & family, and will definitely be using ourselves again in the future. Many thanks.

"Excellent customer service"

Excellent customer service
Charlotte was very helpful
Delivery date was accurate and delivered on time

Quality of products is very good

Birmingham showroom

"Mixed feelings about this company"

The good news is that the cabinets and doors are beautiful – apart from having a flimsy piece of hardboard for the backs - surely it would be better to use a material better in alignment with the great quality of the carcass? Anyway, that can be overcome, my kitchen fitter strengthened the backs with other material (extra time and work for him). I think the price was good especially when compared with the quality of most other mainstream kitchen manufacturers (John Lewis, Home Base) and I would consider using SWKC again BUT . . .

Now the problems of this company. Customer service is variable, I had problems, delays on delivery for doors (not necessarily their fault – apparently the carcasses and doors come from Ukraine) and warped splash backs (Zenith range – the compact laminate worktops were great, but the splash backs are one layer of laminate glued to 9mm MDF, all of which were warped). Worktops and splash backs are supplied by the sister company Worktop Express, and I had to fight hard to get the splash backs replaced, but none arrived flat (the company tried to blame me for this) and eventually I was offered a 10% refund as compensation, which didn’t cover the additional cost that my kitchen fitter charged me for the extra hours involved to screw the splash backs to the wall and use Polyfilla to cover the screw holes!

When you make a telephone call for support, you speak to whichever branch is available, Birmingham and Glasgow were very helpful. Harlow (who I used for my order) seem much less interested in their product and their customers. I was promised that I would be kept informed by Harlow regarding the delayed items, but not once did they come back to me without being chased.

"Appalling Customer Service"

I spent over £8,500 on kitchen cabinets and worktops in mid August 2021.
I have no complaint over the quality of the cabinets / worktops. My issue is over the delays in supplying said furniture and the Companies poor response to that.
At the time of ordering, when I paid in full, I was advised that my order was bespoke (colour variation) and would take 2-3 weeks longer than normal, but I would have my kitchen by start of October 2021.
I had to continually chase them to get updates on delivery, which slipped back to November 2021.
Delivery finally happened on 9th November 2021, having caused me all sorts of issues in delaying my kitchen fitters and rescheduling delivery of all my appliances.
Despite being told otherwise, the kitchen units were not delivered in the morning, but arrived at 17:00 on that day. A day of my fitters time lost...
When they were delivered, there were all sorts of issues with the order, in terms of wrong cabinets, wrong doors, missing doors and missing plinth / floor kick plates.
And this is where things just got steadily worse...
I telephoned the Glasgow showroom, who were always friendly and helpful, but never seemed to progress anything very quickly, always telling me it was down to Head Office.
The missing / wrong parts arrived in dribs and drabs through December into March 2022, causing my fitter to make numerous return trips to try and complete the kitchen. This resulted in him raising a supplementary invoice to me for his extra time, and to be fair to him, that invoice was for very much less than the time he had lost with this kitchen.
I complained to the Glasgow showroom and ultimately they agreed to reimburse the additional fitting cost and asked me to sign a document in full and final settlement of my complaint, which I declined to do, only agreeing to sign that it was a final payment in respect of fitters fees.
I have pursued the Company for compensation for all the delays and inconvenience of being left with an incomplete kitchen between November 2021 and March 2022.
I have dealt with Jade at the Customer Services at Head Office, and their intransigent position is that by reimbursement of the fitters extra cost, I am financially reinstated to where I should have been. But they are not in the least bit interested in addressing my inconvenience and their appalling customer service.

I would avoid them at all costs, they have given me months of misery and inconvenience which I would not wish upon anyone else.

"Excellent service!"

I have purchased several items from Solid Wood Kitchen Cabinets at different times and have always been delighted with the quality of the products and especially with the service. They have been quick to respond to queries, in in one instance, solved a problem for me over and above my expectations.

"We have purchased a kitchen from this…"

We have purchased a kitchen from this company in 2021, and overall are absolutely thrilled with the quality and service we have received. We asked several people to design and quote within the scope of our large room, including Homebase, John Lewis, Solid Wood Kitchen Cabinets, and a couple of local independent kitchen manufacturers. We had quotes between £8k and £35k, all very similar designs as we had to work with the dimensions of the room and plumbing / ventilation requirements, but obviously very different qualities of carcass, fronts, finish and worktop were specified from different suppliers. We visited the Harlow showroom initially to check quality, and after deciding which company to go with, worked primarily with Antonia (sadly she's gone to another company now) and Billy, who were both brilliant, lovely people and super helpful. We did ask them to design a kitchen (the free service at the time), and there were only a couple of issues: the first was that the design package used doesn't calculate mitred corners so whilst it only calculated for one cornice in the design, we actually ended up having to purchase another cornice later when the kitchen was fitted (this was a smooth process however, and matches perfectly). We had two very long runs of units as the room is so big (nearly 6m X 6m) and the design that was created for us only incorporated an 800mm sink: this looks a bit daft as the size of the kitchen warranted at least a 1000mm sink to look proportional. However I can live with it. There was an issue with the paint additive when our kitchen went into production, so we were given the option of choosing another colour from the Farrow and Ball range (we'd chosen Hague Blue), a colour match to a similar paint from another company, or to wait until the issue was fixed. We chose to wait, and were kept appraised at all times of what was going on. When the units arrived, everything was really well packed and the delivery guys were great. One of the tall units we'd ordered was the standard height tall unit rather than the extended height (the same as the other unit that was delivered), but luckily I noticed at the point of delivery and phoned the sales team, who immediately dealt with it, taking the wrong unit back with them and sending the right one out as soon as it had been painted the right colour and dried (2/3 weeks). We chose a wood worktop from their sister company Worktop Express for the island which we ordered when everything was in place, delivery was again smooth and the finish as we requested. The solid surface worktop we chose from them for the long runs unfortunately couldn't have the cut outs we wanted and travel to us intact, so we decided to go with a local supplier for a quartz worktop instead. This has been an absolute nightmare and we wish we'd been able to go with Solid Wood Kitchens for this, as I have no doubt it would have been a much easier and higher quality experience than the one we currently have ongoing. Thanks Antonia and Billy from the Harlow showroom, our kitchen works brilliantly, was competitively priced and looks absolutely fantastic. You guys are tops!

