[reefer]

So I stopped by the Stoughton store today (thankfully the kitchen dept was mostly empty) and asked the staff person what the process was for ordering my cabinets/countertop. Told her I have the kitchen design all laid out in the Home Planner.

She handed me a sheet of paper and told me to just fill it out and they'll place my order. Told me not to bother with the Item List view because that is not the right product number, but to go through each item in the kitchen and write down the code (like SBD30, etc).

I was a little underwhelmed. What is the point of saving the plan to IKEA? Can't we sit down and go over the plan with a kitchen staff person to make sure everything looks good? And can't they generate the order from the plan rather than making me transcribe everything. (I'm worried I'll screw up and end up home with wrong/missing products).

Any advice? I've seen reference to a "draft order", what is that?

It sounds like we might be able to pay right at the kitchen department (or does this vary by store) and then we'll have to wait a while to pick up the order at the pickup area.

What time of day is best to do this? First thing when they open on a weekday?

[dafogle]

Hi reefer: I was kinda surprised that you can't just create an order from the plan file ... I had my local IKEA FAX the order form to me ... I went through my plan file and wrote down all my cabinets, calculated how much plinth and decostrip I needed - and then filled in the form. I FAXed the form to them and they created a draft order and sent it back to me. Note that most cabinets will actually be multiple parts - seemed like about 4 per cabinet - more for others like the pullouts and drawers. Anyway - the draft order expands out the partnumbers for each of the cabinets you are ordering. You'll want to carefully check the draft order to be sure that the correct door style is on each cabinet.

Once I had a draft order it was simple for the kitchens dept to create the real order - it only took a couple of minutes.

If you can pay for your order in kitchens it makes things easier. You'll pay and they can start processing the order in the warehouse. It generally takes several hours to pull a whole kitchen.

Hope this helps...
Doreen