Discuss Kitchen Planner Woes.... woe woe woe on IKEAFANS.com. We're Personalizing the IKEA Experience. Kitchen Planner Woes.... woe woe woe - Need help with planning your remodel? Want a kitchen planner to review your ideas? This is the happenin' spot!.
I've been working with the kitchen planner about a week. I find it really obtuse to use. For example - I put in my fridge and go to place a cabinet on top - selecting the fridge cabinet - and all I get is the red circle with the line on it! I'm having such a hard time. It seems to sometimes work - and sometimes not.
The one thing I'm trying to do is build a wall of cabinets - all the same height. 1 Fridge in a cabinet (i.e. using side panels) - an oven and a microwave in antoher 88" high cabinet - and then a third base cabinet with a counter with a wall cabinet over it at the same height as the 88" tall cabinets. All I get from the tool is red circle red circle red circle.
Often it tells me that doors can't open because a cabinet is next to it. Which - well - seems odd since on line they show tons of these walls of cabinets. How do you do it?
Also - I'm in Miami. We don't have an ikea yet - so I can't go to a store for design help. However, I have my measurements and would be willing to hire on line here. I pretty much know exactly what I want - based on my current kitchen layout - but again - am having no luck with the tool. I guess I'm pretty dense...
I feel your pain. The planner is pretty awful. Here's what I've told other people that might work for you:
The planner is rudimentary at best, but fortunately easily manipulated to your will. If you want a little wiggle room, make the dimension of your fridge a bit bigger. You can do that if you choose the fridge under "your own appliances", when you place it you'll see a box with height, width and depth. Just change the numbers to whatever you want. Same with the range, dishwasher and hood that are listed under your own appliances. (AAMOF, you can use the dishwasher to represent trash compactors or icemakers by changing the sizes as well.)
It might get a bit persnickety about placing overfridge cabinets if you fiddle the dimensions, but that's where you just have to use your imagination. And if you have trouble placing the cover panels because it refuses to snap them in, just move them in the 2D view with the arrows.
Sometimes you can fool it by stacking the cabs on the wall and then slipping the base cab under it with the arrow keys.
In the 2D view, you can click and drag a box around the cabinets, which will highlight all of them. Then you can manipulate them as a group with the arrow keys. In the 2D or 3D view, you can hold down the SHIFT key while clicking each cabinet you want to group, then you can move them all together.
You can only use the arrow keys to move cabinets in the 2D view (layout) not the 3D.
Change the ceiling height to much higher...9 feet or so. Sometimes it's easier if you stack the cabinets together in the middle of the room, then use the arrow keys to move the stack to the wall. The 2007 planner is a lot pickier than the 06.
To save the file to IKEA, in the planner choose File/Save to IKEA. You'll be prompted to enter a username (email address) and password. Pick a junk email address and a generic password, not a password you use otherwise. I use ikea2006...so you can pick something like that. That way when you post the info publically it won't compromise your privacy.
You can save up to 5 plans on IKEA's webspace, and not only can other people access it and post options there for you, you could access it right from IKEA as well.
HTH, and if you have any problems, PM or post your username and password for your IKEA plan account and I'll see what I can do for you!
Thanks - I'm having a really hard time with this.... I've got 7 different plans - all that are slightly different as I try to work around various problem areas in the room designated as my kitchen.
First - I can't move a beam that is in the middle of the 10' entry. Its a steel beam that was put in to support the roof when the bearing wall was removed prior to my buying the house.
The Kitchen is also a reverse "L". Not a normal shape by any means. While the beam makes a perfect stopping point for an island - I also can't put a sink or cooktop on it - as above it is the bearing beam of the ceiling (no vent allowed) and below - the bearing beam on the floor (can't do under floor venting or plumbing).
The only wall that has no windows and doors is also the only wall that works for a cooktop - so no lwall of cabinets like I wanted. The back wall has a window dead center - and the right wall has a door to the garage. This leaves me with few options - or I just can't see them because I've never done this before.
I already went to Home Expo last month and paid the 750 design fee for a Venecia kitchen and the designer came back with exactly the same layout as my current kitchen - just new cabinets. Unfortunately - if I was to do that ... I'd just reface what I have.
