Has anyone put in an Ikea Kitchen

[The empressof all]

I am preparing to do a remodel of a small kitchen. I hadn't thought about using Ikea but a friend dragged me down there and you know...They are kind of nice and you get a whole lot of bang for your buck. I would use their design and install services as I am just not "designy" enough to feel like I know what I am doing on my own. I also really don't want to spend countless hours agonizing over this which if left to my own devices is what would happen.

I downloaded their kitchen design tool and SO and I fiddled around with it for an hour and got frustrated....That's how incompetent we are with this kind of stuff.

So will the Ikea process drive me insane? Should I just forget it and go with a kitchen contractor.

[d_r]

1. No I haven't

but I think it would be fun

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I did and I'm quite happy with it.

I got an estimate for new cabinets from a contractor and it totally busted my budget, so I went to IKEA and got pretty much what I wanted at about 1/3 of what the contractor would have charged. I had a horrible old kitchen completely redone, and the carpenter who was doing the work also hung the cabinets (I helped assemble them, which wasn't very hard). You would want help with this because they are heavy and it's hard to hang them straight. The other thing about not getting custom cabinets is that you have to figure out exactly what will fit where, and you can get spacers in case the fit isn't exact. I used their design tool and it took a little fiddling but I eventually did get the hang of it. I used those drawings to buy the pieces and printed them out for the carpenter to put the kitchen together.

Here's what I ended up with:

[snappyturtle]

3. Beautiful! Love the kitty too. I have bought a lot of stuff

from IKEA (not cabinets) and have been very satisfied.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. The kitty is not an IKEA product, although

IKEA does have a cool ad that features cats.

[snappyturtle]

5. That was super...thank you! Spent lots of time in the

mlps./Bloomington, MN Ikea....I live a long way from one now...miss
it...so again, thanks.

[Worried senior]

11. That is very nice.

I live in a mobile home and while the kitchen isn't horrible the cabinets are the cheapest things you could find so I'd really love this.

[Warpy]

8. That's my kind of kitchen

White cabinets, dark counters, white appliances. I like the kitty, too.

I've been able to adapt to a lot of remarkably bad kitchens, my present one included. One thing I can't do without is a landing area next to the stove for a cutting board. Everything else is optional.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I hate stainless steel. It's expensive and it shows fingerprints.

And it's fashionable - which means that someday it won't be. Give me plain old white any day. Also, my kitchen is on the north side of the house so I wanted lots of white. Otherwise it would have been too dark and gloomy.

I also agree about counter space next to the stove - got to have some. The old kitchen had almost none, and it was a PITA.

[Warpy]

10. Exactly, chalk me up as a stainless hater, too

because my fridge magnets wouldn't stick to a lot of it and I love my fridge magnets, especially the one my mother had that's an embroidered "Screw the Golden Years!" I also hate dark cabinets compensated for by department store lighting. I always think people who fall for that shit are people who order out a lot.

[enough]

6. My daughter did it, by herself (no installer), had a lot of fun, and the place looks beautiful.

Also, all the drawers and doors work well, feel solid.

[Laurian]

7. My sister did. It looks beautiful and she loves it.

I think she had Ikea install the cabinets, but she had another contractor do her granite countertops and tile backsplash. She made great use of the space she had in a relatively small kitchen.