We bought a second-hand kitchen on eBay for an absolute bargain, and it was probably the riskiest purchase I’ve ever made!
When Jay turned round to me and said he’d found a second hand kitchen for sale on eBay, I said absolutely not. No way.
I don’t often use eBay. Partly because a) I don’t trust that the sellers will even send the product, and b) the goods might be faulty, damaged or broken.
And yet somehow we ended up with a second hand kitchen.
Jay and my dad had to go and take the kitchen out of the seller’s house and transfer it back to Chester in a van. But for £650, we got a bargain.
Can I add that we bought the kitchen BEFORE the sale of the house had even gone through! Yes, we’re mad, but it all paid off!
I love the kitchen, and it cost £20,000 new which is money that we just didn’t have. We had to pay the house deposit and then all the renovation costs as well. We did manage to buy a brand new bathroom suite though obviously (ain’t no way I’m buying one of those second hand. I have my limits).
Figuring out how we could make someone else’s kitchen work in our house was difficult. The kitchen was originally custom made for the seller’s house, so we had to shake it up a bit. When we bought the house, the sink used to be facing next door’s wall, but we’ve moved it so it’s now facing the back garden.
Big decisions
The other big decision we had to make was if we wanted a hallway. You can see by the picture above that there used to be a door behind the cooker, which we boarded up. We considered building a hallway in to separate the lounge. But we would have lost so much space in doing that.
We decided to keep it modern and left the whole thing open plan. Now we have an arch that passes between the dining room and the lounge.
Now, after plastering and emulsioning, the second-hand kitchen looks, well, brand new!
The couple we bought it off said we could take the Range cooker for an extra £200, so the whole thing cost us £850 and came with a built-in fridge unit, and a built-in freezer, a Belfast sink, and solid granite worktops which I’m in love with. Funnily enough, I never saw myself as a granite girl, more of a solid wood, so who knew.
This is the completed result.
As I said, we had to rearrange the whole kitchen to fit our room, and were left with some strange gaps in the corners. See the wine rack in the left-hand corner? Jay built that from leftover units to fill the remaining space where we couldn’t possibly fit another unit.
Overall I’m really happy with our kitchen, and would buy a second-hand kitchen over a new one again.
Want more? See how to avoid house renovation disasters.
Sarah is the creator and founder of Dream of Home, a website that began during Sarah’s first home renovation project. Since then, the site has grown and Sarah produces content around all things home, including home decor, DIY projects, renovation tips, inspiration and more. In her spare time, she loves to read and garden.
Oh, wow – such an amazing find!
I don’t think I would have been daring enough to buy a kitchen on eBay but having seen what’s possible I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out! Considering how expensive kitchens can be it’s definitely worth taking a risk!
Yes definitely! I never would have considered it, but I think I’d do it again.
Obviously you get to look at it properly before you agree a sale, so as long as you find one that’s near to you, there’s not too many risks.
I want to sell my French styles oak kitchen, but it seems that Ebay do not allow contact details to enable a viewing before purchase which seems odd. I am unsure if buyers would back out if they didn’t like it in the flesh. Any ideas.
Author
Thank you for your query. What a potential buyer can do is message you on eBay. So, like Facebook, eBay has a Messaging option so that people can message you on there to organise a viewing, without you needing to provide a phone number. Hope this helps, and good luck selling your kitchen!