BedStuy Reno
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January 18, 2008
Stupid Ikea Cabinets
G and I were at Ikea a year and a half ago buying our kitchen because we thought surely we need it sooner than later. It's still sitting in boxes on the lower level. In a way, our kitchen is where it's supposed to be, it's just flat packed.
Anyway, at the time that we bought the kitchen we also bought sinks and cabinets for the bathroom. Fast forward one year and a half, and I put the cabinets together, take the sinks our of their boxes, got to put a sink onto its cabinet and . . . it doesn't fit. Not even close. Stupid Ikea. So I call them. It being over a year later, there's basically nothing they can do for us.
The challenge of renovating a house yourself is greatly compounded by not having a car. Certain things you can get on your bike, other things you can have delivered, but sometimes you just need a car. So when G and I need to pick something up, it involves getting a car - either borrowing from a friend or renting or stealing. No, I'm just kidding, we never rent cars.
The point is that going back to Ikea is no small task - it involves coordination of multiple parties.
It never ceases to amaze me the lengths we go for this house. On the bottom floor, we searched everywhere for an Andersen door to match the sidelight that I ordered (the wrong size). A new one was over $1000 bucks, of which we don't have very many lying around anymore. I finally found a surplus door from a vendor in Reading, Pennsylvania for $200. I had to triple check with the guy on the phone that this was actually the correct door size we needed. ''And this is an Andersen door?'' Yes. "You say this door is made by Andersen?'' Yes. "And who made the door?'' Andersen. Serious savings. But they couldn't deliver so I had to pick up. So I did - in this case I rented a car and drove the three hours each way to get the damn thing. It was awesome.
This is a serious digression, and the story is better told with pictures of the door in place. The point was that we had to go back to Ikea to get the correct cabinets for our sink. Which we did, when G and I were at home at my parent's house in Boston. This is a long story. The short of it is that Ikea screwed us over on these cabinets, and now we're really worried about what we're going to find when we finally open up those boxes and start to assemble our kitchen.
Comments
that sucks! but I've never gotten anything right from ikea the first time -- I think buying this so far in advance and not at least doing rough assemby was probably a mistake
Posted by: guest at January 18, 2008 11:59 AM
We got this kitchen cabinet for our office - the "countertop" piece in your photo looks like the adjustable shelf that actually goes inside. In our unit there is a 3" or so wide board at the front covering the porcelain behind the doors. The porcelain just sat directly on the sides, back, and front of the cabinet with some grey, gum-like sealant.
Posted by: pHdesign at January 18, 2008 1:30 PM
Ikea wouldn't let you exchanges these for credit? If you have the receipt and these are defective, thats really f$%#d up.
At least 50% of the stuff Ive bought from Ikea has some screw missing or other defect once Ive gotten it home. Its really infuriating but I guess the keep their prices down by driving their customers insane. What we won't do for a bargain.
Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at January 18, 2008 3:20 PM
I think I had this thing in my last apt and agree that there was a shelf and the sink sat on top with no shelf. are you sure you're reading the directions?
Posted by: guest at January 18, 2008 3:37 PM
It may be worth your while for the sake of sanity to join ZipCar.
Posted by: guest at January 18, 2008 3:58 PM
I feel your pain regarding the car aituation--we don't have one either (and unfortunately neither do any of our friends)and have gotten many of the materials home via bike, cab, car for hire or via the cart. This entry makes me scared that the bathroom vanity and sink we bought from IKEA for the last rental apartment 6 months ago may not fit. That said-- The Kitchen cabinets in our rental units (pics on the blog) are from IKEA. We put them together and hung them ourselves and it turned out just fine (although cutting the countertops to fit the space was a bitch.
Posted by: HomeSweetstuy at January 18, 2008 5:13 PM
I hear ya on the IKEA thing. We redid my office space and put in their kitchen cabinets in one section for clean looking built-ins (trust me, looks better than it sounds.) There is no end to the amount of frustration dealing with them. We waited over 6 months for cabinet doors that were promised in "a few weeks" to come in only to be told that they were no longer making that style, which changed the decision we made for our already purchased countertop. Same deal as you in terms of waiting to open the boxes because we were waiting for the never-to-be seen doors. We had ordered one color for all the cabinets but somehow ended up with a mix of the white and the birch-tone. Arrgh!
Fortunately, we did return everything in NJ at Elisabeth. For some reason they were way more accomodating than Paramus or LI. I have my fingers crossed for you when you start opening those boxes. On the returns, we found that going into a long sob story in person at the store about the many trips there to check the door stock, months of waiting and looking close to tears got the returns processed. The phone people are truly unhelpful and quite frankly, very unknowledgable.
