B&Q Warehouse

A really big B&Q shop, with masses and masses of stuff inside — just about everything that you could ever need for your home and garden.
Prices aren’t the cheapest and if you’ve got the time and patience to go round other places then you’ll often find things for a lot less, but if you just want to pay a fair price and cut out all the hassle then this is the place to go.
They’re really handy to get to, just off the motorway and also close to Lakeside so there are shops to drop the wife off at too, and a few fast-​food places if you’re hungry.
Café, toilets, free parking — all good from me.

This is my favourite B&Q (how sad that I should have such a thing) because of it’s easy location, enormous size, range of products and friendly staff.
Located just off the M13, J3, and only a few hundred yards from the Yorkshire Outlet/​Lakeside shopping park and associated restaurants, there’s an enormous car park outside.
On entering the store, there’s a garden centre to the right with a large conservatory with gardening stuff, and access to the outside with all the plants. There’s a large lighting section behind this, which must have hundreds if not thousands of different styles of light on display. Working through the store, there are large displays of tiles, paint, wallpaper, flooring, electricals, plumbing, storage, wood and building supplies.
They’ve also got a really good showroom area with kitchens and bathrooms which are not the cheapest in the world or the very best quality but they’re a lot better than other DIY stores. Main complaint with this is the lack of staff — there always seems to be a queue.
They have a builders’ yard at the opposite end, and a trade counter which seems to be quite popular. Checkouts are to the front and often have large queues but staff are pretty switched on and it doesn’t normally take too long.
There’s usually a greasy burger van outside, so you can look forward to the smell of onions as you leave, after you’ve barged your way through the wall of fag smoke that’s always waiting for you at the exit. But that’s a minor flaw in an otherwise fab shopping experience.