IKEA kitchen quality and experiences?

This forum has taught me that you simply shouldn't take the topic of IKEA kitchens too seriously. IKEA is primarily fun and entertainment. Since then, I no longer get so upset that my kitchen is still waiting to be completed and now enjoy the many nice phone contacts with the IKEA employees. And I mean that seriously, they really are nice. They often don’t exactly know what actually needs to be done – but that’s not really their fault because the installers didn’t write down everything that’s missing. And they also don’t know about the emails you have written over time. But they politely ask which sink and which dishwasher have been installed in my kitchen, and then I bring them up to date by reading out the IKEA delivery note or dictating the nameplates to them. The conversations then end with the prospect of a callback. This then happens at some point by other employees who in turn don’t know the content of the previous conversations and the game starts all over again. In this way, I have recently met many nice people and am already looking forward to the next calls.

[emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23] So something for lonely people with plenty of time and a need to talk

I love Ikea kitchens. Maybe my opinion is a bit biased - but I like to calmly plan my kitchen at home by myself.

A few years ago, I had a Faktum kitchen; it accompanied me for a good 8 years and is still in use. Two years ago, we installed a small Metod kitchen as a tea kitchen. And this year I was allowed to set up a rather large Metod kitchen for an apartment. Yes, and for our new kitchen the Metod cabinets are already in the basement waiting for the room to be finished.

My experiences:
- The carcasses themselves are nicely sturdy - as long as they are not meant to be taken apart and rebuilt. But for normal use, meaning assembling and setting up, they are really stable and durable.
- The drawers (Maximera) run smoothly, are easy to adjust, withstand a lot, and are overall very high quality.
- The hinges for the doors are easy to install by clicking in and easy to adjust. The matching dampers are affordable, sometimes fiddly to attach, but I like them.
- Installing (Ikea) appliances is not always as simple as the instructions suggest. It can happen that not everything fits perfectly right away (oven installation...).
- The selection of wall finishing strips for the countertop is not really huge and the installation is a bit fiddly (so far we have always used the gray/silver ones).
- Baseboards are my personal nightmare. Installation is extremely fiddly.
- Fronts and handles are good. I always take the cheapest non-white front and Lansa handles - so far they have withstood everything. No discoloration, no chipping, etc.
- Biggest downside: Those damn plastic feet! I think everyone who has ever assembled an Ikea kitchen would have loved to throw those things along with the cabinet right out the window.

Overall, I can say that assembling the pure cabinets goes very quickly and easily. Putting the kitchen together then takes its time - until everything is properly aligned, a few hours can pass. The biggest time wasters are the decorative panels between cabinets/used as finishing strips. Until they all fit... However, I am of the opinion that you can create a super cool, durable, and high-quality kitchen with Ikea if you are willing to invest quite a bit of work and time and have the right tools at home. The kitchen for DIY enthusiasts indeed.

Having it assembled is not too expensive either. It just doesn’t work as reliably. We needed a reassembly. However, IKEA took care of it. Now everything works.