Ikea kitchen experience

[daffodilandtulip]

Really shocked by a B&Q quote of £15k for a 14 unit kitchen. I added all the same units and appliances to a basket and it came to £4k. Obviously I may have missed a few bits but still, is installation really that much?

I've done the same with ikea and my basket comes to around £3k. I've an appt with them tomorrow...am I going to be given the same kind of price?

I've read lots of threads that suggest ikea is surprisingly good quality, but any experience either way is welcome! (Or any other companies to try that won't require a second mortgage!)

I had an IKEA kitchen and was very happy with it. When I had mine done I had to try a few fitters to find one who would do IKEA. The cupboards run right to the back of the wall, so pipes need to either be chased, or run at skirting board level.
After about five years the plinths started to look fairly shabby, but I suspect that's an issue in all but high-end kitchens.

We went for ikea and was really pleased with the whole process. Prices are a lot more transparent than the other places, and we got it fitted by them too. Put our own handles on the cabs to personalise it a little bit too.

10 cab kitchen with quartz worktop plus fitting came in at 7k in 2020.

I had one for 15 years in my last house and it’s got years left in it, new owners say they’ve no plans to change it

We used B&Q plus an independent fitter that charged 1.5k

The quote from ikea breaks down the exact fitting costs. So eg. 1x low unit is £50 fitting, 1x tall unit is £75 etc. Not those prices but ykwim.

I had a quote for a bit of a kitchen- £1800 for the kitchen bits and £600 for the fitting.

Kitchen is great,but it took over a year and 4 lots of their own fitters,and in the end we had to finish it ourselves as they said that they could do it.
We had 3 faulty island worktops sent,each progressively more damaged than the last,the wrong size drawers,inserts,glass sides ect. Customer services are totally incompetent and unhelpful,they outright lied to me and said they'd ordered a replacement worktop when they hadn't,we were sent stuff that we had never ordered and it was claimed that we'd been in-store and ordered it when we live 40 miles away and hadn't been near the store. We did have to take the wrong stuff back ourselves for a refund, because they refused to collect it. It was an absolute shambles and I wasted days either on the phone or emailing to try and sort out the issues caused entirely by them. I had over 30 pages of emails back and forth trying to resolve issues and get my kitchen finished. It took 13 months to get it completed,and as I said earlier,my non practical rubbish at DIY husband ended up finishing it.

I have an IKEA kitchen and I absolutely love it. It’s been in for 4.5 years and I couldn’t be happier. I went for drawers on the bottom and I can fit so much in them.
The kitchen cost just over £4K and then I paid about £1500 for fitting from a local kitchen fitter.
Do not get their appliances though. They are not good!

@Sparklynewname I was literally just researching this! Did you find it easy to find appliances that fitted?

@vickyc90 I was wondering if this would be easy to do. Did you find that you got all the fiddly bits right yourselves, to get the same finish?

@ValBiro sounds good! Did this include appliances?

@daffodilandtulip sadly you are benefitting from my experience! I didn’t know that IKEA appliances are not made by them so paid vastly inflated prices for IKEA as their stuff is usually such good quality it lasts forever lol

Screaming nightmare to deal with. Impossible to get hold of them, each design appointment they had to fix a mistake by previous designer. We gave up eventually!

@Ginflinger oh no! That's worrying. I wonder if it's certain stores that are better than others, as there are a few horror stories but some great stories too. Mind you saying that, I had Wickes for both kitchen and bathroom years ago. Kitchen took a few days and bathroom took nearly a year. I suppose big companies all have a few horror stories, sadly.

@daffodilandtulip Only a 4 ring induction hob - we bought separate white goods but have heard really good reviews of Ikea appliances... Slight regret here as our brand new Hotpoint dishwasher, oven and washing machine have all been problematic!

@Ginflinger what a shame you had that experience! Our planner was brilliant - really patient (I think I went in for about 6 appointments!) And she had lots of clever ideas and advice that I hadn't thought of despite my extensive reading and research (including that brilliant "lessons learnt" Mumsnet thread!)

Ours was planned at Wembley.

@TheFnozwhowasmirage didn't read this before my last post - wow so service can be really hit and miss! That is a dreadful experience and genuinely the opposite of the one I had! I guess this can happen with most companies?

Absolutely love mine.
Designed it myself on their online planner (which is a bit of a pain to use) ordered it online and hired a van to collect as it was much quicker that way.
Used a local chippy who is experienced in fitting them - basically you have to have a square floor and walls or it's a bit tricky. My walls were pissed so we just fixed cement board to the walls and attached units then tiles from there
The ikea stretchy tap is great, I got a sink and the quartz worktops elsewhere for better price. Re used my applicances
The units are HUGE and look fab. I like the fact that I could always change the doors if I fancied an update.

We had our old Ikea kitchen for 10 years and it wore really well, just had a new one fitted at the end of last year and I love it.

Planned myself using the old-style online planner, which they've just replaced (but I did spend hours and hours on it...) and fitted by my own builder. We have Ikea carcasses and internal fittings, with Shaker Doors (Foxstow) fronts, who were amazing.

Got our taps, sink, handles, worktops and appliances elsewhere with the exception of the Ikea Vinterkall fridge freezer which I absolutely love, it's about twice the internal capacity of our old integrated one (or seems it anyway!) but only 83cm wide. We also raised the units slightly to allow room for plinth drawers underneath (Ikea plinths are 80mm and ours are 120mm).

The carcasses are really solid and the choice of internal fittings is brilliant, we have drawers within drawers to maximise the storage space and I love how deep the cupboards are. You will need a good fitter to ensure the build quality of course, but for us the key was versatility and the ability to make something really unique.

I had my ups and downs with the customer service; the ordering was great, really helpful planner at Wembley, and delivery of the units was fine, but we did have a bit of a nightmare with one of the subcontractors they used to deliver the fridge.

Otherwise though I'd 100% recommend them, the kitchens themselves are excellent.

We struggled to find a fitter who would touch an IKEA kitchen. A few fitters said they fall apart when putting them together and are bad quality. We got quotes from DIY kitchens and onlinekitchenstore both gave us good quotes. Went with OKS and absolutely brilliant experience and great kitchen. Our fitter said it was the best kitchen he's ever fit!

We have an IKEA kitchen. 4 years old. Cupboards themselves are great however front are dreadful. We are a careful family but they have split several times.

We're a long way from IKEA (I know we have a guarantee on the fronts) but having already gone out twice and replaced twice we realise we can't keep doing this.

We're gong to replace the fronts.

@Zinnia nice to hear of a recent fit going well too. Can I ask how much the fit added to the price?

@Zinnia never mind, I've just seen you for your own builder. It does seem like this is a popular way. I'm tempted to see if I can do it!

I had a kitchen planned from IKEA. The kitchen price and the price of their own fitters seemed reasonable. Then the fitters came for a survey and added £K onto the the fitting quote for electrics and tiling.

So did you go with it or is it possible to steal the design and order and use your own fitter? I only need electrics like for like, nothing moving.

We've got one. Really happy with it, and especially love the worktop and double ceramic sink. We planned ours ourselves, then went though it with someone in store. We put the carcasses together and then had the kitchen fitted by a professional. That saves lots of money.

Iirc, there's something a bit fiddly if you go with a different brand of dishwasher - something to do with the hinges on the door. We went with an IKEA one (it's whirlpool) and it's been fine.