long drive for an ikea kitchen?

tuck55 · Feb 2nd, 12, 1:07 pm

My husband an I are planning a kitchen remodel, and had originally planned on using home depot's Thomasville line. I recently went to Ikea and got to experience how awesome it is! I realized that everyone here is a fan of Ikea, but I need your honest opinion. My husband and I live 4 hours from the closest Ikea, and shipping is obviously not an option. The Ikea kitchen would be chaper than the Thomasville, but with having to drive 4 hours and rent a trailer, is it truly worth it? My biggest fears are us making a mistake and forgetting something (obviously we would be thoroughly checking everything) or having a box missing something or having something damaged. I know Ikea has a great return policy, but 4 hours, 2 jobs and small kids makes it really hard for us to make multiple trips. I like the idea of saving money, but I care more about quality. I have waited 9 long years for this kitchen renovation, and we are not moving, so I want it to last as close to forever as a kitchen can last.

momofEAP · Feb 2nd, 12, 1:26 pm

Hi Tuck55 and welcome to Ikeafans!

We just redid our kitchen at the end of last year and I can tell you it is TOTALLY worth the time and effort. We live between 5-6hrs from Ikea and have 3 kids (7 and under at the time!). We made two trips before the gutting (I changed my mind on the sink or it would have only been one) and then one after. The one after was to get the stuff for the interior (ya know the stuff that you don't know if you will need or not) and to return the items that we didn't use. I made sure to keep a very close record of what we had and didn't open any boxes until we were sure that we were going to use them.

We got a cook-top, oven, microwave and a whole 11'x10' kitchen in a rented trailer but we could have gotten it all in the back of a pick-up. (Might have even been able to get it in our mini van.)

I-PIA · Feb 2nd, 12, 6:46 pm

Hi Tuck55 and welcome to IKEAfans!

I'm curious as to why you say shipping is not an option- I have been dealing exclusively with IKEA direct for the last 3 years with great results- the best of which is that if you get something that is damaged, or if something is missing, it's their problem, not yours, and they do make it right. An IKEA direct kitchen should have a longer timetable than one that's being built in a home 10 minutes from the store, but if you do enough advance planning there's no reason it won't be just as great. Everything is done over the phone and via email, and IMHO the IKEA direct kitchen people are better trained than many of the store co-workers.

Shipping costs from IKEA direct have dropped in the last year, from around 25% of total cost to sometimes less than 10%, depending on your location (bigger cities are cheaper to ship to than small towns) Still a premium, I know, but consider it order insurance.
And if you happen to live in a state where there isn't an IKEA store, I don't think you have to pay sales tax.... (since you said you were 4 hours from IKEA I figured there's a chance of that)

I don't recommend getting IKEA countertops or appliances through IKEA direct, the weight does make that shipping cost-prohibitive.

Let me know if you have any questions about IKEA direct, I'm a big fan and I even have the email addresses/ phone extensions of some of the coworkers...

Best of luck with your project,

Pia

personalshopper · Feb 2nd, 12, 7:15 pm

Ikea vs Thomasville. Or any other assembled cabinet, for that matter. I love the versatility, the hackability (ooh - the software says that isn't a word...) and the affordability of the Ikea cabinets. Let's say you live in this house for 30 years, but you want to update your kitchen a time or two. All you'll have to do is buy new doors and drawer fronts. Talk about standing the test of time!

Ikea only made it to our end of the Earth in recent recorded history, but I can't tell you how many times in the past 35 years, I wanted to load DH and a shopping list in the SUV and head 800 miles north to an Ikea. As far as forgetting something: overbuy. Pick up a spare wall cabinet, base cabinet and a couple of cover panels. They're cheap insurance.

tuck55 · Feb 2nd, 12, 7:29 pm

Pia, I was under the impression that Ikea shipping costs were really high, but I guess I am wrong and will definitely look into it. We are on a pretty tight budget, so it needs to be pretty affordable. Yes, we are out of state, so not paying sales tax would be huge! We aren't ripping anything out yet, so our timetable is very flexible.

jhusk4780 · Feb 6th, 12, 2:21 pm

@ I-PIA " IKEA direct kitchen people are better trained than many of the store co-workers."

You must have a horrible kitchen department at your IKEA store.

RmovingV · Feb 6th, 12, 8:06 pm

I also live far (260 miles) from an Ikea and though I am not completely done my remodel we are at least for the time being done with the Ikea shopping part.

We got our appliances from Sears and Best Buy.

We rented a cargo van from Enterprise rent-a-car, they had two options, the first option was ~$60 per day but you had to pay for every mile over 100, the second and one we picked was ~ $80 per day with unlimited mileage. We spent about $150 on gas and $4 in tolls. We had the van for two days, going to buy an Ikea kitchen is a long day even without the long drive, we made the trip one day and emptied the van the second. Since Ikea cabinets are flat packed the 15 cabinets (with 16 doors, 23 drawers and 3 baskets) and the sink took up less than 1/4 the height of the van, but all of the length because we had two tall pantry units. Before we left I checked and double checked my list, and then checked it again from the complete list available on here as a pdf. I also had several things on my list that are not in my plan and needed to make sure they were correct.

