New IKEA Fan member BroadwayTenor1979 asks a perennial question about what to expect on the day your IKEA kitchen is delivered:

I have some concerns about my impending kitchen delivery on Thursday. First, I ordered everything in person at my local IKEA store. Everything is going to be delivered. What should I expect on delivery day?

One of our resident experts, Chuck Shapiro of A-P-A-R-T/Together Assembly and Installation based out of the Philadelphia area (but also working bi-coastally with Kayla ofKayla’s Kitchen Cabinets in Northern California) responds, “Expect a little chaos…” Read the rest of his expert advice, plus read other IKEA Fans tips and advice for delivery day after the jump.

Don’t forget – ongoing now: The Last IKEA Kitchen Sale

What to Expect When your IKEA Kitchen is Delivered

Says Chuck:

You’re going to be looking at a pile of 100 boxes (give or take – 150 if your kitchen is really big), which will range in size from 15×15x15″ (that’s the one with all the legs and hinges in it, though it may also be 18×30x5″), to 88×24x3″ for a high cabinet. I tell my customers that the pile will fit in a space the size of what’s under your 8 seat dining room table.

The delivery people are going to want to be in and out as fast as possible, and will be looking for you to sign off on their work relatively quickly. Don’t be concerned immediately about missing pieces. Do a piece count as things come in, and try – as best you can – to look for visible damage to the boxes. If your piece count doesn’t match the delivery total, have them check the truck.

If you are having an IKEA certified installer do the work, don’t worry about organizing the boxes – just leave them as they are delivered. The installer will be able to recognize the various pieces by the boxes – if s/he can’t they shouldn’t be certified.

If you or a contractor without IKEA experience is doing the work, after the delivery folks leave, then try to organize the boxes. The simplest way is to put like pieces together – cabinets with cabinets, drawers with drawers, etc.

Or you might want to organize them by cabinet unit – taking all the components that make up a single cabinet and put them in a single pile. But this can be complicated, as a single cabinet could consist of close to 20 different articles.

In the end, the best plan is to have as much room as possible for the stuff, be as calm as possible and expect something to go wrong.

Read more about what to expect from member KristinU in the thread: Kitchen Delivery.

Tags: broadwaytenor1979, chuck, IKEA Kitchens, Kayla, KristinU

This entry was posted on Monday, April 12th, 2010 at 11:57 AM by Susan and is filed under IKEA Kitchens, Lessons Learned, Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.