This four-part series discusses, diary-style, our experience with researching, measuring, purchasing, installing, and using an IKEA kitchen system with IKEA fixtures, Wilsonart Laminate countertops, Frigidaire appliances, and Rejuvenation hardware. Part 1 details the experience we had using IKEA’s downloadable kitchen designer. Part 2 will talk more about the purchase process and how to be prepared for delivery and installation. In Part 3, we will tell you the nitty-gritty details of our installation fiascos. And in Part 4, we will walk you through our kitchen one year after we installed and moved in to discuss how it is holding up.
First of all, I want to emphasize that I am in no way affiliated with IKEA as a company. This series represents my attempt as a regular consumer to relate to you our unique experience with designing, purchasing and installing our IKEA kitchen cabinets. That said, we had a pretty good experience, and I feel like the devil was certainly in the details. Hopefully, these details will help you out if you decide to go this route and save you some of the small pains we experienced. And many of the details were in the purchasing.
In the previous installment of this series, I talked about designing our kitchen. We had originally handed the design decisions over to our contractor to bid on. If I remember correctly, his bid included granite countertops and custom oak cabinetry. He was definitely going to create a beautiful kitchen for us… to the tune of around $25K.
The more David and I talked about where to cut corners, the more the kitchen came into play. We figured we could afford the kitchen or the dining room, but not both. Did we really need granite countertops?
At the time we were designing, I was headed in two different directions. On the one hand, I loved the kitschy 50′s diner look: chrome-trimmed counters with Formica’s beloved boomerangs and a Marmoleum floor sounded like soda-shoppe heaven to me. On the other hand, we thought about selecting a space-age Apollo theme with gold, red, white and black mosaic tile for the backsplash and black silestone counters with inlay gold flecks.
Our contractor wasn’t familiar with IKEA cabinets and didn’t know how to begin spec’ing them for our project, so we agreed that he would do the kitchen finish out, but we would figure out how to do cabinet and countertop installation ourselves. Enter the IKEA kitchen planning tool and our own experience with Photoshop.
Although we eventually decided against boomerangs or Apollo themes, we still wanted those classic Akrum cabinet faces. We decided we could make almost any countertop and backsplash work with their features, and we had heard that installation was a do-it-yourself kind of job, so we set about placing our order.

Make no mistake, ordering an IKEA kitchen is half the work of installing it. It isn’t possible to order the kitchen on the website. You’ve really got two choices: you can either fax in your order for pickup, or you can go and get it.
I strongly recommend the go-and-get-it route. In fact, I even more strongly recommend that you plan two trips.
The first trip to IKEA needs to be the trip where you simply go and see all their wares in person. Touch the cabinet faces. Pull on the knobs. Run your fingers over the seams of their showroom countertops. Make sure you open and then SLAM the showroom cabinet doors, especially the sliding pantry (which we found to be too unstable for our desire). Whether you plan to make your IKEA kitchen last or use it as a temporary solution while you save for your dream kitchen, you want to make sure you are getting your money’s worth.
The truth is that IKEA’s cabinets are inexpensive and, yes, they are cheaply manufactured. These are not custom oak cabinets with commercial ball bearing hinges. These are plywood and melamine, and they will wear with time. It is a good idea to walk around the showroom and familiarize yourself with the mismatched seams and slightly uneven corners. For some, the imperfections of an IKEA kitchen are part of its charm. For others, the more expensive kitchen is worth it. And, trust me, you are going to earn your cheap kitchen.
Your second trip to IKEA is to order and pay for your materials. We went armed with our IKEA kitchen planning tool mockups, our Photoshopped mockups, our price list, and a general list of notes we had made from looking at the IKEA catalog and website. We went to the kitchens department where the attendant was overwhelmed with customers. Another warning: IKEA takes a long time, so don’t plan to use your 45 minutes of Smaland without strategically planning it around your discussion with the kitchens specialist.
Our attendant was very sweet–I’d pass on her name if I could–and helped us avoid major mishaps later by giving us two pieces of advice. First of all, she told us not to use our print outs. She asked us to recreate our drawings on the in-store computer. She came to the console to double-check everything when we were done, and then she made some minor adjustments according to her own experience. This was invaluable. Even though the folks at IKEAfans.com have had some great experiences with faxing in their order, I found the face-to-face experience to be invaluable.
Once we were ready to hand over our credit card, she checked things one last time and then, right in front of us, began to make notes on our invoice. Yes, they can do that. They can modify the layout of your invoice. And it is a good thing, too, because she modified it such that all of the parts for each separate cabinet were grouped by cabinet instead of grouped haphazardly the way her computer wanted it to be. Then she made notes on the printed out invoice to indicate which cabinets were which because, as some of you know, the printed out invoice does not have much English on it. She explained that later on, when the cabinets were delivered to us, they would all be on one huge shrink-wrapped palette. We would want to have the invoice handy so that we could organize everything in piles before installing. And the items each only have their parts number printed on the packaging–not the product name.
We chose to have the delivery sent to our construction address. We contemplated picking up the shipment, but this would have meant renting a Ryder truck and driving to Houston and back to Austin during IKEA’s business hours. This seemed like an unnecessary waste of time, money and gas, so we elected to have the kitchen dropped off.

I have heard that many people purchase their kitchens and take them home on the spot. Huzzah! We had the option of taking some of our pieces with us that day, but again the specialist discouraged this. She explained that it was best to have everything together. This way it would be easier if something was missing or damaged and needed to be returned or exchanged. She was right.
Our IKEA kitchen was delivered four weeks after we ordered, much earlier than we actually needed it to be delivered for our purposes, but it sure was nice to have it ready and waiting. My last piece of advice is to plan ahead. Expect IKEA to be out of stock on MANY of your desired items–and expect the out of stock items to be strangely random.
In the third installment of this series, I will talk a little more about what to do with that big palette o’ cabinetry. Install it yourself or hire a pro? This is the trickiest part of making that kitchen happen. The third article will include a handy-dandy checklist to help you determine the best solution for you and your home. Until next time…
See also:
Kitchens, Part 1: Purchasing Your IKEA Kitchen
IKEA Kitchens, Part 3: Installing Your IKEA Kitchen