At Ikea we went to the kitchen department opened my planner file and I gave the coworker my list, she went over it and my list of other things, she checked inventory and they were short one item, but we made the purchase and continued through Ikea. About 2 hours later we went to the pick up counter and waited and waited (its a really big order, many things for them to grab) when our order came it was on five carts. They told us to make sure it was all there because once you leave its your own problem if something is missing, this was really complicated because of how the carts were organized (or not at all as the case was) and we finally asked for help with our inventory after about an hour of my reading numbers and my contractor looking for that number (we tried it the other way to with him reading a box and me checking it off). The coworker who helped us had packed the carts and knew what he was looking for so that made it much quicker. Nothing was missing. We also opened the sink to make sure it was intact because I read on here that that would be a good idea. It was.

Loading the van took about another hour. It was a very long day but it was a good day.

Renting the van and paying for gas cost about $300. They were out of stock on one door we needed, but my contractor picked it up while driving through the area a few weeks ago for me, so we did eventually get it.

I think you need to have a better idea of what it will cost for delivery versus what you would need to pay for a rental and gas and taking a full day to do it. I enjoyed the going to Ikea and I feel like it was part of the process for us.

dave729 · Feb 12th, 12, 8:31 am

We anticipated and planned for two trips.

We're four hours from Ikea and are wrapping up our kitchen install. We rented a 9x12 covered trailer from uhaul and pulled it behind our Mazda Tribute for $29/day (there's no mileage charge on trailers). We left On a Saturday afternoon and got to Ikea Houston about 7:30pm. We went up to the kitchen department and the Ikea kitchen consultant downloaded our plans from the online planner. She methodically went through the design, looking for clearance, interferences, fit issues, etc. She caught a clearance issue between the end run of a peninsula of cabinets and a wall, and made suggestions on how to get a little more room to easily maneuver my son's wheelchair through there. She also checked stock on everything, and and the countertops were out of stock. Then she printed the full draft shopping list and gave us the package to take back to the hotel to review thoroughly.

We were at the store for the opening, and we're fortunate to be the first ones to the kitchen department. It took about twenty minutes to finalize the order and pay. The store was very busy that day (it was right before school started last August) and it took a couple of hours for the order to be picked. It took another hour to get the trailer loaded, where we discovered they had given us one too few cabinets, so that took dvanother half hour to resolve before we left. We made it home by mid-afternoon, unloaded everything and returned the trailer.

Just this weekend we made a followup trip to get the countertops (it hasn't taken that long to install, we took advantage of a 20% off sale last summer to buy the kitchen and just stored it while we gutted to the joists and rebuilt the shell of the kitchen). Got there Friday night at 9:15, went to the kitchen dept and they wrote up our order for countertops and a couple of other items we realized would maskenthemkitchen look better. Checked out and went to the full serve counter, they took our info and said everything would be ready for us first thing in the morning. Got there as the store opened, we were loaded and ready to leave in under 20 minutes.

Betula · Feb 12th, 12, 11:57 am

I live too far away from any IKEA to drive - I am a 12 hour drive to the nearest IKEA. I ordered a kitchen through IKEA direct 2 years ago. I only ordered cabinets - no appliances, but in total I had more than 120 individual boxes.

The person that I dealt with at IKEA direct was very knowledgeable and helpful. I got to review the detailed order list before the final order was placed.

Everything arrived on time, in good condition and as expected. There were a couple of items back ordered but I knew about these prior to the arrival of any items. The back ordered items arrived a couple of weeks later at no additional cost and did not impact my kitchen build.

The cost of delivery was $299. Well worth it as I did not have to spend time driving and picking up the items in the store and I didn't have the cost of a vehicle rental or gas.

The whole experience was very positive and I would encourage anyone to go this route. I was doing a major renovation and the IKEA kitchen order was easily the most straightforward component of the renovation.

I-PIA · Feb 12th, 12, 3:51 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhusk4780

@ I-PIA " IKEA direct kitchen people are better trained than many of the store co-workers."

You must have a horrible kitchen department at your IKEA store.

I did say "many".... of course not all. I have been very fortunate to work with some amazing kitchen co-workers in the Orlando store, but I was there at least 3 times a week when I was living/working there, and I learned quickly which co-workers knew what they were doing and which did not. Someone traveling a long distance for a one-day trip to buy an entire kitchen will not have that luxury.

For anyone putting in an IKEA kitchen from far away, I DO recommend a trip to the store if you can do it- it's a great way to see the cabinets in action, touch and feel everything, pick up really heavy stuff like appliances or countertops, and of course take a spin through the as-is. But reading these stories of the long drives and even longer days at the store going through every single piece makes me even more convinced that for many, the shipping costs are totally worth it. Especially since you can get a full, line-by-line order with a shipping quote via email for just the cost of your time, and then be free to decide if it's worth it for you personally.

This may sound like a bad story, but a recent client of mine received their kitchen from IKEA direct and had 13 damaged or flawed pieces- more than half of these with damage that couldn't be seen until the boxes were opened. We took photos, collected item numbers, and sent it all in one email - the replacements arrived within 10 days, no questions asked, and the damaged items were picked up a few weeks later. Yes, sometimes things are back-ordered, but that can happen just as easily at the store. I suppose the moral of this story is just look at all your options, you may want to spend $300 to ship a $2500 kitchen instead of $300 on rentals, gas, hotel and dinner. Although the meatballs really are worth it...

Best,

Pia

long drive for an ikea kitchen?

Subscribe to IKEA News in Your Inbox:

Quick Links

Guides