ikea kitchen

[james]

into the middle phase of our house plans (layout almost finalized etc, builder chosen etc) ..

does anyone here have any experience with using an ikea kitchen?

[GuyJean]

does anyone here have any experience with using an ikea kitchen?

No.. Well actually, I don't know. What is it? ]kitchen designed by Ikea[/URL]; stove, cabinets, range, etc..

When I visited Ikea, they had some great stuff. Although, most of the items I wanted were not cheap. They have some decent stuff at reasonable prices, but the couch I wanted was over 200,000 yen!.. But it was nice.

For an 'Ikea kitchen', do they have pictures of fully designed kitchens to choose from, or are they custom made to fit each customer's needs?

*edit - found the answers to my questions..

GJ

[GomiGirl]

Everytime you want more than one piece it is really hard to figure out which bit goes with which as there are so many sizes and variations that it is hard to get it all together. It isn't possible to just walk in and say "I want a kitchen". You have to design it from the ground up and that is worse than putting the stuff together... but there may be a service that can do it for you to take away this headache.

[james]

yeah, since this is a new house, we're doing a full kitchen. i've downloaded their kitchen design utility and played with it a bit. it does 3d views etc etc.

apparently you can then upload your finished design and they can hook you up with everything you need, thus saving you the trouble of having to figure out exactly what that is. the biggest obstacle for me is that being out in the sticks of shimane, funabashi is a bit of a ways from here. it's a shame their kobe location won't be open until after we've built. for stuff like this you need to make in-store visits.

any word on how the quality is? does their kitchen stuff last or can i expect it to fall apart after a couple years?

sekisui seems to be a good builder etc and we're so far pleased with them, but you'd have to be nuts to let any builder actually furnish your lighting etc. not a single light, toilet etc that they quoted us wasn't available online for half the price. it adds up damn quickly. we were looking at kitchens from them too, but if they're just going to resell us something national does at full msrp, that'll be something else we get done elsewhere. i've bought stuff from ikea back when i was in canada but never a full kitchen..

[Grumblebum]

Seems strange that Sekisui are quoting the msrp for a kitchen - when we built, we looked at a few different ones and ended up going with Noritz. They aren't too bad - we went to their showroom, picked the stuff we wanted, then gave the Noritz salesperson the name of our builders rep and they worked out their standard discount, came to something like 30%. The discount does seem to vary though - we also looked at Inax but they would only do a 10% discount with our builder.
Overall we're pretty happy with the Noritz one.

Look carefully at prices though - when I first saw the prices for the ones in the Ikea showroom they seemed about 1/2 the price of the Japanese system kitchens. But when I sat down and worked out the price for more or less the same setup it was pretty close to the same (after allowing for the discount on the Japanese one).

As far as quality goes I don't think there's all that much difference between Ikea and the Japanese brands.

Again, I'm surprised that Sekisui aren't giving you very good pricing on fittings - I'd heard good things about them. I watched the prices our builder gave us for stuff, and the pricing was generally comparable with anything I could find online or elsewhere. The only exception was the system bath - a friend of mine found a place on Yahoo Auctions who sells brand new Inax system baths for about 57% off the retail price. Our discount wasn't quite that good..

[james]

[Grumblebum]

Yes, we had similar issues with the lighting "plan" the rep gave us - it was way overkill and the styles were nothing like what we were after. But price wise it was fine - they initially used Odelic but told us even with National they could do anything out of their catalogues for about 40% off the list price.

The biggest difference with the Ikea kitchens was that the price didn't include any electrical items - mainly, the cooktop and range hood. Since we were going all electric, the cooktop alone accounted for about 200,000yen of the kitchen price. If we took that out, the price for the rest was pretty similar if you went through and actually tried to set them up as closely as possible.
Also, most of the cheap Ikea setups just included laminated wooden counters rather than the artificial marble which is more common here (and more expensive..)

That being said, the Ikea kitchens seem to offer a lot more flexibility in terms of layout compared with the Japanese systems. If we'd have been able to wait an extra couple of months last year until Ikea opened their Funabashi store we probably would have used them.

I'm in western Tokyo, more or less the same distance from the 2 stores. I've been to both though.

No idea how Ikea is pronounced in the original Swedish. I've always pronounced it アイキア too.

[Tsuru]

[quote="james"]

totally off topic, but do you or anyone else here know how "ikea" is pronounced in the original swedish? i notice here they say イ]That would more like イケイア～

[Sarutaro]

into the middle phase of our house plans (layout almost finalized etc, builder chosen etc) ..

does anyone here have any experience with using an ikea kitchen?

Yes, I have experience. Being a Swede I have long experience with IKEA kitchens, and I must say the quality is excellent. Plus, the price it extremely good. Here in Japan I bought a house where a brand new kitchen from Yamaha that cost 1 million yen was included. My kitchen is only 3,5 metres wide, so this price is outrageous!
For 1,000,000 YEN you can get a whole kitchen in IKEA, with all appliances and still have enough to buy a car to drive your stuff home with!

[james]

I'm in western Tokyo, more or less the same distance from the 2 stores. I've been to both though.

i'm more or less the same distance from either as well, unfortunately that's because i'm so damn far from either of them that the difference in distance between the two is negligible compared to the total distance i'd have to travel.

since we are also going to need some furniture too we may just end up out that way though.. not to say we can't get furniture out here. nafco has some nice stuff but the wife is kind of itching to go to ikea. going to need a day just to go and come back if we do go.

my wife and i are both partial to stovetop gas cooking though i want a little electric oven too.

wonder why it is you were given 40% discounts and my rep is telling me msrp only. different companies, but still.. one would expect a better price. at least i'm happy with my lighting plan now and i can order them myself.

do they take credit cards at ikea?

[james]

[james]

the most important question of all..

do they have the hotdogs and meatballs?

i remember when i was a kid they had that room full of balls to play in.

[Grumblebum]

the most important question of all..

do they have the hotdogs and meatballs?

i remember when i was a kid they had that room full of balls to play in.

Yes they do, actually. The restaurant at the store is pretty nice. The Japanese Ikea stores are pretty much identical to ones in other countries.
They have an 'outlet' section near the checkouts too, where they have various display stock for sale, some marked down to around 1/2 price. No kitchens though

[Sarutaro]

[Fiore]

hehehe...

I remember Ikea.

On the stateside, they decided to put one in my town-- a little township on the outskirts of Detroit...it's a huge store, but no one ever goes there; because there's not that many people that live around there.

Anyway, back on topic, we DID furnish our house in America with Ikea stuff. It was of really good quality; and the kitchen was one of the best things. However...I am rather fond of those meatballs...

er, and I've always said it, "Eye-Key-uh," but...that's just what the commericals said, so I really don't know.

[TennoChinko]

That noisy little fella David (Debito) has some related advice on dealing with builders here:

http://www.debito.org/residentspage.html#HOUSEBUILDING


Err, dumb question -- are you guys all handy with tools to the point you can install your Ikea kitchens on your own? For those who are not so handy (me), what alternatives are available so that we don't get ripped off or end up flooding our kitchens through our incompetence?