Tell me about IKEA kitchens

[disneyandme]

I read so many posts about IKEA kitchens. Tell me more about it-- quality, cost, ease, durability. Thanks.

 

[kisaacs]

Well, in a nutshell, they're great quality, lots of choices, great hardware, and easy to install.

Hardware - their hardware is made by Blum, which is known for quality. They have soft close drawers and doors at very reasonable prices. Their drawers are huge and hold tons of weight (all our dishes and bowls are in one drawer, for example)

Choices - I think they have 15+ different styles you can choose from, or mix and match. Also, if you want to change them out in 10 years, you'll probably just be able to buy new doors/cover panels

Install - instead of being a fixed kickplate, they're on adjustable legs that you clip the kickplate too. This means that levelling them is much easier. No shims required. Additionally, the uppers are hung on a rail. This means that you don't have to worry if your cabinet doesn't hit a stud. You level the rail, screw it into the studs, and then hang the cabinets. All this makes it much easier for a DIY'er to do it.

Oh, and cost. They're pretty reasonable, though I haven't done one in a while, so I can't speak directly to it. If you're really interested in it, go over to ikeafans.com. It's a board much like this one that focuses primarily on IKEA kitchens. They can answer all you questions, and answered lots of mine!

 

[wendow]

We are looking at doing an IKEA kitchen when we re-do ours here in the next 1-2 years. Everything the pp said is true. The IKEA cabinets also come with a pretty good warranty that iirc, is like 20 or 25 years.

 

[teCh0010]

You may want to check out the garden web kitchen forums, lot's of good info there on Ikea.

 

[wiigirl]

Well, in a nutshell, they're great quality, lots of choices, great hardware, and easy to install.

Hardware - their hardware is made by Blum, which is known for quality. They have soft close drawers and doors at very reasonable prices. Their drawers are huge and hold tons of weight (all our dishes and bowls are in one drawer, for example)

Choices - I think they have 15+ different styles you can choose from, or mix and match. Also, if you want to change them out in 10 years, you'll probably just be able to buy new doors/cover panels

Install - instead of being a fixed kickplate, they're on adjustable legs that you clip the kickplate too. This means that levelling them is much easier. No shims required. Additionally, the uppers are hung on a rail. This means that you don't have to worry if your cabinet doesn't hit a stud. You level the rail, screw it into the studs, and then hang the cabinets. All this makes it much easier for a DIY'er to do it.

Oh, and cost. They're pretty reasonable, though I haven't done one in a while, so I can't speak directly to it. If you're really interested in it, go over to ikeafans.com. It's a board much like this one that focuses primarily on IKEA kitchens. They can answer all you questions, and answered lots of mine!

 

[sightcrr]

We started the complete rip out to the studs in Feb 2013 and finished Sept 2013 with a temporary sink for much of that. About 10x12 kitchen.

Seventeen cabinets came in 177 packages and some pieces were backordered. Here are some tips.
Find out when they go on sale and be ready to order then. We were happy with their software design and help with ordering.
We had them pull the list and deliver them. One of the best $100 we spent. They put them right where I wanted them. Then I carried them in for install 1 piece at a time that I could lift. I used a hyd car jack to lift the uppers into place and easy using the rail system. Check the as-is dept for what you need. We did get the walls ready, upper railing, bases, countertops, backsplash, uppers. They have so many sizes almost every size kitchen will work if you fiddle long enough. Our stainless steel countertops and backsplash cost more than the cabinets.
I don't think any pieces were missing from the boxes and the extras that we thought we would want but didn't were easy to return. We are very happy.

 

[kellia]

They are awesome! We re-did our kitchen last Thanksgiving weekend. The cabinets were done in the weekend. Since we totally moved everything else around, other things took a bit longer. But, wasn't as horrible as I'd thought. I put together all of the cabinets (even my 9 year old was helping me), dh put them in. The first couple cabinets are a little slow, but then they're all basically the same. He loved the rail system for the upper cabinets.

The big drawers and corner slide-outs are awesome!! We got Adel, and I can't tell you how amazing the finish on them is. Kids are constantly dripping and leaving stuff on the white fronts, but when I find it later it just wipes right off. Haven't had any scuff or scratch marks, either, and my family is a zoo!

We've gotten lots of compliments on them.

 

[pryncess527]

Ditto the other posters, I LOVE my Ikea kitchen! I swear, having drawers for my pots and pans has made such a huge difference. They have lots of great options and are really affordable. I can't speak much to the installation, I had a pro do that for me -- but we've had our kitchen for about 5 years now and I love it.

 

[Robinrs]

I think of this everytime I hear about Ikea!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVMO13CTsj4

 

[Teresa Pitman]

We redid my kitchen with Ikea cabinets nearly two years ago now and I am so happy with it.

The old kitchen was very small, but we had an open concept main floor so I was able to more than double the size. I really liked that I was able to design it to be just what I wanted on my computer, then take that into the store to get all the components.

Some things I really like:
-I have two pull-out wire drawers in one of my lower cabinets. I use these for my storage containers - it's easy to pull them out and find just the size you want and the lid.
-I have three low pantry pull-outs and three drawers that make up a baking area for me. Each of the pantry pull-outs has three parts: a shallow top drawer (that I use for spices), a larger middle drawer (that I use for smaller containers of baking ingredients such as baking powder, cornstarch, cocoa), and a large bottom drawer that I use for the biggest containers (sugar, flour, oatmeal, etc.). Of the three drawers, the top has measuring spoons and measuring cups and the next two have baking dishes (muffin pans, pie plates, etc.). This makes baking so simple and easy because everything is right at hand.
-I have a breakfast bar that seats five (and also gives me a big food prep area)
-I have two large, deep drawers for pots and pans. LOVE these.
-I have a low window next to the stove, and it was easy to put in a cabinet low enough to fit under that window. I use this one to store my appliances (food processor, bread machine, slow cooker, mixer) and cookie sheets.
- I have six little grandchildren who visit frequently and the finish has held up really well - it's very easy to just wipe it clean.

I remember my old tiny and inefficient kitchen and I just wish I had done this earlier!

TP