Ikea Kitchen - ideas please

pokey128

Hi
I have one of the 21% off vouchers for an ikea kitchen to be used by 4th May. Me and my OH have used the online planner thing and designed what we think it should look like but am looking for ideas and helpful hints from you guys of what to avoid and what are essentials for a kitchen.

Also, any questions that you would recommend asking the guys in Ikea when we go??

Thanks in advance!

Joannaclaire

We're in the same boat re the voucher. We really need to crack on with it this weekend so we can go in next week and buy it. I get the impression from our local ikea that they give very little advice or help re design (annoyingly).

I borrowed several kitchen books from the library, bought a couple of kitchen and ideal homes mags. It all depends on the size of your kitchen and how you use it. Ie do you need space for a washing machine, table etc.

Basically we're having the sink and cooker in the same places as it will be cheaper and also makes sense layout wise (annoyingly as I was hoping for something a bit more modern but it just won't work in the space we have). But we are having a wall-mounted oven, 2 or 3 big tall cupboards. One for pantry (I hate storing food in little wall cupboards or scrambling on my knees to look in base cupboards), the other for brooms and the vacuume cleaner and hopefully the third for er stuff like finger paint, lunchboxes and other child related gear. Also we're having a breakfast bar bit with units underneath except for the end near the wall, where the washing machine will hide ina void bit. Or at least that's my current plan.

Main tips off the top of my head - don't have appliances in corners. Make sure you can open doors and drawers in corners - use spacing bits. There are some tips on the ikea website too. Also there's the zones thing - so food stored in one area, cooking gear in another, plates and cups near washing up facilities, food preparation area not too far from food storage and crockery etc.

babyangel10

Only a small piece of advice from me - Ikea (and MFI for those who wish to know!) now do a plinth drawer, so rather than having just a plinth along the length of the units you can have 1 or a selection of drawers for all those 'want to hide, but do use' type of things.

I believe it's about £16 and it's part of their 'Rationell' range, but AFAIK it's only in a 60cm size so won't fit under smaller or larger units.

I'm going to be planning a kitchen v. soon too, so will watch this thread with interest!

HTH

babyangel10

Oh, and definitely have a look at other stores kitchen books for ideas - B&Q, Wickes, Homebase, Magnet, MFI etc etc

MFI do a free planner too I think, so might be worth sitting through their sales patter to bag yourself some other ideas!

pokey128

Thanks!!
By plinth drawer (sorry for being stupid!) do you mean on that goes right at floor level?? What a great idea!!!

Kevstir

we have one of those Rationell drawers but its not for under the plinth its for under the over.

you can see the front of it in this picture (still work in progress), its well handy for the oven trays.



For the planning i would get them out, costs £50 but you get that back after you buy the kitchen, the planners that come out to you house dont use the crappy ikea planner, they use a proper 3d cad program, look at the pic below and the one above, turned out ok



The only bad point about the Ikea kitchens is there stupid brackets for attaching the wall units to the wall, there's not much adjustment in them, and as they are flat backed you have to make sure your wall are pretty much flat, its not put me off going with them again though, i'll just by the proper brackets from screwfix the next time.

ferrarigirlie

If you only have a small kitchen, remember you can use ikea wall cabinets as base cabinets as you buy the legs seperately, we did this on one side of the kitchen and we have a lot more room as well as cupboards that are the right size for saucepans, pots, toastie machine etc

When we did ours (ikea nottingham) they were very helpful and tweaked what we already had, we also had ours fitted by them (highly recommended) and you get a designer that comes out and will give you ideas to make the design better, hope this helps.

ic

I've just ordered my kitchen using the voucher. I've found its very hit and miss as to how helpful the staff are. I'd been planning mine for weeks, and have been back to the store several times and spoken with eight or nine of them. Some staff are genuinely interested in helping, others just want to copy your plan on to their booking system and see the back of you.

I've opted not to order my worktop from them, and instead I'm going to get one from either B&Q or Homebase. Homebase do a style I like for £50 a piece, B&Q do a similar one which has an etched, touchy-feely surface for £100. I haven't decided if its worth double yet...

