Experiences with IKEA kitchens – quality, assembly, service?

It doesn't have a handle, but a recessed grip. And otherwise, everything was done according to the instructions. At knee height, a handle otherwise, as you write, makes little sense.

Yes, those are some of the not so great things at Ikea. It's good not to build according to the instructions. In our experience, it turned out that way because otherwise the leverage is simply too great:

We had the fronts pinned at the carpenter's.

Yes, those are some of the not-so-great things about Ikea. It’s good not to build according to the instructions. In our experience, it ended up like this because otherwise the leverage would simply be too great:

Exactly, you said it. If I had divided the drawers, this cabinet would have ended up costing me even more. Originally, it was also intended for oversized bottles. It works with an intermediate shelf for dog food. Be that as it may: these are just the special cases where there might be issues. In other special cases, Ikea proves itself, as is known.

We got an Ikea kitchen for our rental apartment. Although we only lived there for 3 years, we were very satisfied with the quality. However, we bought the electrical appliances ourselves back then, except for the extractor hood. But that was not so great.

Hi,

we have an Ikea kitchen. The appliances are Siemens (in terms of MSRP mid to upper price range, each bought online or in the Für Uns Shop for about 1/4-1/3 of the MSRP). The countertop was custom-made by the kitchen service of Hornbach. Total cost for about 8 m of kitchen was something around 8000 euros, which left some neighbors speechless.

I did the planning myself. You can get a relatively cheap kitchen with Ikea, but you should be willing and able to contribute your own work and initiative. Ikea offers a lot of cabinet variants, but if you need a special size due to your floor plan, like a cabinet width of 37.837 cm, they don’t have that. Then you have to improvise yourself. But you can do that quite well with the Ikea program. What I like about the Metod cabinets is that as standard they have a relatively large corpus height. Many kitchen manufacturers charge extra for that.

The appliances from Ikea are from various manufacturers and all rather basic. I would always buy BSH or other brand appliances again.

The furniture itself is completely okay in terms of quality, our kitchen shows no damage after 9 years. The high-gloss fronts survived two children without scratches. The hinges, fittings and drawers come from big brand manufacturers. My carpenter admitted somewhat shyly that when he makes kitchens, he buys the hinges, fittings and drawers at Ikea because he would not get such quality anywhere else for the price.

Don’t underestimate the effort involved in assembly! A complete kitchen means quite a few cabinets and drawers to be assembled. You are definitely busy for several days just assembling the parts on your own. Actually putting the kitchen together is almost the smaller part. The Ikea assembly service now charges 250 euros per running meter. Back then it was, I think, 200 € and I was too stingy for that; in hindsight I should have done it.

Big advantages of an Ikea kitchen:
Transparent prices and no absurd bargaining like “only today there’s a 34.98746% discount and if I ask my boss another 2.58% more, but you have to sign right now.”
Delivery times and deadlines you can rely on.
Short-term availability and no absurd delivery times of 3-6 months.

Disadvantages:
You don’t get the really fancy, showy stuff.
Own work and initiative needed (but in my opinion that’s rather an advantage).

Best regards,
Andreas

we have an Ikea kitchen. Appliances are Siemens (in terms of MSRP mid to upper price range, each purchased online or from Für Uns Shop for about 1/4-1/3 of the MSRP). The countertop was then custom-made by the kitchen service from Hornbach. Total costs for about 8 m of kitchen were somewhere around 8000 euros, which left some neighbors speechless.

That's exactly how we experienced and implemented it.

Big advantages of an Ikea kitchen:
Transparent prices and no absurd bazaar haggling "only today there is a 34.98746% discount and if I ask my boss another 2.58% more, but you have to sign immediately."

And that's exactly why I even got up and left the kitchen provider twice.
Everyone has to decide that for themselves, and there are many other good solutions and maybe even better ones, but for us, precisely the reasons from applied and therefore we would do it the same way again.