Yew Tree Designs

We are delighted with our new kitchen, it feels like we have a new house now. We’ve had complements from every visitor. The quality of the units is brilliant and has exceeded expectations. Yew Tree were very helpful when designing the layout and kitchen specifications and the fitters were brilliant; really courteous and seemed to take great pride in their work. The end result really shows. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Yew Tree and I don’t think we could have got better in this price-range elsewhere.

I was deceived into thinking Yew Tree kitchens are totally made out of wood, whereas the reality is that most of the carcass (I.e. what is not painted) is made out of wood, but all the doors, end panels (and everything else that is covered in paint) are made out of MDF. It seems that Yew Tree are doing the opposite of what high-end brands are doing, instead of having a strong washable carcass in chipboard with real wood doors, they are producing their kitchens with a real wood carcass which is not really washable, but do their doors in MDF. To each their own, but I would have expected that had been made clear from the start, whereas when I had asked the owner If their kitchens were made out of wood or MDF I was told the kitchen would be made out of wood, with no mention of MDF whatsoever - deceiving.

I have also found the designer/owner to be pretty disorganised, and customer service quite poor.

That said, the kitchen looks quite nice, I’ve had it for about 2.5 months now. The main things that bother me, apart from the MDF, are that the fitters didn’t really align the doors properly and fitted a wall cabinet using random pieces of wood that don’t look great, and also that the in-frame design takes out a lot of storage space, so it’s probably a kitchen for a very large room as it doesn’t use space efficiently.

Yew tree claims the cupboards are made of real wood, but in fact . This is not Totally true. For instance the end panels are made of soft fibre boards. We hd shaker design and while the boarders are made of real wood the panels are made of fibre board, and not real wood. Simon said we should have seen these in the show room, but in fact how could one tell if they are painted over. Even the shaker drawer panels were not made of real wood.The cabinets tend to be less voluminous than Ikea kitchen units. The designer owner of Yew Tree also had very poor communication, and claims not to have received my emails or changes made to drawings. He was quick to take my deposit , but poor in executing the design consultation process .The Kitchen fitting Company used was recommended by Yew tree JS Carpentry & Kitchen Specialist Ltd. while they were good , they had promised to cut my chimney Hood and post it to me last December 2018. I have been chasing them ever since as it would cost me over £100 to get a replacement. I would not recommend either company. I had personally spoken with the owner, so why do I have to read the FAQ pages, when I was told it the units were made from real wood?

I had a small kitchen fitted in the shaker style. Overall the kitchen is beautiful, but you do definitely lose a lot of space in the drawers, so bigger is definitely better. However, the after sales service is so far shocking. In all my plans, I was shown a double cupboard above the fridge, I sent the spec of all my appliances through, with no changes noted from the sales team; then on fitting, it's just a filler panel. Upon questioning I was told it was because my fridge was so tall - fine, but the plan should have been amended, shown to me and the cost adjusted accordingly (and of course you pay in full before installation so probably won't get the refund now).

The plate rack, a useful space saving piece in my small kitchen, also comes without the spindles painted so looks really odd. they are natural wood, same as the carcass, and if you had wooden worktops looks fine, but again was shown on the plan as painted and on questioning was told this is how it comes. -I don't have wooden worktops so looks really out of place. I also had to pay for my electricians to move the supply for the oven as the floor cupboards aren't as deep as standard floor cupboards (again no mention) and the oven wouldn't fit in otherwise.

I can't fault the fitters, they were great, and very tidy, but I am overall disappointed. I'm still waiting for the drainers for my sink, and the pull out cupboard sections and have not heard from the team at all to correct this.

We searched our local area and beyond to find a quality kitchen that would be in our forever home for, well, forever! After some designs and quotes from companies that quite frankly took our breath away in shock when the quotes came in, we were of the thought that our budget could sadly not get near what we actually really wanted. And then we found Yew Tree online and saw they promised very competitive pricing on quality constructed wooden cabinetry with doors and drawers painted in any colour we wanted.

