Ikea Kitchen Experiences – Your Opinions, Tips, and Recommendations Wanted!

I agree with that. IKEA is absolutely my favorite when it comes to home furnishings ... the price-performance ratio is great and the furniture lasts forever ... I can recommend IKEA for almost everything ... okay, I have experienced that when you shop at IKEA and know exactly what you need, you still buy more and you can definitely notice that in your wallet.

We consciously decided against Ikea five years ago. The quality is decent mid-range, but when I factor in the labor time (and sweat) for assembly and installation, it’s not as cheap as it seems.

At that time, we chose a brand kitchen that we selected and ordered through a small internet retailer specializing in kitchen planning. The kitchen is from Wellmann (a brand of Alno AG) and was pre-assembled cabinet by cabinet, delivered directly from the factory by truck. Surely, there are similar offers for other brands as well...

Planning the kitchen in the evenings by email and phone over about three weeks was enjoyable and worked out great; the contact person took a lot of time and had some good tips for us.

In the end, this way of buying a kitchen including appliances was cheaper than Ikea and significantly cheaper than all the offers from numerous kitchen studios, which drove us crazy with their discount battles and price games... Maybe worth a try sometime?

I know a lot of people from a shipping company that delivers for IKEA and also assembles (if requested by the customer) ... The assemblers there are all not really enthusiastic about the IKEA kitchens. They clearly say that the quality has massively declined in recent years (despite price increases, of course) and now assemble these kitchens very reluctantly.

I myself had an IKEA kitchen until 6 years ago, which was barely 5 years old when I moved out of the apartment back then. In the area above the stove (i.e., to the right and left of the extractor hood), the undersides of the cabinets were half swollen (due to the heat and moisture generated while cooking) and that despite a good extractor hood. For me, it is absolutely clear: never again an IKEA kitchen. (MY subjective opinion!!)

IKEA is a brand for me that I put on the same level as the Apple phone and a Coffee2Go chain. Either fan or not.

My personal experience: A really good kitchen costs money. They are made of solid wood and unaffordable for the average person. What is offered by other furniture stores and kitchen studios at the price level of IKEA kitchens is no better either. You always wonder about the high "discounts" that can be seen everywhere and always with a big rebate. Whoever believes that... I have looked at many kitchens recently. In terms of cleverness/detail solutions and especially design, IKEA convinced me! Although I actually did not want an IKEA kitchen...

Oh, by the way, something else I wanted to mention: I have two base cabinets from Ikea (80cm, 3 drawers) in my existing branded kitchen, extended the countertop, tiled, and slipped cabinets underneath. In one drawer there is crockery... the front panel shifts downwards.... it's not nice. My four wall cabinets, on the other hand, do not disappoint me. They were installed by my then husband, so I don’t know about any problems during installation. A rotating carousel from Ikea was also planned for the corner cabinet: it was unstable even without assembly, I can't and don't want to imagine how the thing would have warped with several pots in it. By the way, the front (walnut, real wood) was no longer available after two years.