IKEA kitchen fitting - advice needed

[Auntpodder]

I'd love to know about people's experiences with the IKEA kitchen fitting service.

I'm about to redo my (annoyingly small) kitchen after talking about it for years, replacing a 20-year-old Faktum one. Because I'm having to go for slimline everything, I'm looking to put in a mix of IKEA applicances and other ones.

Can the IKEA planning service cope with divergences from the brand? ie - they'll just leave a gap for the oven and I get that fitted separately.

All horror stories, advice and herograms appreciated. Thank you...

Yes you should be fine.
Most appliances will be 600mm or 450mm for your dishwasher.
Bear in mind ikea kitchens may need 650mm worktops if you have drain pipes behind units or your walls aren’t straight and you’re to do it properly.

I wouldn’t recommend their fitting service because you won’t really know who turns up. But from my experience the best kitchen fitter/joiners will not be subcontracting for IKEA.

Find a kitchen fitter through recommendations from friends and family. See their work beforehand.
A good kitchen fitter will make a cheap kitchen look very expensive.

As long as the oven / appliance / unit width and depth matches one which is provided for in the planning software then yes - and generally they do, because appliances mostly tend to be standardised sizes. We kept our integrated non-Ikea fridge freezer and dishwasher because they were nearly new and just had the carcass designed to fit and it was fine. They can also build in dead space coverage. Just make sure you have exact measurements of the appliances you’re intending to install.

Thank you both - that's really useful. And the best fitters not being IKEA ones makes perfect sense including the 650mm counter factor. I bumped into a neighbour this morning who strongly recommended her fitter (and invited me round to see what he'd done with her kitchen.)