[lucrezia]

...place many shocking and colourful expletives here....

sooooo....good times in kitchenland....but let me go back to the beginning, to the bright and sunny days of July...happy kitchen planning days...

In July I finally bought my new kitchen cabinets...yeah me! I chose Hallarum, I preferred a nice dark expresso brown, but I wanted a slab door and Ikea is the best bet for that kind of look, for affordable prices (let's assume we are not putting a price tag on the lost sanity...but I digress).

I come home the very day I have ordered my cabinets and go onto the Ikea website, only to discover that Ikea has finally decided to have a brown black kitchen cabinet line...curses I say! I have no idea why they would have taken so long to come out with that colour when they have had it for every other room in the house for a long time.

I like the Hallarum, and I have already ordered it...hmmm, what to do...then the order comes in much quicker than expected so I go pick it up. Exchanging everything seems so daunting...and it's not like I don't like the Hallarum...but the BB is what I actually wanted...and hey, it's actually cheaper...hey, I only need to take back the drawer fronts, so that is what I decide to do.

I return all the drawer fronts and then go and ask my Ikean to make sure that I replicate the order with the BB. Everything is okie dokie, except for a backorder of one 15" base cabinet for between my fridge and stove. I am not in a rush, so I can wait....and besides I haven't decided on the pantry cabinet yet anyway....oh happy new kitchen days.

Happily I rip out most of my old cabinets, and rip down the ugly drop ceiling. There are even extremely cute cartoon birds and butterflies flying around my head sharing the joy.

For a couple of weeks I phone faithfully to see if my backordered base cabinet are in yet...nope, not yet...hmmm...well what do you know, I check measurements again and I can actually put an 18" there...so off I trot to my handy Ikea and yippee, I can get my 18" cabinet...which is lucky because signs in the store are now saying the BB will be available in October...ummm...yikes....

I still have not ordered my pantry...oh well it is at one end, it can go in later. The important thing is I can get me base for between the fridge and stove. Nevermind that I find out my backordered 15" base had actually been cancelled and I was never going to get it, and yet no one noticed that each week when I called to check...the important thing is that I have my 18" base bought and paid for...oh happy days.

Hmmmm, why didn't I notice when I completely gutted my kitchen, that I could have much more space between the fridge and stove...and well, maybe I really like the look of a fridge looking built in, why didn't I order a proper over fridge cabinet and cover panel...and well, many design doubts start creeping in, bad design doubts, leave me alone, can't you see I can't make any changes to the design caz now the stupid signs in the store say "available in Dec"...crap...I can't even get a deco strip in the BB, and now I have decided I want some...sigh...sigh...more sighs. Not to mention the chirping from all these **** cartoon birds is really starting to get annoying...

Oh wait, now the signs say "available in February"...but while I am in Seattle the Ikeans there say they have been told to tell people April. But that's Seattle and they also tell me they never even had any at all yet...so maybe Canada gets ours from a different place and ours will come in February, just like the admitedly pathalogical liar signs say in my Coquitlam store, right? Right????!!!! Except an Ikean at my Coquitlam store tells me she wouldn't believe the signs at all at this point.

So my problem is that I am missing a major cabinet, and just throwing a different style in one place by itself will look weird, like as if I couldn't get the right one or something crazy like that. Also my second choice, if you remember the beginning of the story (tale of woe), is Hallarum....

While at the Seattle store I find 8 18" x 18" Abstrakt white doors for $2 each, which I think, hmmm, I like the look of a nice white and dark brown kitchen, I will buy these and figure them into my plan somehow, then maybe I can move around the BB I have and make it all look planned...and I do it! Oh happy days are here again...I work them into my design and I actually am very excited again. The cartoon birds are even cute again. I even think the kitchen will be more interesting, which is good because among the many design doubts I have been having was that it all looked a little too common.

My new design actually entails me buying a couple of more Abstrakt white pieces, but it will all look cool and planned and yeah me! So tonight, with renewed vim and vigor, I decided I need to sort through this big pile of boxes and put all the pieces of all the various cabinets in little piles together as some will be going back. Also I want to check the BB to make sure the stain is even because I am a little worried about the "quality" issues that is the general cause of all my problems.

Sort, sort, sort...hmmm....this box seems to say Hallarum...that does not seem like it can be a good thing...I guess I missed it when I returned all the Hallarum fronts...well, that's okay, someone else will need this 30" base cabinet for sure, ....my Nexus order was based on the original invoice, so my Nexus fronts will be in the pile that I am sorting...ummmm...why don't I see a box the same size with Nexus on it......bangs head on desk....many, many times...

I am well and truly screwed now. I plan to put my condo on the market in the spring, so can't really afford to wait to see if maybe someday, if I am really, really good, Santa might bring me the BB I need...sigh....

feeling very sorry for myself right now...

Just opened every box and half the doors have issues with the stain, ranging from very serious, to "I could live with them if the rest were okay". The ones that are okay aren't necessarily the same shade of brown either...doesn't it figure the one door that I actually opened to look at months ago was one of the few that was okay.....

