6 Lessons Learned from my IKEA Kitchen

During

After

My kitchen is awesome and I can't believe that I made it happen. IKEA has some great products and you can definitely save $$ using their kitchen cabinets. The easy thing to forget, especially when a project is done, is how much labor you put into it. On average, it look me about an hour per box to assemble the cabinets. The simple ones took a little less than that, the more complicated ones took a little longer. If I could do it all over again, this is what I would do.

1. Plan the size of my kitchen based on the cabinets I want. Because of the stairwell, my kitchen is not a standard 10x10 kitchen. It is a little shorter and a little longer, hence the lazy susans in both corners. When I mentioned this to an interiors friend, she said that she always designs the kitchen first.

2. Have more drawer banks. I already knew this from renovating the kitchen in the main house, but because my kitchen is not a standard size (see comment 1) I only have one drawer bank. I do have a pull out by the sink, but that required me to downsize from a double to a single basin.

3. Always, always get a flat surface stove. One exception to this rule is if you can get a gas stove. I've found that in smaller kitchens with limited counter space, the extra flat surface is extremely valuable. When my friend Nan replaced her stove, she went with a flat surface stove and says it was a great idea. I love it when people take my advice and tell me that I am right!

4. Use a drill to attach the doors to the cabinets. The little cartoon instructions IKEA provides does not place an emphasis on using a high powered drill. You need to use a good drill. Why? Because if you just try to screw in the hinges by hand, or use an electric screw driver (which is what I initially did), the doors will fall off after a few uses.

5. Use a square when you are making the first box of your cabinet. Again, the little cartoon people don't reference using a square, but this is muy importante if you are going to: 1. line up the cabinets against a wall. 2. line up cabinets against each other. 3. just want things to line up.

6. Be patient with IKEA. When you are in the planning/ordering phase go on a weekday. Also, more often than not, they will not have all of the pieces available for your project. You will either have to wait until after hours, "because it is in the storage area and we are not allowed to move things back there until after hours" or it will take multiple trips. I had to pick up my supplies at a future date at their warehouse by the airport. One shining light is their customer service. When I lost a few of the leg pieces, all it took was a quick trip with my receipt to get some FREE replacements.