Two days after ordering and paying, I've received a copy of the order from their distribution centre - I ordered on the 24th April, my kitchen will be in stock on the 25th May and will be delivered within the two weeks after that. All fine by me, I've plenty of preparation work to do anyway.

A few things I learned (like I say, depends who you talk to as to what they'll tell you):
- The slimline dishwasher occupies a space 50cm wide - not 45cm as the planner seems to think. So if you want one, plan it in by putting a 50cm cupboard in.
- The planner only gives you four legs for the 90cm corner base unit, request an extra pack of legs when you order.
- If you want one of the cooker hoods that is built into a fan cabinet, then you'll need an extra wall cabinet end panel, which is chopped in half and installed on the two uncovered parts of the cabinets either side beneath the fan.
- Although the planner lets you plan in filler pieces, it won't actually order them for you. You basically use trimmed pieces of plinth or doors to fit - remember to add these on.
- There is no option for soft close doors on the planner. These cost £4 a pair - you can use either one or two per cupboard. One gives you the soft close action, two protects the cupboard from being slammed shut by kids. You need the buffers in addition to the usual hinges. Drawers are only available as soft close.
- The planner might well show the wire baskets in the corner cupboards, but it doesn't actually order them for you. Remember to ask for them!
- If you want anything from the showroom (chopping boards, knife racks, soft close hinges, bins, handles, etc), let the assistant know so they can add them to your order, otherwise you won't get the discount when you turn up at the till.
- The planner doesn't have all of the cupboards. Look at the back of the kitchen catalogue for details of everything they do - for example a neat idea is a wall mount cabinet that goes above the sink with a built in drainer. As you wash you just put everything wet into the cupboard, and it drips down on to the sink below.
- Many of the cheaper taps (less that £65) are not available and cannot be ordered due to supplier issues. I wound up opting for the Alsvik pull out tap instead of the one without the pull out bit. Basically I either paid them £80 for that (after discount), or £150+ for a tap I didn't like elsewhere...
- The cost of having the entire kitchen delivered from their distribution centre is £40 - this is discounted to £31.60 by the voucher! If you decide to shop in store and then have it delivered, you'll have to pay the instore price which varies depending on how much you're spending (£80+ for an order over £1000) - but you will get it within a few days, rather than weeks.

pokey128

Thanks for all the advice guys.
We are going tomorrow to meet with a kitchen person so will try and get plans all sorted today.

I wish now that I had had them come round and plan it for us but never mind!

Great tips there ic - didn't think about getting a worktop from somewhere else- are ikea really expensive for them then?

Re the dishwasher - is it just Ikea ones that are 50cm rather than 45 or is that all slimlines do you think?

ic

I think that is for the integrated dishwasher. I was told you need a 50cm door to cover it (I didn't think to look at how they were installed in the showroom - though I do remember the door being wider than the metal door behind it of the washer itself).

The Ikea tops in my opinion are cheap looking. I've opted for their Askome Ash cupboards, which is the top of the range for Ikea, but the worktops they do just don't do them justice. I wanted a black/dark coloured top and had the option of either the £45 pragel stone, or £90 numerar. Both look like they cost that much. Other worktops look OK, but I wasn't after them!

When you're in the showroom they'll have a long run of all the worktops and all the doors. You can lift out the worktops and slot them in above the doors you want - don't be frightened to experiment to find the combination you want. There are no signs to tell you that you can do that!

I did ask about the custom fit ones, but when they planned it my 4m worktop would have come to £440 (for the cheapest option). For that price I can buy a better work top elsewhere and get a guy in to fit it for me! Also note that for the custom work tops they won't tell you what size you need, as they cannot advise you and guarantee that they're right - once they've cut it in the factory, they won't help you!

babyangel10

pokey128 wrote: »

Thanks!!
By plinth drawer (sorry for being stupid!) do you mean on that goes right at floor level?? What a great idea!!!

Hi, yes they go where the plinth normally goes at floor level - very much like the under oven drawers that Kevstir mentioned, but can go under any 60cm unit.

Although it's not very well advertised (well not in the Notts branch anyway) and I saw it under some built in lounge furniture rather than kitchen units. It does work in the kitchen though - I'll try and find a link if I can...:)