[Cyndi_L]

Hi! I'm really sorry that you seemed to have had such a horrid experience with these doors!!

Since your planning on selling I would cut my losses, get Ikea to take the doors back (they seem to have issues with the stains on the BB doors) and take a basic but in-stock style to replace them with. At this point you just want an agreeable kitchen for your new owners. Hope things work better for your next kitchen project.

Cheers,
Cyndi

[GardenOfDarwin]

OH...Man. What a comedy of errors. Only not so funny.

The best thing I can think to say is "Did you know that Arlig Medium Brown is coming?", but I'm almost afraid to, given the history...

Susan

[alydev]

oh no! I hate to hear you are having so much trouble
We are Ikea neighbours though...first other member I have seen here from BC. Good luck with getting it all sorted out. Please keep us updated.
I'd love to see your plans!

[lucrezia]

[quote Cyndi_L] I would cut my losses, get Ikea to take the doors back (they seem to have issues with the stains on the BB doors) and take a basic but in-stock style to replace them with. At this point you just want an agreeable kitchen for your new owners.

Thanks for the commiseration That is what I might do in the end, but don't want to give up quite yet as I have put a lot of time and effort into this condo and really do want to see my vision finished...my current second choice is to do it all in the Absrakt white. Irony is that my Ikea has completely replaced their BB kitchen display with the Abstrakt white as well. The Ikean I spoke to yesterday said that so far as they have been told they will be able to start filling orders in February, so I guess that is not so long to wait. He did say that it is definately coming back.

[lucrezia]

[quote alydev]
I'd love to see your plans!

I have my original plans on my web page kitchen plan

I didn't bother making the changes to the BB because the 2007 planner was a bit of a pain, and I made a couple of minor changes that I did not do, like the 18" drawer base between the fridge/stove. There were going to be floating shelves as the upper there, that I could not reflect in the plan. Also, I don't know why the planner wanted to float the upper cabinets so low to the base cabinets....

The planner also was fairly limited in terms of appliance size (2007 appears better in that regard). I could not put in my farmhouse sink either.

I was working with the 2007 planner to try to reflect my new, improved plan of mixing in the Abstrakt white, however my use of stacking the 8 @ 18" x 18" As Is find in two rows of 4 above the sink wall, has been met by skepticism by the planner. I read in another thread that the planner doesn't stack over fridge/fan cabinets, and that is what I will have to use for that. I am keeping that idea because I think it will be the look I want. Still trying to make the planner work for me on my updated plans...and still deciding if I should return everything I have now and start from scratch.

Although I may go through everything carefully and return everything that I am not sure about and keep everything I know I am still using for sure, then order all the frames, install and see what happens in February, if no BB then order all the Abstrakt white and add hits of BB some other ways.

[lucrezia]

Since my last post I did decide to return everything for the kitchen, on the theory that I would not make any more horrid mistakes and end up taking back something I needed. A clean slate was required, to get rid of the bad karma that seemed to have built up.

I knew I was going to get something new from Ikea so I said "just give me a store credit"...after all I had been told the BB was definitely coming back....

The very next week I go back and the signs have been changed from "Coming February" to "Coming Soon".

...place undefined sense of foreboding here....okay, let's face it the foreboding is very clearly defined, a change a signage is not good news...

Oh, and last weekend the display doors were gone completely. I don't think "soon" means what they think it means...they really meant to say...WE HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA HOW TO GET A SLAB DOOR STAINED DARK BROWN...

Even the cartoon birds are quietly sobbing now...and pecking out each other’s little cartoon eyes....

Anyone who has followed the wretched BB saga now knows that if it ever comes back it will be some time, and not for my desired date of, you know, my lifetime, or certainly my ownership of this condo's lifetime.

There is no suitable wood slab replacement...ack...

So today I decided I needed my actual money back, so I can explore my other options, and not necessarily be committed to Ikea cabinets. I phone and talk to the Assistant Manager of Kitchens and he has told me that if I come back with my receipts to show I really did buy the BB then they will let me replace the BB with any door style I like. I find this an acceptable compromise as one thing holding me back is the fact that the Abstrakt is 50% more per linear foot that the BB, and although I can afford the extra money, I didn't necessarily want to spend it.

And thus ends my Nexus BB saga, and begins by Abstrakt white saga....

[GardenOfDarwin]

lucrezia - well...that's something. Man, what a holy nightmare this whole thing has been! I feel for you - I don't think I'd be able to write it out so calmly.

So...Abstrakt White. How about a clean break from this Progress Blog and start a new one in the new Blogs? Put this whole thing behind you...

Susan

[demicent]

Wow that's awful. I hope that, at least, by the end of my kitchen remodel I can say that no cartoon birds were harmed during the reconstruction.

Best wishes for a reasonable solution.

[GardenOfDarwin]

lucrezia - where do you stand at this point? Have you heard the news that NBB is NOT discontinued? I know you were looking at an end date here soon...have you gone with Abstrakt White? Did you see jackww's kitchen? There's a new article on it: A Masterpiece in Abstrakt White

Just kind of curious how this is going to play out for you...

Susan