Ikea kitchen unit doors not as good anymore?

zebidee1

We spent the day in Ikea yesterday looking to buy our kitchen. We had looked at their kitchens about 18months ago but it's taken us this long to actually be ready to buy.

We were really surprised to see a difference in quality between the way the doors used to be and the way they are now. We wanted a wood/wood type kitchen (not foiled/gloss/painted etc) and the wood doors, especially the centre panel seem thinner than before.

There were 3 doors at the door display section that were much more solid, but we were told they had been discontinued and hadn't yet been removed. We got talking to another couple who were looking at the same things we were and they felt the same.

I did wonder if Ikea are downing the spec slightly.

On 2 of the panel type doors we looked at, the centre panel was so thin it was flexing and you could move it in it's frame, albeit slightly. The stronger of the oak doors were vertically grooved and would be a nightmare to wipe sticky fingermarks off, so we couldn't consider that style either.

We came home really disappointed. I know Ikea has it's doubters but I've always liked them and we've had their wardrobes for years and they are are good and as strong as when they were first built.

I think Ikea do a great selection of accessories and kitchen extras and their unit sizes suited us perfectly but the doors were a let down. The other type of doors, like the Nexus slab type for instance seemed stronger, it was just the panel doors that seemed not so good now.

So the kitchen search goes on, out of the MFI Shreiber 'Kelmscott Oak' and the Wickes 'Calgary', does anyone know which is the better quality? I've only actually seen one of them.

I'm resigned now to shelling out more than I'd hoped to but it needs to be for at least half decent quality.

I'm really fed up now.

vansboy

Sorry to see you saying that - we're going to them for our 3rd kitchen, shortly, but it'll be the Faktum white gloss, not wood.

Does their lonnnnnnnnnnng warranty on the kitchens, not apply to wooden doors? They boast about it being longer than it used to be, too.

If you did have problems, at least you'd have a comeback on them.

VB

zebidee1

Doors are not covered under the guarantee (surprise!).

Tbh, it's not the possibility of the doors having possible problems in the future that's putting me off, it's purely the look of them that's the issue.

They look cheap and flimsy (imo), especially when compared to Wickes/Howdens/Mfi doors....or even the older (discontinued but better) Ikea doors when it comes to that.

I also read lots of stuff on the net last night about MFI and how bad their service is especially with regards to kitchens ...parts missing/damaged/late delivery etc...... and I saw a post by an MFI manager who said the company that supplies MFI with the Hygena and Schreiber kitchens is stopping supplying them because of all the problems since MFI has used their new computerised system.

Dont know how true that is obviously, but it's enough to concern me so I think we'll be heading to Wickes after all.

The Ikea gloss doors looked nice and certainly felt better than the wood ones we were after so I'm sure yours will be fine, vb. You'll need to be careful of scratches though, although the displays we saw were nice...if you looked a certain way, the light highlighted all the thousands of little scratches on the doors. They were like skate marks on an ice rink.

I suspect they wont have been cleaned overly carefully in the store though and they will have been subjected to many many hands all over them so it's not like a normal home with normal handling.

davsidipp

i have the tidaholm kitchen just been fitted and can honestly say they do not look cheap.for price wise you cannot beat them.i suppose if you go some where like smallbone you would get top knotch quality but there would be a big difference in price. as for mfi we looked at the kelmscott kitchen and although we thought it was nice we did not think it was worth the price they charge as for their service record no way would i use mfi.

majjie

MFI's Kelmscott is a beautiful kitchen - the doors are inset into frames, that's what makes the difference ... but it isn't cheap even from MFI. If you do go for it, then order the kitchen and make sure you have all the parts before you have the fitter booked. It's a nightmare trying to juggle the parts arriving and booking extra time from the fitter, if you don't have everything there ready for him to fit first time.

Wickes have a better reputation than MFI. I haven't seen their Calgary in the flesh - but it looks good in the pictures. Would you be able to use some curved doors in your kitchen? Without the curves it's a fairly standard oak shaker.

I don't have any quibble with IKEA's quality, although I haven't looked at them recently. What I don't like with the oak doors is the fact that you can see the white carcasses between the doors. This wouldn't be an issue with MFI's Kelmscott because of the frames around the doors - and Wickes, I believe, do coloured edging tape to diguise the front edges of the carcasses.

vansboy

zebidee1 wrote: »

The Ikea gloss doors looked nice and certainly felt better than the wood ones we were after so I'm sure yours will be fine, vb. You'll need to be careful of scratches though, although the displays we saw were nice...if you looked a certain way, the light highlighted all the thousands of little scratches on the doors. They were like skate marks on an ice rink.

I suspect they wont have been cleaned overly carefully in the store though and they will have been subjected to many many hands all over them so it's not like a normal home with normal handling.

agree that care is needed, here.

On the instructions, it says to wash the surfaces, gently, as soon as the protective plaastic film is removed to help the surface harden - bet a few people miss that instruction!

I use a spray on glass cleaner & microfibre cloth, to keep ours looking good & reasonably scratch free!

VB