DIY kitchens -v- IKEA

[maldivemoment]

We had originally planned on DIY kitchens but our budget is disappearing fast. Plus with 2 small children & living in Scotland, getting to the showroom proving tricky.

Soooooo, plan B is looking likely. Kitchen from Ikea.

Wondering if anyone bought/installed an Ikea kitchen recently? We’ll be doing the fitting ourselves. Any words of wisdom?

Thank you

Hellooooooooo 📢

Anyone??? 😆

Have you fitted a kitchen before…

Almost finished a complete house renovation. Kitchen is the last room to be done. So although we’ve not fitted a kitchen we’ve done pretty much everything else. We ripped out the whole interior & rebuilt it.
Not daunted by doing the kitchen ourselves although I’ve heard elsewhere that joiners/kitchen fitters are not a fan of Ikea.

My friend bought an Ikea kitchen but paid someone to fit it. It’s lovely and looks great.

Thank you @Purplecatshopaholic 😊

I'm just planning a utility and have had an IKEA kitchen planner cost it up and then drawn up a similar design with DIY kitchens. There was barely anything in it - DIYK came in about £100 more but had a much wider range of unit sizes and colours. Plus the DIYK one comes ready assembled.

Are IKEA cabinets not ready assembled? If so I’d definitely go with DIY.

DH and I are currently fitting an ikea kitchen (Metod) Flat pack. Instructions are easy to follow( well I read them and tell him what to do step by step😂).Fortunately due to the layout which we are not changing we can do a couple of units at a time. We will however find a fitter to cut the worktops for the sink and hob as we don’t have the skills or tools to ensure a neat edge. The units are significantly better quality than the old Howden units. The more difficult bits have been moving electric sockets to where we want them and cutting backs of units to accommodate pipe work.

I desperately need a new kitchen but am an idiot about how it all works. Can you give the IKEA plan to DIY kitchens and they will advise on which units to choose?

I’ve fitted two ikea kitchens. Building the cabinets is easy. Levelling them is hard if you’re in an old building with wonky walls and floors, but doable. If you’re in a house with straight walls and floors it’ll be much more straightforward. IKEA will take back any parts you need to swap and getting extra bits if you realise you want to change something is so easy. Their drawers are good and hold a lot of weight.

I got a carousel which has started to stick while spinning after a couple of years, but I haven’t taken everything out of the cupboard to see what’s wrong yet. In the old flat I had a pull-out carousel which was brilliant and showing no issues nearly ten years later when we moved out. Both ikea, maybe we just got unlucky with the current one or maybe something has got into the mechanism. It’s not bothering me enough to unload the whole thing.

You want your pipes to be at ground level rather than running behind the cabinets as they don’t have a cavity behind them for pipework.

Fitters don’t like IKEA because they have to move the pipes - it means more work. Plus they can’t add a mark-up to the kitchen price because the pricing is completely transparent.

Second everything @MaryLennoxsScowl said, bit of a pain fitting on wonky walls but quality wise we've found ours fine, now 6 years old. We're moving house and gutting the new place, going to be fitting another IKEA kitchen ourselves, quite excited tbh 👍🏼

That’s so weird - my DH and I were having a conversation on EXACTLY this subject this morning!

We’ve seen it from both sides very recently - we just had a new kitchen from DIY, which DH planned and installed himself. Great quality, units arrive ready made, extremely happy with final outcome.

DH has also just fitted a friend’s IKEA kitchen - he says it was a nightmare to do - as their units are designed for the European market, he said that things just don’t fit correctly to integrate with UK appliances, fittings, taps etc.

Would definitely use DIY again.
We bought the units from there, but appliances, worktops, taps etc elsewhere.
And cupboard handles! Saved a fortune by buying them on Amazon!

We bought an Ikea kitchen in 2014 and it still looks as good as it did when we had it fitted. We obviously shopped around and Ikea offered the best value and their service was brilliant. I like that the price you see is what you pay unlike other suppliers like Wren etc. We were happy to build the cabinets as that made it cheaper. Based on our experience, I would definitely recommend.

DIY for me. Much more like a bespoke finish

I’ve fitted louds of Ikea kitchens on my own. Just need a bit of help with white goods ie for the heavy lifting.

Instructions are easy to follow and even plumbing instructions for sinks are really good

As long as you lay everything out exactly as the diagrams show you and follow the instructions it’s not difficult at all

Heres the last one I did

ps. Noticed a poster mentioning problems with integrating appliances. I never had this. The sizes are all standard

No they are all flat packed

Thank you everyone for your responses. Very much appreciated.

I’ve got an Ikea kitchen and agree the drawers are great as they pull out all the way. I only compared to b&q which were much shallower.

Still going strong after 25 years.

The pull out larder is brilliant next to my oven. And my white goods fitted fine.

Yeah, I didn’t buy ikea appliances but had no issues connecting IKEA taps to British plumbing. Used their taps in kitchen and bathroom. I did buy a £40 bathroom sink I wouldn’t buy again as the ceramic scratched, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected quality for £40.

I've just fitted a very large kitchen, it was mostly ready assembled but I added a couple of Ikea units for the extra ovens I got. The ready assembled was an ex-display kitchen that I got for 25% or retail price.

I have to say that if you can manage ready assembled I would. The Ikea units (method) were fine, but definitely flimsier than the ready assembled, and I don't think the quality of the hardware is brilliant. Good enough and looks fine, but wouldn't be my first choice for a whole kitchen.

Thank you @CatherinedeBourgh
Could I please ask where you sourced your kitchen?

We had an IKEA kitchen in our old house and it was absolutely brilliant. The quality of the cabinets was far higher than that in our new house with a far more expensive kitchen. The IKEA units come with a 25 year guarentee and there was a huge choice of widths and drawers.

I really liked the straightforward pricing. No stupid commission, just list prices. We used their fitters and had no problems - the fitters were contractors who also fitted for John Lewis.

I would focus more on the material than the brand. MDF kitchen cupboards tend to show signs of rot after 5+ years.

I had a kitchen from IKEA, it started too look shabby about 5 years in. We had it fitted by IKEA I really wouldn't recommend that- our wall mounted cupboard fell off the wall, the guy that came out to look at it said it had not been fitted properly, the mounting screws were only just strong enough to hold the weight of the empty cupboard, so once it was holding cups, glasses etc it was insufficient. When the cupboard fell it hit and injured my mum, it would have possibly done a lot worse to one of my kids if they'd been in the room at the time. IKEA didn't really care. I personally wouldn't buy another kitchen from them.