After making contact we were explained clearly the design and quote process. We had previously paid for a design with another kitchen company and had the plans, so after sending these to Simon at Yew Tree this greatly helped get an idea of an estimate cost from him for what we wanted, so we booked an appointment at the showroom to see in person the quality of kitchen. Afterwards, We were dubious as to how a Zoom internet design from our home would work rather than being face to face with the designer but we need not have worried as it was completely straightforward and easy to set up (we clicked a link, that was it) and we didn’t have to travel for it which was incredibly convenient. Skipping to the end, we’ve had our Yew Tree designed kitchen installed in January by Yew Trees fitters and we’re incredibly pleased with it. The two Farrow and Ball Colours we chose look amazing in the space.

I've just had my Yew Tree Kitchen installed and it looks great! We are so pleased with the quality of the workmanship and everybody who comes into the room for the first time comments on how nice the units look.

We were guided by Simon who designed our kitchen via Zoom meetings. He had some good ideas on how we could conceal our boiler and underfloor heating pipes. The installation team were also very professional and skilled. They installed all the units with great precision.

We also liked the fact that we could choose to have the units painted in any colour so we went with one from Little Greene.

I have already recommended YewTree Designs to a neighbour. We could not be happier! I will update with pictures once we have the worktop installed.

Absolutely perfect....

Absolutely loved our experience with Yew Tree and now have a beautiful kitchen the whole family love to spend time in. The zoom meetings were an amazing experience as we could see our kitchen being designed in front of us in the luxury of our own home. The fitting was on time and stress free and and the fitter made a great job of the installation. All round highly recommend.

1. Price discrepancy: The final price we paid was nearly 20% more than the initial quote/estimate (whatever the way you call it). This is basically unacceptable. My initial kitchen design is very detailed and it remained 95% same as the final executed design. Simon just refused to provide me with detailed breakdown. Without a detailed breakdown, customer has no visibility on the increase of the price. Simon kept saying I changed my kitchen design. I agree we made a few changes. But when I asked him, if we now go with the original design, will the price remain the same as the estimate. Simon said NO because estimate is an estimate and it can’t be relied on as the final quote. I believe price certainty is one of the most important criteria when selecting service provider. If an initial estimate can't be relied on, I do not know why we need an estimate?

Poor attitude: When the price discrepancy issue arose, Simon basically asked me to find another kitchen supplier to do my kitchen. I was basically shocked upon hearing this. Who said this to a client nowadays? At the time, we have a project running, any delay in any work stream will cause bigger delay in the project overall. It is so easy for Simon to say go and find another supplier but it is impossible to find a backup in a short period of time. Again, I do not believe this is the right attitude when talking to a client.

Inadequate communication:
3a. Furniture legs: 3D shows recessed leg, however order says solid wood leg. I relied more on the 3D picture since I am not a kitchen specialist (so as majority of the customers) so I do not have all the vocabulary to describe a kitchen feature. However, during the design consultation, I was never shown other leg options. If I was shown, I would not go with solid legs since they cost more, and they are not as neat and clean as recessed legs
3b. Mullion in double door units: I have 5 units that got the double door opening. They all have a bar in the middle, obstructing the vision and the reach when opens. When I opened the larder, there is a mullion in the middle. I was basically shocked because I have never seen a larder that does not have full opening. This left my stone provider no choice but to cut the worktop in half to fit into the larder. Again, these are features which did not get communicated to me at all. I can live with it but if I was given the choice or asked the preference, I would definitely go with no mullion unit for the convenience and appearance.
Payment: Asking for full payment before kitchen is delivered and installed is just not an industry standard. Within my project, besides Yew Tree kitchen I ordered, I also ordered all the carpentry unit for utility room, alcove unit, under the stair storage, study, wardrobes from other suppliers. No one has requested full payment before installation happened and finished to customer’s satisfaction. I was asked to keep at least 10% (some even up to 50%) of the total value of the order before the carpentry work is delivered. When I mentioned this to Yew Tree, Simon did not wish to make any compromise. Once the payment is gone, as a customer, we have no leverage if there is problems and we lose control. This has been proved by my experience during the installation. The installation team cancelled on me twice so the original installation date got slipped. I emailed Simon but I heard NOTHING from him. I do not believe this is acceptable.
However, I have to be fair that even though my experience with Yew Tree has not been great. The furniture quality is good and it is in line with what's been displayed in their Showroom.