Ikea kitchen quality - Any good?

lawrie28

We just used a standard 100cm unit for our sink, and not had any problems.

The great thing about Ikea is the extras - the drawer you can put under your fitted oven (not space with a double oven) and also the drawers you can put in the plinth sections - great for oven trays and baking pans.

The sinks aren't the best, and the U bend systems aren't the great either.

Don't forget to consider any lighting etc. in your plans Ikeas range is good, but some of our strip lights for under the counter I have only seen the bulbs in Ikea. Fortunately I only live a few minutes from a store so not an issue.

Another tip, especially if your fitting yourself, is to screw the legs into the bottom of the units (through the black plastic bit) so the legs don't drop off when you move them around.

We also used one of the narrow wall units as a base unit to create a narrow sideboard style fixture on one wall where there is not room for a full depth unit.

cddc

Even though I work as a kitchen designer for another company, my house has an Ikea kitchen in it which we inherited with house (it is probably about 10-12 years old) and have kept.

About 3 years ago we changed all the facias to a more modern style. Easy and quick to do. The only annoying things about it are the plinth clips which are poor quality and keep breaking, and as another poster has said, the fact that you end up with wiring and pipework inside the cupboard which does not look great.

The quality of the units is not brilliant (flappy hardboard back panels for one thing) but better than others available at a similar price point (Homebase, Tesco's, Argos, B&Q IT).

If properly fitted should last 10-15 years. 25 years is highly optimistic for the quality of the units. Most people would change kitchen or move house long before that, I wonder if anyone would still have their original documentation by then?. The carcasses in mine are coming to the end of their life and I reckon I will change it next year. I reckon Ikea are banking that no one will be claiming under warranty 24 years after they bought one!

Even though I work for another player in the market, I would definitely say that for what you pay for them, overall they represent a good deal.

samtheman1k

We bought our kitchen from IKEA in Jan 2010, we went for the black gloss one and have been seriously impressed. Hardly any scratches on the doors in 18 months, it still looks brand new. We shopped around, and it was about 1/3 the prices compared with Magnet, but is identical in quality as far as I can tell, and it comes with 25year guarantee IIRC. Even a magpie in the kitchen last week, banging on all the units didn't leave a single scratch, just lots of poo

The great thing is that you can buy it in bits, and if you need an extra cupboard, or want to change some drawers for a door, you can just go back to the shop and change it. Magnet, you have to order it and it takes a good 6 weeks or so. Also, I modified some of the units, and the shop was more than happy to hand out extra hinges for me, free of charge.

I would also recommend getting the appliances from IKEA as they are cheap AND come with a 5 year warranty as standard...can't think of anywhere else that gives you that...

The free planner on the website is great.

We also bought the units, then decided what internals to put in as we restocked the food, again, because you can just go to the shop and buy it all in bits and pieces.

Couldn't recommend them enough tbh.

cddc

I would agree that what makes Ikea stand out at that end of the market is the range and price of storage solutions and their availability.
For instance if you want to change your larder unit to a pull out larder, you just go to the store and buy the wirework. Same if you want to change a cupboard into a drawer pack as we did. Simples!

The others make it so hard. You have to order and then take a day off for delivery etc. and you pay more for the priviledge too.

There is a lesson to be learned for the competition somewhere.....

SailorSam

I've got a iIkea kitchen, about 7yrs old and would always recommend it.
2 other family members got Ikea as well, and the kitchen fitter said they were one of the best so he went out and bought his.
The only downside the fitter said was they were harder to fit 'cos there was no blank space at the back of the units so it was more work for him to bury pipes and cables, on the bright side 'cos there's no blank space at the back it means the inside of the units have more space.

becs

We fitted our own Ikea kitchen 5 years ago and it's as good today as it was then. No problems at all. I would agree about the drawers being fantastic and also about the franke sinks, well worth the money. I haven't really understood about services issue as we have our dishwasher and washing machine either side of our sink and we just have the pipes run under the units. [/IMG]

shisslemopp

becs wrote: »

We fitted our own Ikea kitchen 5 years ago and it's as good today as it was then. No problems at all. I would agree about the drawers being fantastic and also about the franke sinks, well worth the money. I haven't really understood about services issue as we have our dishwasher and washing machine either side of our sink and we just have the pipes run under the units. [/IMG]

That's lovely Thanks for the photo.

Can I ask what flooring you've got in there. We've decided we want wooden flooring in the kitchen, seeing as we've got wooden floor throughout the whole of the downstairs anyway. Yours looks lovely

becs

It's bamboo in a chocolate stain from Simply bamboo. We have it throughout downstairs. I love it but hubby just sees the scratches on it from the dog! No one else pays any attention to it but he's obsessive about it. To be fair I don't think it's any better or worse than any other wood floor.

devotee

Had Ikea before, sadly bought elsewhere last time, I can't tell the difference at all in quality. Actually, I prefer deeper Ikea cupboards, internal fittings are readily available and cheap and like previous posters say, you don't have to wait x amount of weeks to get the extras if you want to add or change.
I'll definitely buy Ikea kitchen in my next place, but as always, I'll get better worktop, sink etc. Ikea's carcasses are thicker than most sheds', they are all made of chipboard and mdf so no idea why the sheds are more expensive.

Treen

I've had an Abstrakt white high gloss kitchen, it was fitted about 7 years ago and still looks like new. Its easy to wipe the doors clean and as someone else mentioned before the drawers and cupboards are much deeper than other kitchens. I would definately go for an Ikea kitchen again.
HTH
Treen