Complete Kitchen Bundles for Landlords: What to Consider

Landlords buy kitchens differently from homeowners. A homeowner is buying one kitchen and will happily spend six weeks choosing a handle. A landlord is buying a kitchen that has to be specified quickly, budgeted accurately, replaced predictably and — ideally — repeated across other properties without starting from scratch every time.

That is what a bundle is for. Used properly it takes most of the guesswork out of budgeting a refurbishment. Used carelessly it produces a number that turns out to be wrong once the room is measured. This guide covers the difference.

What a bundle actually is

A complete kitchen bundle is a package that has already been put together for you: a set of cabinets, the doors to go on them, worktop, and the finishing items that turn a pile of boxes into a kitchen — sold at one published price rather than priced line by line.

Brooklands' whole position is built around this: the bundle deals collection exists so that you can see what a full room of cabinets, doors and worktop costs without submitting a plan first. For a landlord that has a specific value: you can decide whether a property refurbishment stacks up before you have committed any time to it.

What a bundle is not

Three things, and being clear about them saves a lot of frustration later.

It is not a fixed shopping list. The cabinet mix in a published bundle is a representative kitchen, not your kitchen. A galley in a Victorian terrace and an L-shape in a purpose-built flat need different cabinets even at the same overall size.

It is not necessarily every item you will buy. Appliances, sinks, taps, handles and some finishing items may or may not be in a given bundle. That varies by bundle and it is stated on the product page — which is why the section below exists.

It is not an installed kitchen. Brooklands supplies material. We do not install kitchens, and we do not cut, joint, template or fabricate worktops — all of that happens on site with your fitter. Cabinets can be supplied fully rigid, built and glued before delivery, which removes the assembly time from the job, but rigid assembly is not installation.

Using a published bundle price to set a per-property budget

This is the single most useful thing a bundle does for a landlord, and it is worth doing deliberately rather than by eye.

Take the published bundle price as your supply baseline. Then build the property budget around it in layers, so you know which numbers are firm and which are estimates:

• Layer 1 — the bundle. Cabinets, doors, worktop and the finishing items included in the package. Published price, known figure.
• Layer 2 — room adjustment. Extra or fewer cabinets, extra worktop length, additional end panels for an awkward run. Only firm once someone has looked at the room.
• Layer 3 — the items you choose separately. Appliances, sinks and taps, handles, waste and storage — anything not in the bundle.
• Layer 4 — site costs. Removal of the old kitchen, making good, plumbing and electrical alterations, and fitting. None of this comes from a kitchen supplier.

A budget written this way survives contact with reality. A budget that is just the bundle price plus a guess does not.

Check the product page before assuming an item is included

Every bundle lists its contents on its own product page. Read it before you plan around it — particularly for these items, which are the ones landlords most often assume are in the box.

• Worktop. How many lengths, which décor, which profile, and whether it will actually reach around your runs.
• Appliances. Whether any are included at all, and if so which models.
• Sink and tap. Frequently a separate purchase.
• Handles. Counted per door and per drawer front, so the number is higher than the cabinet count.
• Panels, plinth, cornice and pelmet. The finishing items that stop a fit dead when they are missing.
• Cabinet mix and widths. The actual list of carcasses, in millimetres.

The three bundle families

Brooklands' bundles sit in three door families. The cabinets behind them are the same kind of thing; what changes is the door, the colour range and the price the family starts from.

Prices and promotional inclusions change, so always check the current position on bundle deals rather than working from a figure you noted down last quarter.

Which suits a rental

For a standard letting, a slab door is the pragmatic choice. There is no moulding to collect grease and dust, it wipes down in one pass, and a plain door dates slowly — which matters when the kitchen has to look current through several tenancies rather than for one photoshoot.

A shaker door lifts the perceived quality of a property noticeably, and in a market where tenants are comparing three similar flats that can be worth more than it costs. It is a slightly more demanding surface to clean because of the frame, and it reads more traditional, which suits period properties and family houses better than compact modern flats.

Handleless is the one to think hardest about. It looks excellent and it removes the handle as a thing that gets pulled off, but it is a more precise fit and a more design-led look. It earns its place in a higher-value letting or a property where you are competing on presentation. In a straightforward two-bed refurbishment it is usually money better spent on the worktop.

Whichever family you pick, favour lighter neutral colours for rentals. They photograph better, they suit small rooms, and they give you a much better chance of matching a replacement door in three years' time.

How a bundle becomes a real kitchen

Here is the part that catches people out, so it is worth stating plainly.

You pick a bundle. You send the room dimensions — a sketch with wall lengths is enough, or use the free kitchen planning service. The bundle is then matched to the actual room: cabinet widths adjusted to the walls, worktop quantity calculated from the real runs, panels counted from the exposed ends, appliance housings checked against the models you intend to use.

At that point you receive a project quotation, and that quotation replaces the published bundle price. It may be higher, it may be lower, and it will be itemised so you can see exactly what changed and why. Trade and project pricing is assessed individually according to the products, quantities and requirements of each project.

This is not a bait and switch — it is the only honest way to price a kitchen for a room nobody has measured. Quotations are free and carry no obligation, there is no minimum order or minimum project size, and we aim to reply within one working day. For smaller single-property purchases, PayPal Pay in 3 is available at checkout on eligible orders.

Repeating the same bundle across a portfolio

If you own more than a couple of properties, standardising on one bundle is worth real money. The advantages compound.

• Budgeting gets faster. You already know what a kitchen costs before you view a property.
• Specification stops being a decision. One door, one colour, one worktop décor, agreed once.
• Spares become interchangeable. A door damaged in one flat can be replaced from a matching order, and a small holding of doors and panels covers the whole portfolio.
• Your fitter gets faster. The same cabinets, the same hardware, the same sequence every time.
• Voids get shorter. A known specification can be ordered the day a tenant gives notice, not three weeks later.

Two cautions. Colours and décors do get discontinued, so if a colour is doing a lot of work in your standard specification, ask about it before you commit the whole portfolio to it. And if several properties are being refurbished in the same period, quote them together — that is what the trade bundles page and multi-unit kitchen projects exist for, and it lets deliveries be staged against the works rather than everything arriving at once. Delivery is fully tracked across mainland UK, with larger kitchen and worktop loads on a dedicated service and the day arranged with you; details are on the delivery page.

Frequently asked questions