Posted by: kensington gal at January 18, 2008 7:56 PM
It's clear that we have the wrong cabinet for the sink. Or the wrong sink for the cabinet, however you want to look at it. Basically, who ever comes up with all those whimsical swiss-sounding names at Ikea ran out of ideas one day when he named two different sinks Höllviken. Ok, to be fair, one is called Höllviken, and the other is called Höllviken Round. (who could predict the confusion?) Their shapes are very different, and thus each one takes a different specific cabinet as a base. Apparently though, Ikea salespeople didn't get the memo, as the woman who helped us at the store got us two cabinets meant for the Höllviken Round, when we were buying the plain old Höllvikens. What the hell am I even talking about? You see what it does to you? Now I keep typing Höllviken over and over again. I even went the extra mile to get those two little dots in over the o. Stupid Ikea.
- Peter
Posted by: guest at January 18, 2008 10:06 PM
Ikea is a consistant PITA, and only worth the low price if you can value your time at nothing.
Posted by: bugleg at January 19, 2008 5:10 PM
I'm not buying that story.
I once was assigned a retrofit of a kitchen cabinet stack for new appliances with a client who called herself "an interior designer". I should have asked a little further because I assumed she used a tape measure regularly. She asked me if what she had to work with was a standard size. It puzzled me, because there are three standard sizes. I just answered back, "Uh...yes!", as she hurriedly ran off for something important. She proceeded to go buy a bunch of Kitchen Aid appliances that would sit in the way for a whole month before the process finally came around to the retro-fit. Then surprise! The one she got on sale was the largest size, two inches too wide. She got demoted in my mind from "designer" to "decorator" that day.
There was an obvious communication gap there, and I assumed half the responsibility, but she was in tears and hysterical to work with from one day to the next. I know better than to just give general answers now, even if my clients don't want to be that involved in details.
Later she would have me cut a hole for a decorative bowl in a bowed-front dresser drawer for a powder-room sink. What a mess. A few months later Lowe's were selling them like that with the sink already in them. Must've been some kind of trend.
Planning things that far out in advance things have to be written down somewhere. Sketches at least ought to be drawn. Measurements need to jibe. This makes the renovator smarter than the fixtures, or their manufacturers.
I've never worked with Ikea products, but if they're like any of the rest I'm sure that they can be pretty crummy to deal with when you need to return something.
But yeah, Stupid Ikea!
Posted by: akryeguy at January 20, 2008 3:25 PM
I disagree about the quality of Ikea kitchen (and bath) stuff, I think they are great value for money. Good hardware, too. Much better than their other furniture. .
But true their service sucks. "Designers" too busy to talk to you and don't know much more than you do. shipping stuff comes late and you're maybe missing things.
The kitchen we put in 6 years ago is still great. I went to the trouble of glueing the cabinet frames in addition to the fasteners; I think that saved one cabinet that suffered under a radiator mishap and got soaked but though it delaminated (where you can barely see it, thankfully) it's plenty strong.
Posted by: cmu at January 21, 2008 3:03 PM
I felt pretty stupid when I bought the wrong appliance for my house and couldn't return it. Seeing that others do it too makes me feel much better.
Posted by: guest at January 21, 2008 3:51 PM
Yes, Ikea's service is terrible and they frequently mess things up. Which is why you should probably check the boxes as soon as you get home rather than waiting a year and a half... (But I'm not lecturing, really! :)
I second 3:58's suggestion of joining Zipcar. It's awesome. *Especially* when you only want a car for a few hours to run some errands--cheaper and way more convenient than rental cars. I'm pretty sure they ditched the $250 deposit they used to require, so I think it's only $50 a year to join.
Posted by: guest at January 21, 2008 5:22 PM
I quadruple it:
www.zipcar.com
i've done ikea, abc in the bronx, and the wonderful queens blvd. malls (Target, Circuit City, etc. etc.) all in a zipcar. Get the Honda Fit, it's cheap and very roomy.
Posted by: guest at January 21, 2008 11:10 PM
Most people are dyslexic klutzes with ikea.
Call Woody Allen
Posted by: Ysabelle at January 22, 2008 1:26 AM
oh my god i just bought that same sink/cabinet combo yesterday at ikea...i gotta check my boxes asap! nice though!
Posted by: guest at January 22, 2008 2:54 PM
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