What I require is assistance- but don't want to be so arrogant as to assume people are just waiting in the wings to review my plans....
but don't want to be so arrogant as to assume people are just waiting in the wings to review my plans....
ummm....we LIVE to review plans here! Seriously, it's something that several of us here love to do. And we're free! So it isn't arrogant in the least; consider it as aiding and abetting our little IKEA addiction
The kitchen I'd like is dreamkitchen... however... what I can't show in that plan is the steel support column next to the cooktop counter. I believe there is a structural beam both above and below the cooktop. No vent!
In Kitchen1 - this is the exact layout of my current kitchen - but ... with new cabinets.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.
The room in front is the dining room. The door on the left wall goes to the garage. The slight wall could be removed... but I do have that column to worry about that I can't draw in the plan. It is about 10"X10" and is at the end of the cooktop cabinets in the plan.
I already bought all new appliances in an attempt to modernize - so the bosh cooktop 36" exists - as does a pop up bosch downdraft vent, the kitchenaid oven and microwave are right next to the garage door at the moment. And the kitchenaid fridge is currently opposite the oven and microwave against the wall next to the garage door.
OK, I took a look at your plan and came up with an alternative that might work for you. I'm not exactly sure where the beam is, but I think the plan I've created will accomodate it.
Basically I treated your kitchen as a galley. I kept the cooktop flanked by 18" drawers, but moved it back into the kitchen area so you have room for your downdraft. In front of that, I placed a couple of 12" cabinets with a countertop extending as a bar between them. The countertop would be continuous, and would accomodate your downdraft vent as well.
There is a tall pantry on the left by the entry door, and the dining room has substantial drawer space. If you wanted to turn this area into a bar you could replace the center 18" base unit with a fridge and change out on of the other drawer units for a door unit with shelves for your bottles and mixers, and have your barware in the cabinets above. Moving the fridge to the little wall makes it more accessible to the dining room and guests without intruding on the workspace.
Putting the ovens behind the cooktop will help with those finish in the oven projects. You've got a couple of nice stretches of countertop, a nice area for guests and a great bar/sideboard area in the dining room, as well as tons and tons of storage.
You had several doorstyles and plinth in your original plan so I simply went with Abstrakt white.
First - wow.. thanks so much for your help. The plan looks great. There are a couple things we couldn't live with though.. partly because I couldn't accurately draw the plan ini the planner. The first is --- where you see some walls in the dining room - there aren't any. I haven't figured out a way in the planner to draw an open wall.
Also - breakfast bars are great. For others. We hate them.. we are weird... I know. But we have one now and it hasn't been used since we bought the house. Finally we hid the chairs in the garage before throwing them out a couple months ago....
But your idea is sound - the galley idea - and moving things forward. Nice idea. That resolves the beam and the over and under beams. As indicated we already purchased the down draft vent.
One of the things I've really really liked in all the showcase kitchens I've seen is the "wall of cabinets".. for that built in wall look. I find that so sexy. So - while I adjusted the one you did - I also adjusted my dream kitchen so that it incorporates some of your idea's along with my wall of cabinets.
A couple things I've noticed in our current kitchen is that corner cabinet space is wasted. In one corner we keep banana's - and in the other - stirring spoons. But they are never used... so I don't mind not having them at all.
The only issue I have in dream kitchen is that the "wall of cabinets" has to go to the front - which means alongside the cooktop bar. I wish there was a cabinet that was just a carcass on the botton - with shelves or something on top so that it could fill this dead space.. .but if there isn't - I could always put in a false wall - or as in the plan - the cover boards....
Thanks for the opportunity to work with your kitchen, it was fun! I took a look at the mods you made to dreamkitchen and it looks like you're on your way. Tweak it a bit more as you consider how you work in your kitchen, where you store things, what types of things you store and what you need to access when. That will help you determine what kinds of cabinets you want where.
I am not sure about that corner with the wall oven, it still looks a bit awkward to me with that blank space there. And you'll need to measure carefully to make sure your drawers at the other end clear the doorway. The lone horizontals on the right feel a little out of place being the only wall cabs on that wall, I would leave them off. Maybe make the window bigger!
To "fake" an open wall, you can create a window that is the size of the wall in height and width and set it so it is 0 inches above the floor. Then it will look like a glass wall in the planner.
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Kitchen Planner Woes.... woe woe woe 
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