Sharps - Expensive?

[hmpmarketing]

Hi guys,

 

First time I am quoting for a custom fitted wardrobes for my house. After seeing so many commercials on TV, yesterday I had a Sharps designer come visit the new property to take measurements and today he came with his drawings and idea for the walk-in-wardrobe. I have attached his drawings for you to see. Our wall height is near 2.6m and we have angled roof on both sides of the wardrobe room (dormer window in the middle)

 

Since I have never quoted with anyone else yet  as it seems there aren't many custom fit suppliers out there besides Neville Johnson, I have no idea what the price would be.

 

His final price for the plans as attached was £6900.

 

Has anyone ever used Sharps before and is the price fair based on the proposed idea?

 

Thanks in advance for your comments

sharps.pdf

Edited March 16, 2017 by hmpmarketing

[ragg987]

I think it is too high a price. In my opinion the high-street custom fit are at least 50% too high - so when they have their "half-price sale" they can still make a profit.

 

I bought an IKEA flat-pack for about £1,000 (including all internal fittings, drawers, shoe-racks, jewellery trays etc) and paid my carpenter to hack them to fit under the sloping ceilings. I think it cost approx £2,000 in total. The only limitation with IKEA is that they have standard widths of carcass, so if your room dimensions do not conform you could end up with wasted space. Similar number of wardrobes to your schematic.

[PeterW]

It's about double the price it should be. 

 

I've used some very nice units from a specialist and it came in at around £3300 for similar to yours. 

 

Sharps do a 50% sale in the summer normally - just tell him he is £2k too expensive and he will come down in price...

[hmpmarketing]

7 minutes ago, ragg987 said:

I think it is too high a price. In my opinion the high-street custom fit are at least 50% too high - so when they have their "half-price sale" they can still make a profit.

 

I bought an IKEA flat-pack for about £1,000 (including all internal fittings, drawers, shoe-racks, jewellery trays etc) and paid my carpenter to hack them to fit under the sloping ceilings. I think it cost approx £2,000 in total. The only limitation with IKEA is that they have standard widths of carcass, so if your room dimensions do not conform you could end up with wasted space. Similar number of wardrobes to your schematic.

 

Hi!

 

I did look into Ikea....I think they are good but my wife insists on custom fit due to the wall angles, she wants a seamless finish

 

4 minutes ago, PeterW said:

It's about double the price it should be. 

 

I've used some very nice units from a specialist and it came in at around £3300 for similar to yours. 

 

Sharps do a 50% sale in the summer normally - just tell him he is £2k too expensive and he will come down in price...

 

Hi Peter,

 

Their quote included the 50% off! And managed to get another 900 shaved off, but then again I never quoted before for wardrobes so I wasnt sure.

 

 

Also, they will not finance if you are not a home owner, although technically I own the house, since its not completed and currently I live on a rental, he could not have done finance on my case, really stupid!

 

 

[ragg987]

The seamless look is down to the skill of your carpenter, not an IKEA limitation. If interested I can take some photos at the weekend.

 

Personally, if anyone were to pitch this to me at a starting price of £15k then I would steer well clear...

[jack]

We had the same experience.  While made to measure, these are unlikely to be "bespoke" in any real sense.  You know that the fitter will be in and out in a day (budget a generous £400 for his/her time, including paying the fitter and profit to the company).  You're therefore left with them saying that at full price there's £15k worth of materials and labour in the units themselves?  Unless the doors are made of solid gold, this is a joke.  

 

Even at nearly £8k, they seem to be suggesting that there's over £7k worth of materials and labour in these units.  Crazy.

 

I only wish I could say that this sort of pricing was uncommon.  I always said I would never have Ikea furniture in our new house, but we ended up getting wardrobes for the kids' bedrooms from there because the cost of even really basic "bespoke" was 3-4 times higher than Ikea.   This is for 2x3.5m straight runs of wardrobes with one set of drawers in each, and absolutely no special materials (eg, exotic veneers).

 

For our bedroom I plan to pay a chippy to come in and do it on a day rate with me supplying materials.

[hmpmarketing]

9 minutes ago, ragg987 said:

The seamless look is down to the skill of your carpenter, not an IKEA limitation. If interested I can take some photos at the weekend.

 

Personally, if anyone were to pitch this to me at a starting price of £15k then I would steer well clear...

Thanks, would appreciate your pics!

 

6 minutes ago, jack said:

We had the same experience.

 

@jack have you had a Sharps quote before as well?

[jack]

I believe so, yes.  It would have been about 15-18(ish) months ago.  

 

I don't remember exact pricing, but I was very surprised given what appeared to be the amount of work and materials involved relative to, eg, a kitchen. In fact, I did wonder at one point whether it was feasible to get wardrobes from a kitchen company!

