5 things to know before you buy an IKEA kitchen

The kitchen in our small house is IKEA for MANY reasons, chief among them was that we could do it ourselves. We could measure, we could purchase, we could assemble and we could install. What attracted me the most was that I could design the kitchen myself. Once I drew my kitchen determining in the cabinet sizes was simple but from there I could choose exactly the cabinet I preferred. This made it easy to get the kitchen I wanted on a small budget. Our budget for the kitchen is $5000. This will need to include: Cabinets, Appliances, Tile, Faucet, Shelving, Lighting and Flooring. As of ordering the kitchen cabinets, sink and countertop we have spent $3800. However, the flooring is already down and included in the framing of the house. So we have $1200 to spend on a faucet, shelving, tile and lighting. I don’t think that will be a problem.

When ordering my kitchen I had to go to the store to check on a cabinet and started talking to a kitchen professional about ordering and he told me to be sure when I ordered to consider the points below. I wanted to share them because if I didn’t know then it is a safe bet others didn’t as well.

Legs: You will need a number of legs to mount your base cabinets. However the number of legs needed will be determined by the number of cabinets you are mounting together. If you are mounting cabinets side by side then you will need less than you think. If you are mount cabinets that are not touching, say on either side of a dishwasher then you will need a pack of four for both cabinets. Determining how many you need if much easier if you download the assembly instruction from the Sektion Legs product page. If is towards the bottom of the page or you can click on the link to the right of the picture of the legs that says “EVERTHING ABOUT THIS PRODUCT”. There is a handy diagram that will help you determine how many legs you need. I needed 7 for one wall and 15 for another.

Suspension rail: This is another item you must have to install your kitchen, however, if you order your kitchen online you will not be prompted to order this items. I feel this is a real lack in IKEA’s system and it is a blow to DIYers who live outside of a city, maybe have kids and it is difficult to get into the store and order a complete kitchen without your drawings all around you or your computer to reference. I preferred to order at home because we live an hour away from the store, we have 2 kids who do not always allow us to stay focus (especially in an IKEA store) and it is easier for me to sit at home with my CAD drawings and order my kitchen. I would have placed my order and never known that I was already doomed to fail. I like the Big Box Hardware systems that will prompt you after you place certain items in your cart to order the additional, less obvious, items you need to make the first, and obvious, item work.

Product Descriptions: Please read all of the product descriptions of the products you want or are ordering so you can be sure you order everything you need for that item. A good example is the HAMMARP countertop. This beautiful butcher-block inspired countertop is solid wood and looks great in a kitchen. However, when exposed to the steamy moisture of a dishwasher will warp and split so you will need to protect it with the FIXA diffusion barrier. BUT, you will only know to order this $6 barrier if you read the product description.

Back order: You can order items on back order together with your complete kitchen order (see below for reasons for doing so) but you can only do it by calling a kitchen representative at 1-866-390-3145 AND only during these business hours: M-F 9am- 8pm EDT, Sat 9am-7pm EDT, closed on Sunday. This is great news unless you are ordering your kitchen on Sunday because your husband just heard on the radio about the kitchen sale and the sink you have been trying to find for a month has been in and out of stock and you want to order it NOW because it is in stock even though your counters are not in stock. If it had not been Sunday I could have added our counter tops to our order to be delivered as well but C’est la vie!

Discounts and Sales: SOOO, the reason I wanted our counter tops placed on our kitchen order even though they were out of stock was because it is the only way to get them discounted during the kitchen event. We earned 20% off our kitchen by ordered over $3000 but you only get this by ordering everything from one source. I could not have ordered most of the items online and picked up the counters from the store and I could not call back on Monday to back order my counters that were out of stock. It was all or nothing. I went for the order on a Sunday because our whole kitchen is based on the Domsjo farmhouse sink. It is a certain cabinet, the sink is such a low price and the perfect size and it is constantly out of stock. We can’t get a Certificate of Occupancy without a sink but we can use plywood as a counter until our counters come in (they are usually in stock). I think I choose well.

I hope these pointers help you with your IKEA kitchen order and also help you save you a trip to the store on a Saturday with children in rush hour.

#RoomDesign #DIY