Ikea Kitchen

takahashi

So after reading a few posts on this forum about the quality of Ikea kitchens, but the PITA designing it can be using the online design facility I decided to ring IKEA to find out about their 'planning service'. Yes they said we offer that, but you have to go to the store to get it.

I drove the 2 hours it takes to get to IKEA (traffic chaos on the M6:mad: ) and spoke to a kind member of the IKEA kitchen staff and requested their planning service....

Be warned, IT'S NOT A F*CKING PLANNING SERVICE, all they do is measure your kitchen, the design is down to you, using their software. So for £80, (some have said £50 on this forum, it's £80) you get the services of someone with a tapemeasure to measure the walls of your kitchen and that's it, no design, just accurate measuring. Great.

I'd like an Ikea kitchen but i'm not confident enough to plan the design, when there's so much hard earned money at risk.

Sorry for the rant.

Tez

blue-kat

I put a self designed ikea kitchen in my last house, and it looked great, lots of nice ikea-y twiddly bits.
but don't think I'd ever buy a whole kitchen from them again, not worth the aggro, repeat visits for extra bits etc. They really messed me around with delivery date.
I don't think their units or prices are that special or different.
The quality of the workmanship in fitting makes a big difference.

Joannaclaire

We went to Homebase and Wickes and saw kitchen planners there and got ideas and printouts and then used these to draw our own the software, modifying a few things as we felt the kitchen designer people put far too many wall units in (makes them more money) than we needed. As our kitchen isn't super big we couldn't go crazy with modern layouts as per the shiny magazines so basically ended up with similar as to what was there before - easier re plumbing and gas, and also limited with regards to layout due to windows and door placement.

The Ikea software is a real pain to use though - seemed very slow and clunky.

rdpro

As Jo says, and I've spotted on other posts, a great way to get through IKEA hell is to get the free designs from other companies hoping for an order, get it printed, then toddle down to IKEA and buy what you need that matches.

Just remember IKEA cabinets are that bit 'deeper', in that they're designed to be flush against the wall rather than about 40mm off to allow for pipework to run behind.

pixelchick10

we did this too -- and are pleased with the kitchen, though our builder moaned quite a lot that he didn't have a "proper" kitchen plan! He just had to be a bit more creative, and more of the supplies/pipes had to be rerouted as there wasn't the space at the back. So we paid a bit more for the fitting, I'm sure. That said, the kitchen looks good and I would buy from them again.