Ikea kitchen owners, I need your help! (Urgently!)

[whiskyowl]

As many of you will have read, through my saga of woe, I'm having an Ikea kitchen fitted.

This kitchen involves cover panels.

My builder is refusing to cut any of the cover panels, because he says water will penetrate them and they will expand/blow.

The whole design of the kitchen is based on them being cut.

I rang the Ikea kitchen installation team, and they said to cut and seal the edge with PVA.

The builder is adamant that they will blow if we do this.

Can anyone who has had an Ikea kitchen for a while give me advice? Did you cut the cover panels? If you did, have they been OK?

I need to sort this out before tomorrow morning, so help/advice/hand-holding appreciated.

magicstar - that is really helpful, especially the picture inside. It looks more solid than I had thought.

clara - thank you! I'm thinking we might be able to get around this if I tell him to silicone the cut surfaces. Builder says he's fitted a ton of kitchens, but I really have my doubts now because I can't imagine doing that and not cutting a panel.

doinit - I think you are right, it probably is a case of unfamiliarity, sadly! Your story about the sacrificial mosaics made me laugh!!

They're installing in a new extension, onto fresh plaster. The plan was given to them at the start, it's been set in stone for months. They have put all the services where they need to go. I don't understand why these problems are arising now. I just feel like the builder really doesn't want to do this work. It's too late to get Ikea's fitting service now, sadly, because they will only work from flatpack and the cupboards have been put together. By me. Slaving all weekend.

The baseboards won’t blow as they’re made of a flexible plastic. They stand up to no end of mopping.

You guys are the best. I feel like I have my ducks in line to go in tomorrow with some knowledge, instead of being bamboozled.

I am having to manage the entire build, and I have reached a point of exhaustion and despair. I've had no kitchen since October. Your help and encouragement has got me back on my feet!

If, if, it all really gets too much with the builder, and you are reasonably handy, Ikea kitchens can easily be fitted yourself. Get them to connect plumbing and electrics and put it together yourself, how you want it.

Also have cut end pieces. Never even thought about. Are fine.

DP works at Ikea in the kitchens department. He says your builder is talking crap about the end panels.

He said cutting 20mm is very hard to do, put a cover panel on the end of the unit and it will fill 15mm of the gap.

Well, I put on my big girl pants and talked to the builder about it.

He's going to cut the panels! Hooray! Mumsnet victory!

To be fair, he's been great so far. A really helpful, reasonable guy. It's just this one thing that has been a bit contentious.

I will report back and let you all know what happens!

Great! Just make sure he puts masking tape on the panel when he's marking and cutting it...will stop any breakout of the gloss covering.

Best of luck!

Our kitchen is howdens but our end panels were cut!

Good luck 😀

bax - clearly proving the rule that Howdens kitchens are the only ones that are cuttable .

Yours is gorgeous, btw, you must be so pleased!

I'm sure a howdens and Ikea kitchen are the same quality though? I imagine our builders like to take a risk 😂 I'm not worried about blowing anyway!

Ah thanks we're very pleased thanks!

I am glad you got his sorted.

My Ikea kitchen has been in for 3 /2 years, I have a similar situation to you, but I have a built in extractor fan inside an Ikea fan cupboard rather than your stand alone one.

So the units run like this - wall cupboard then shorter fan cupboard then wall cupboard. The two wall cupboards have their sides exposed for about half their height. These needed cover panels.

I have 2 vertical cover panels that butt up against the fan cupboard, cladding the sides of the two wall units either side of the hob. Then I have the decor strip running round the bottom of the wall cupboards.

I cook pasta and use pans pretty much daily producing a lot of steam, my cover panels have never blown.

I know for a fact that the kitchen fitter used pva to seal the sink cut out, I don't know about the panels, I assume he did the same but he may not.

I also had to return a larder cover panel as we could fill the gap using a plinth. The cost difference was astonishing. Howdens charge £300 for that larder cover panel, Ikea charge £50.

giraffes - that is a brilliant, and clear, explanation of your kitchen - not an easy thing to achieve, as I have discovered on this thread! Hats off to you!

Your set up sounds exactly like mine, and I am really, really relieved to hear that it works for you and you've had no problems. I am going to have cover panels on the underside of the wall units either side of the extractor, and I have been worrying that these will blow with the steam from the hob. It's deeply reassuring to know that this hasn't happened to you with any of the panels around yours!

bax - I don't know about quality because I don't have much of a yardstick. I have had a series of truly atrocious kitchens in previous properties, including one that had been imaginatively Artexed on the front of the cupboards (yes really). I can confirm that the Ikea doors look better than that, however

My husband has fitted for Howdens, Wren, KitchenHaus, MFi (back jn the day) B and Q and has fitted Ikea. They're all much of a muchness regarding quality.

So happy this has all worked out. Steam won't blow your panels Op. you'll be fine!

clara - I'm glad to hear that he installs Ikea as well, because I've had so much resistance to the idea from fitters! And I don't really understand why!

I think @DoinItForTheKids makes a really good point upthread about the level of complaining there is for anything non-standard. I've had one kitchen fitter flat refuse to fit an Ikea kitchen. The builder complains about it constantly. The only rational reason they can give is that the plumbing works a bit differently - cue dark mutterings about how we will need to "ruin" the cupboards by cutting through them. However, when I made up the sink base unit at the weekend, lo and behold there is a big cutout in the back to let all of the pipes in and out! The kitchen is going into a new build extension, and the plumbing has been cited with the Ikea design in mind, so I can't really understand the issue unless it simply is a lack of familiarity.

I'm also having issues because I need a 20mm cover strip to hide a gap, and Ikea cover panels are 15mm wide. However, they do a deco strip that is 20mm sideways on, so I suggested the builder just uses that. You'd think I'd suggested that we re-engineered my car for a trip to the moon - "If you start departing from the ways things are supposed to be done, you'll just get knock-on problems" I was told!!! It's literally using one piece at right angles to normal, that's it!!