"Solid wood worktops"

I purchased 2x blocked beach worktops via solidwoodkitchencabinets eBay online shop. Both were delivered to my home ( with an additional £100 to the £30 charged at point of sale, due to living on the Isle of Wight ) and were un packaged by the carpenter prior to installation. During the alteration/ preparation stage, it became apparent to the installer that a major defect was present within the block structure of one of the worktops. A crack/ split, running through an area within the centre of the surface, that in the opinion of the carpenter, could not be either sanded out or repaired.
After being made aware of the defect, I immediately contacted the company and spoke to a member of their customer support team, who requested I send a description and photos via email and that they would either repair or replace the effected worktop. However, after sending the requested information, no response was forthcoming. Numerous phone calls on my part took place where either messages were left or conversations with different individuals took place, with again no resolution, only promises to look in to the case. It’s been over eight weeks since the initial contact and the company has not responded to my email, messages through eBay or requests left on their answer phone. I am genuinely angry and disappointed in the way this company conducts its business and wouldn’t want anybody else to have to go through this disruptive and frustrating experience that has left me with little recourse ( other than the registering a complaint with both eBay and PayPal, which I have little faith in providing a resolution). So in summary, avoid an expensive disappointment and make your purchases with a more reputable establishment.

"Honest Review, the good and the bad"

went with solidwood kitchens because of the obvious reason of wanting solidwood cabinets, showroom communication when driving hours to view a kitchen was awful and even receiving a call during the drive they neglected to mention the website was wrong and they didn't have the kitchen i was interested in on display so i ended up driving to a different showroom, i guess i could have been clearer, "i want to come and see the kitchen not the sample door" so i accept some of this reponsibility and the lady in the showroom was apologetic and lovely and also rang the other stores to find out where did have a display

the online enquiries were a waste of time and advised that they don't do kitchen design, and didn't seem open to discussion to work around issues of cabinet sizes etc (i needed a 350 wide unit or an alternative, i noticed in the showroom there's 50mm decorative posts which i used but a larger unit could have been also easily cut to size with the right tools as i now know) in summary i would say order a sample door then drive to the birmingham showroom as they made up for the initial issues i personally experienced

customer services are friendly and helpful and really keen to assist where they can both before and after the sale and i can't thank them enough espeshially with all that's going on with the lockdown


the kitchen quality :

1: the back panels are pretty flimsy, but most kitchens are and realistically due to the weight of the wall cabinets you wouldn't want a solid back, the floor cabinets I made some cross braces and screwed them in behind the panel to give added strength when ramming pots and pans in etc

2: the cabinets and doors are beautiful and I would do it all over again

3: the accessory hardware supplied is crap, the feet, the cam and dowels, the wall brackets and mounting plates are cheap and nasty but would do the job if you're happy to use them, again these are what are supplied with 99% of kitchens but if you're planning to do it once and enjoy it i recommend good quality parts and blum mounts with wall rails not farty little wall brackets (again this isn't restricted to this company, but good advice if you're reading this)

4: the door and drawers hinges are a good choice and good quality and the only thing i would have done differently would be to choose the same ones but black, personal choice which i didn't even consider during the order

it's also worth noting i found online blum also supply plastic addon clips to their hinges which restrict the opening to 86 degrees instead of 110 so that doors don't slam into eachother at corners

5: the tonque and groove end panels are not t&g so if buying non painted be aware these are actually butcher block and routed, they still look beautiful thoughand are worth buying

6: i've been a pain in the back side to customer services so thank you for putting up with me

"We've recently had an in-frame kitchen…"

We've recently had an in-frame kitchen installed which was supplied by Solid Wood Kitchen Cabinets (SWKC) in Gloucester. It took me a while to choose SWKC as opting for a new kitchen felt like such a big deal and I wanted to get the supplier right. This was the first in-frame kitchen the Gloucester branch had sold so there was also a bit of trepidation about that however, two months on, I'm so happy with the final result.

The highlights for me are as follows:

1) Their people. Lauren (showroom) and Daniel (customer support). Lauren was so helpful in helping us select all the right options and dealt so patiently with me changing my mind a few times! We had some queries after installation and Daniel/Nick sorted these out for us really quickly.

The price. Given the quality of the wood and the fact Farrow and Ball paint is used, we feel the price is very competitive as compared with other companies out there.

A few pieces of advice for people at the beginning of the process. Don't under estimate the project management involved with a new kitchen if you're not going to go with a company who does the end-to-end supply and install. You need to be responsible for timings (delivery, plumber, electrician, installer, etc) and if a problem arises then your whole schedule goes out. Give yourself a good three months from ordering to completion if you want to get things right. Also, measure everything really well - the whole kitchen set up relies on everything being accurate to the last few millimetres.

Our kitchen is now complete and people who visit the house always comment on how amazing the room looks. We would wholeheartedly recommend SWKC to anyone who is thinking of using them.