New Ikea Kitchen Range - Own goal?

malc_b

Hi,

Maybe it is just that I'm an engineer but the new Ikea kitchen range seems a huge leap backwards to me. I can't say I like any of the styles but what amazes me is that widths are now 20x, that is 20,40,60 doors, 40,60,80 drawers. No 30 or 50 doors. What this means for a U kitchen or any cabinet run that has to fit a wall (i.e. most kitchens I would imagine) is that worse case you have 19cm of cover panel. With 30/50 doors you can reduce that to 9cm. That should be obvious to any engineer.

Boilers are also a candidate for 50cm doors if you want a tidy finish. 60cm doors on wall cupboard are too big. 50cm is more ideal, 40cm a bit narrow unless this 80cm cupboard.

It's a shame because the factum range had some nice styles at good prices. The prices are still keen but if the style is lacking and the fit to existing spaces is now much poorer.

Update:

It gets worse. The door heights are now 20x too. In factum cabinet height was 70cm so you have 70cm door for wall unit or full height floor. A drawer was 12cm so there was also a 58cm door. Legs were 16cm giving a working height of 90cm with a 4cm worktop. New legs are 8cm, plinth is 8cm so worktop height is now 92cm.

Gloomendoom

My great grandma had an impressive kitchen range.

soroco

I hate fitting ikea stuff,they have no service gap behind the back panel.so any pipes running along the wall behind the units are seen inside the unit.also it makes it harder to scribe the units to the wall if the walls are not perfectly straight.Just doesnt make sense to me.

OnePlanOnHouzz

There's a lower plinth height in the new range too - so pipe work needs to be even lower now - I hear your pain about the lack of 30/50's !!
It is what it is - cheap and cheerful and that works for lots and lots of people ! So it will still be popular ! Maybe someone could market a 'custom infill unit' to fill the gaps !!! Would be easy enough !! Royalties this way please !!! Thank you very much !!!

welshblob

Hi Malc_b,
I've just spotted this change and I'm flabbergasted that somebody in Sweden thought this was a good idea. I designed and fitted an Ikea kitchen in 2011 and despite some minor niggles (thinness of cover panels, very thin melamine covering on carcasses) it was a very painless positive process helped by a very experienced staff at the kitchen dept. Due to this Ikea was my go to place for kitchens for my next property.
However this change means that the kitchen I fitted in 2011 would no longer be possible as four of the units were 300mm, two were 1200mm and I also used the 950mm high wall cabinets. The 1000mm high wall cabinets in the metod range would probably be too tall. Therefore I think this is a big mistake for Ikea and I think I'm going to have to look elsewhere when needing a kitchen in future. If they do find their sales dropping due to this then I'm sure it will be fixed.
Rob

charltonjames

I'm glad i've found other people who are concerned about this. I've been spending recent weeks redesigning my kitchen using SketchUp (3D modelling software) and after a number of different layouts, had settled on one i was happy with. With a clear idea of what i was after and after a suggestion from a friend i had decided on an ikea kitchen. I was more than happy with the price and quality of my friends. However when using their kitchen design software i was surprised to find that there was no option available for 300mm or 500mm units. Due to the unique layout of my kitchen, i cant come up with a suitable solution. Up to that point it was good enough a done deal. Buts as it is, it looks like i'll have to start from scratch or possibly look elsewhere. Any suggestions on how i could resolve this issue using the new ikea system would be appreciated.