9843 Bargains to be had

We have had our house just over a year and although it is totally habitable and quite lovely in our mind, our kitchen was basic to say the least. We bought the house with an old porcelain sink on a rusty unit - that was our kitchen! And we were lucky to have that as seemingly even that can be removed.

I have just returned after two weeks at the house and the week before last we went out for some staples for the staple gun (which we forgot to buy after all) and popped into a local furniture store Valentino Corsi, just to have a look at kitchen styles with view to getting one next year. We had NO intentions of buying a kitchen. Valentino Corsi has beautiful furniture, not necessarily cheap but good quality stuff. We have already bought a couple of sofas, a bedroom suite and "dispensa" from him which we are over the moon with.

To cut a long story short, my husband queried the price tags of about five kitchens because the prices being asked didn't seem to be right in our minds. ie the kitchen we liked had a tag of Euro3,500. yes three thousand five hundred. This kitchen consisted of an integrated fridge freezer, integrated coffee machine (wow!), oven, hob, double sink, cooker hood, loads of cupboards, normal and large drawers, interior lit shelving (wow!) and a table and six chairs and no doubt I have forgotten something. It is a beautiful pale blue retro style, with white work tops and trims, the machines are Electrolux and Miele in dark stainless steel, and the price tag just didn't ring true. The same applied for the other kitchen, equally beautiful, superb quality etc.,

So we asked in our best Italian what this price represented. Basically it was for the whole kitchen as seen. It was the end of the range, could not be ordered in a different format and the showroom kitchen, but all the appliances and units would still have the full guarantees. And it would be fitted in our kitchen for that 3,500Euro price!!!!! And there isn't a mark on any of the surfaces as Valentino Corsi's is not a busy furniture store (he is more into exporting and the showroom is an extra).

The original price of the kitchen as indicated on each section of it, totalled 13,000Euros which would seem more realistic.

We added a dishwasher in the same style as the appliances with a matching worktop which they could get and after Valentino coming out to measure our kitchen and design it into our kitchen, well this coming week we are getting a very beautiful, fantastic, all singing and dancing kitchen installed. Thursday and Friday last week we had the electrics and plumbing done in preparation which cost us 1,300Euro.

So for about UK £4,000 we have a wonderful large fully plumbed and masses of electric sockets/spurs (had only one socket before) kitchen which is all mod cons, "automatic" doors and drawers (a blessing when you are married to someone who leaves every drawer and door open).

We are cock-a-hoop about our bargain. Valentino said he had put them up for sale two days earlier and had already sold two of them so fate played into our hands.

Oh yes, we still haven't got the staples for the staple gun.
Hope I haven;t bored you, but am so chuffed with our purchase.
Maralyn