[Jeremy Harris]

That quote has all the discounting hallmarks of the older double glazing companies.  About 20 years ago we rang around for quotes for half a dozen new windows.  I was stupid enough to include a well-known big name (beginning with "E" and ending in "t").  Their shiny-suit salesman turned up one evening and right at the start I said I didn't need a sales pitch, but could he just measure up and let us have a written quote.  The bloke insisted he had to go through his pitch, as it was company policy.  He duly wasted an hour trying to convince us of how wonderful his windows were, then measured up, produced a quote, saying that it was a "one time special offer, half the normal price" if we signed up right now.  I said sorry, but I wanted to choose after having received other quotes. 

 

He then repeated that the "special offer price" only applied if we were to sign up right away.  I refused again, and he asked if he could use our phone to call his manager (this was at around 8pm).  He came off the phone saying that his manager had authorised him to reduce the price by another 20% if we signed up straight away.  Again I told him that we wouldn't and he, very reluctantly, left.  We had already decided that no matter what we weren't going to buy from that company, just because of their sales practices.  A week later we got a phone call from him again, saying that they were running a "very special offer" and could knock another 50% off the price, as long as we agreed to our house being photographed (pointless, as the new windows would be all at the back).

 

The next house where we wanted new windows I sent out written invitations to tender to half a dozen local companies, with the explicit instruction that any attempt at high-pressure sales would disqualify them.  Worked a treat, as we got a small, local, company to do the job, at a good price and to a high standard.

 

 

[hmpmarketing]

3 minutes ago, jack said:

I believe so, yes.  It would have been about 15-18(ish) months ago.  

 

I don't remember exact pricing, but I was very surprised given what appeared to be the amount of work and materials involved relative to, eg, a kitchen. In fact, I did wonder at one point whether it was feasible to get wardrobes from a kitchen company!

 

Same thing, I got a kitchen for nearly the same price as quoted and I thought to myself, how can wardrobes be nearly as expensive as a kitchen with all the appliances included, only difference in my case is the angled doors!

[hmpmarketing]

6 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

He then repeated that the "special offer price" only applied if we were to sign up right away.

 

funny enough, I was told the exact same thing!

[jack]

1 minute ago, JSHarris said:

That quote has all the discounting hallmarks of the older double glazing companies. 

 

Exactly.  Anchoring with inflated initial price, large reductions in several "one-off" tranches, time-limited offers.  

 

I can't stand this kind of crap, and refuse to buy from any company that uses it.

[ryder72]

Bespoke can mean 2 things-

 

A  company makes doors in many sizes and they arrange a combination to get as near to the size as possible and then infill the rest. This is not really bespoke.

 

A company measures your alcove and gets doors measured to whatever sizes you require.

 

The latter is usually going to be more expensive. In any case, Sharps are the rump of the now defunct Moben/Dolphin/Sharps operation with all the ethics and integrity of Tony Blair and Donald Trump rolled into one.

 

See  if you can find a Trend/Mereway or Crown retailer locally and get them to quote. Its probably the best no-nonsense product you will find for sensible money.

[hmpmarketing]

1 hour ago, ryder72 said:

Bespoke can mean 2 things-

 

A  company makes doors in many sizes and they arrange a combination to get as near to the size as possible and then infill the rest. This is not really bespoke.

 

A company measures your alcove and gets doors measured to whatever sizes you require.

 

The latter is usually going to be more expensive. In any case, Sharps are the rump of the now defunct Moben/Dolphin/Sharps operation with all the ethics and integrity of Tony Blair and Donald Trump rolled into one.

 

See  if you can find a Trend/Mereway or Crown retailer locally and get them to quote. Its probably the best no-nonsense product you will find for sensible money.

 

Hi @ryder72 thanks for your feedback!

 

Managed to contact mereway and a local company that works with them (mereway will only do trade) and see how that goes. Funny they are not up in search engine results for me, so I really didnt know them until now

[ryder72]

Trade secret - Trend is the same thing as Mereway. Basically Mereway is available only to displaying dealers and the manufacturers provide some exclusivity in trading areas. Trend is available to anyone who wishes to sell it on a non-exclusive basis. The range is also slightly limited.

 

Unless you are looking for something special, its a good option. Mereway will not point you to a Trend retailer unfortunately but if you could PM me your location, I know a couple I could point you towards.

 

I dont do bedrooms myself, so nothing in it for me.

[Gone West]

You can price your own up on this site. Still expensive though.

 

https://www.diywardrobes.co.uk/

 

[Ferdinand]

You should take a look at Jeremy's self-build Walk in Wardrobe article before you buy one in, even though the orientation is different.

 

Potential to save 5k there.

 

It was discussed on this Ebuild thread and I hope @JSHarris can point out a version with pictures.

 

http://www.ebuild.co.uk/topic/14367-building-a-thin-partition-wall-how-thin-can-i-go/

 

Ferdinand

 

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Ferdinand
Need to make the JsHarris link work.

