DIY Kitchen Fitting Any Top Tips

plumpplop

Well our new flat pack kitchen (Homebase) will be delivered Friday and DH and I are taking next week off to fit it.

I'm quite excited but also a bit worried. DH keeps saying it will like putting together IKEA furnitur but on a bigger scale and has bought himself an electrical screwdriver (toy?!) to help.

Any of you got any top tips to help?

I've a feeling that just organisnig all the stuff will probably take a day or two, all those boxes! Do they provide instructions or do you just have to work it out for yourself?

And where do we start? I'm assuming start with base untis in one corner and work your way round and then the wall units. But it did occur to me it might be easier to fit the wall untis before the base units as they will be easier to get to without the base units in the way. what do you think?

We will be getting a Carpenter to fit the worktops and finish off any bits we get stuck with.

As you can see lots of questions, any advice out there would be gratefully recieved.

PP

ashli_2

No advice, but I await replies with bated breath...I intend to do exactly the same in a month or two. Good luck!

edthedead

Strangely enough a kitchen fitter is downstairs fitting our Homebase Kitchen as I type. He fitted the base units first, starting in the corners.

I built the units myself which is actually suprisingly easy!

Good luck!

Penny_Watcher

We fitted our own Ikea kitchen about 5 years ago. It came with a video about which order to do things in. I can't remember now what it said (how very helpful ) but I do remember a lot about using a spirit level to keep everything straight.

From experience

• DON'T RUSH - you're more likely to make a hash of it and have to start undoing stuff.
• Make sure you've measured the spaces properly. I had to hack 10cm of the back of one of our base units because I hadn't measured properly
• Open one box at a time and make sure all the bits are there. Sounds obvious, but we had various bits and pieces missing.
• TRY to stay organised. It can be a recipe for total chaos!!!
  

It's very satisfying when it's finsihed though. Good Luck :beer:

plumpplop

Thnaks for all the good wishes. I feel slightly less scared now. will definitely let you know how we get on!

arealhighlander

Building the kits is easy.

BEFORE you start, get a hold of a spirit level and draw a line around your kitchen area where the units are going in above where the units will go. Use the level will give you a perfectly level line all round - your floor may not necessarily be perfectly flat, so by using this line, you can make sure the tops of all your units will all be the same. Start in the corner and work your way out.

Enjoy!

BobProperty

arealhighlander wrote: »

Building the kits is easy.

BEFORE you start, get a hold of a spirit level and draw a line around your kitchen area where the units are going in above where the units will go. Use the level will give you a perfectly level line all round - your floor may not necessarily be perfectly flat, so by using this line, you can make sure the tops of all your units will all be the same. Start in the corner and work your way out.

Enjoy!

What he says plus make sure it's high enough to get appliances under the worktops after the floor finish is down.

Doozergirl

Good Luck!

I've put together the units before but never actually fit the kitchen as I think a kitchen is made to look expensive by the quality of fitting. If I fit a kitchen, it wouldn't look expensive!

For goodness sake, take your time!

plumpplop

Thought I'd let you all know how we got on.

The units go together really easily, drawers are a bit more tricky and the pull out larder unit took us the best part of a day!

You really need to think things through and work out what needs to be done, I lost count of the number of times we put the fridge into the housing only to find we had forgotten an item and had to get it out again.

Mounting the wall units was tricky as we have plasterboard walls but eventually found the right fixings.

Ther main problem was that despite each of the packs being sealed, when we opened the main corner unit it only had three legs and no bottom. New one is going to be delivered but not until Thursday which is when the Carpenter arrives to do the finishing.

The job which did our heads in was levelling the doors, we've decided to leave this to our Carpenter as we spent ages and still couldn't get it right.

Oh the other major C**K up was totally down to me. My job was to mark up the handle locations and for some reason on one of the large pan drawers I marked it up on the bottom not the top which we only noticed after we had drilled the holes. So we have to order a new drawer front, but with the other mistake above Homebase are not going to charge us.

My top tips from experinece would now be,

1. Get organised and have the right tools, wall fixings, Screwdrivers, sprit level and straight edge.

2. Unpack and construct each unit one at a time and keep all the bits together.

3. Read the instructions and work out wht you're going to do before you start each unit.

On the plus side it is imensely satisfying to look at what we have achieved in just a week (and we're still married!).

Thanks again for your interest and help.

Clare