[hmpmarketing]

1 hour ago, PeterStarck said:

You can price your own up on this site. Still expensive though.

 

https://www.diywardrobes.co.uk/

 

 

Cheers for the link

 

37 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

You should take a look at Jeremy's self-build Walk in Wardrobe article before you buy one in, even though the orientation is different.

 

Potential to save 5k there.

 

It was discussed on this Ebuild thread and I hope @JeremyHarris can point out a version with pictures.

 

http://www.ebuild.co.uk/topic/14367-building-a-thin-partition-wall-how-thin-can-i-go/

 

Ferdinand

 

 

 

Cheers for the link

[Jeremy Harris]

Here are the photos from that Ebuild post:

Before making and fitting the wardrobe (the hatch is the access to the eaves space where most of the services run)

 

After fitting the wardrobe (all the rest of the photos below are of the semi-finished wardrobe)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by JSHarris

[hmpmarketing]

Thanks @JSHarris Jeremy!!!!

[Auchlossen]

I have been looking again at wardrobes.

For Wardrobe#1 I am going down the IKEA PAX route: not built in and no VAT reclaim.

For Wardrobe#2 I will use a PAX frame and fit nicer doors:

I found these 'real' oak doors at

https://www.shakerdoors.co.uk/pages/kitchen-wardrobe-doors-for-ikea

so my plan is to buy Ikea PAX frame, and if my wallet is not empty, buy a set of these in oak.

My only issue is that the visible end panel will be an Ikea 'plastic' panel,

tho I suppose I could cover or replace end panel with oak ply, at some extra hassle.

These were quoted a wee while ago at £768 for 4 doors [£140 each + del + vat].

I am now looking for sliding doors for Wardrobe#3, and discover to my horror that a 3m sliding door system costs about £1k for supply only of a better quality system with coloured glass doors, and that is without a framework and fittings, which I shall DIY and use Ikea baskets and the like.

[Ferdinand]

On 5/20/2017 at 15:56, Auchlossen said:

I have been looking again at wardrobes.

For Wardrobe#1 I am going down the IKEA PAX route: not built in and no VAT reclaim.

For Wardrobe#2 I will use a PAX frame and fit nicer doors:

I found these 'real' oak doors at

https://www.shakerdoors.co.uk/pages/kitchen-wardrobe-doors-for-ikea

so my plan is to buy Ikea PAX frame, and if my wallet is not empty, buy a set of these in oak.

My only issue is that the visible end panel will be an Ikea 'plastic' panel,

tho I suppose I could cover or replace end panel with oak ply, at some extra hassle.

These were quoted a wee while ago at £768 for 4 doors [£140 each + del + vat].

I am now looking for sliding doors for Wardrobe#3, and discover to my horror that a 3m sliding door system costs about £1k for supply only of a better quality system with coloured glass doors, and that is without a framework and fittings, which I shall DIY and use Ikea baskets and the like.

 

You could have a further door made for the end panel if needed.

[jayroc2k]

I know two who used Sharp, they are not truly 'bespoke', so be 100% clear on design or in the installed product won't be the exact fit as you intended if you're keen on detail. 

 

I would say, find a local joiner who will come, measure and most importantly build off site in a proper workshop. I have seen one too many on-site jobs and the finish is never spot on. It could be the mitre corners, paint job etc. The good on-site jobs tend to be very high end. 

 

Off site construction and off site spray paint. 

 

I am going down the ikea carcass coupled with off site CNC cut panels. Will let you know if it worked out or an expensive experiment

:-)

 

if you go go down on-site construction, stick to tried and tested simple designs. Plan doors or shaker style. Make sure they have good tools, track saws, etc. Good joiners invest in good gear as they expect a payback. Festol is usually a good sign!

[Grosey]

On 3/16/2017 at 12:32, ragg987 said:

I think it is too high a price. In my opinion the high-street custom fit are at least 50% too high - so when they have their "half-price sale" they can still make a profit.

 

I bought an IKEA flat-pack for about £1,000 (including all internal fittings, drawers, shoe-racks, jewellery trays etc) and paid my carpenter to hack them to fit under the sloping ceilings. I think it cost approx £2,000 in total. The only limitation with IKEA is that they have standard widths of carcass, so if your room dimensions do not conform you could end up with wasted space. Similar number of wardrobes to your schematic.

 

 

If anybody has any photos of ikea hacked PAX wardrobes fitted under a sloping ceiling I'd be keen to see, as I've just placed my ikea order to do exactly that. Any pointers / advice appreciated. 

[Gone West]

5 hours ago, Grosey said:

If anybody has any photos of ikea hacked PAX wardrobes fitted under a sloping ceiling I'd be keen to see

 

This is a starting point.

http://www.ikeahackers.net/2017/05/classy-high-gloss-bespoke-loft-wardrobe-eaves.html