Wow. After almost 10 years of dreaming and planning for a kitchen renovation and I am more confused then when I first began this journey.
Let me back track just a bit and explain the story from A to Z. My husband and I purchased an amazing home just shy of 10 years ago. We love the layout and open concept design. It was a spec home that someone else chose all the materials for so, we did not have a say in cabinets, flooring, countertops, etc. The home was new construction so, even though we didn't love what was chosen, we knew that these things would last until we could budget for replacements. Shortly after moving in we had the cheap laminate and carpet replaced with beautiful, large porcelain tiles.
That being said, our kitchen lacked cabinets. We have a total of 3, yes! T-H-R-E-E kitchen upper cabinets and 4 lower base cabinets with a sink cabinet too. Shortly after moving in we realized that this was not enough storage space... Even though we barely had any kitchen gadgets and do-dads. Fast forward to 10 years later, 2 large metal open shelves added plus a large, old, stainless steel pizza restaurant island and I am done. Over it. Tired of looking at my kitchen gadgets and what-have-you on display for guests (and myself) to constantly look at.
We are also handy, DIY types and are pretty confident in our construction skills. What we cannot do, (major plumbing, major electrical work) we have hired out for. We have also redone a major kitchen remodel several years ago and more recently, 2 bathroom renovations (in a rental property). We are skilled and able.
My husband isn't really a natural DIYer however, he has become quite an excellent learner (thanks to YouTube). I am a dreamer. I am a planner. I am organized. I know what goes into building things and do not shy away from hard labor. Yes, any new project can be intimidating but, with the right design and planning, anything is possible. I have been an IKEA fan for many years. I have probably purchased well over 20 large pieces of furniture from them before. And yes, I put them together myself. I have become quite skilled with an Allen key. ;)
Back to IKEA and my 10 year dream of a new kitchen.
After several quotes from local cabinet companies, reading countless blogs from other DIY IKEA kitchen renovations and a much debated but carefully planned out online rendering of my ideal IKEA kitchen, I headed to IKEA to order my cabinets. On the LAST day of their 20% off sale. It was a mistake to wait until the last day. However, in my defense, our local IKEA is over 90 minutes away from where we live so, I needed to be sure I had my plans correct before I headed there.
Arriving an hour early was a smart move on my part. Even though the store didn't open until 10am, customers with kitchen orders were escorted by an employee to the kitchen department. I was added to the wait list, sat down at a computer and waited my turn with a kitchen expert.
About 45 minutes later, I was helped by employee #1. We'll call her, "K". After my rendering kept on freezing up, K hopped on another computer to recreate my design that wasn't saved and lost after freezing up and disappearing. This took about an hour. The computer froze up and died again. After pulling up what was saved this time, we added a few extra things needed and discussed my options to bring up the order to $4500 needed to receive the 20% off discount. We did have to tweak the order a bit, adding 2 additional cabinets to a future pantry I had plans to build.
At this point, K explained that several items would need to be pulled from the store and warehouse, as these items were not available in the distribution center. I gladly grabbed what I needed (mostly the handles, cabinet drawer dividers, shelf liners and waste bins). Done. K printed out 2 forms - 1 was what I needed to pull from the store and the 2nd was a delivery list.
Step 2 was me paying for said lists and then setting up a delivery date. That is when all the issues occurred. The smaller order (what I needed to pull from store) went through fine. The second list of delivery items froze up and a delivery date (an explanation was never give) could not happen w/o an employee speaking directly with the delivery department. At this point, it was now 12:45pm -over 3 hours. I could easily spend 5 hours at an IKEA store but, NOT in the same department and, w/o eating or drinking anything. The manager, #2 -we'll call her, "G" told me to go get something to eat and walk around for a bit. Come back in 10 minutes and she should hear back from the delivery center. Now, mind you, I did not pay for the delivery order at that point. I could not because of the "delivery issue". Nothing can be accomplished at IKEA in 10 minutes - bathroom lines were long, lunch was out of the question - it would have taken me an hour to get food and eat. The store was SLAMMED with people. It was pure insanity and mayhem. I drank a bottled water I had stashed in my car, took a 5 minute break and reentered the store, heading directly for the kitchen department. I found manager, G who advised me that she would have to key in my delivery order again. No explanation given. At this point, I was just glad that this whole order process would soon be over... Or, so I thought.
After keying in my order, G handed me my delivery order and said I'd have to wait in the line to pay. The line went quite fast and, I had a quack moment to double check my order. It looked correct, from what I could tell and decifer from the IKEA Nordic language. I paid, happy to (almost) be able to leave my favorite store to shop at.
Almost. Because, I still needed to pick up 3 larger cabinet items that were located deep in the IKEA warehouse dungeon. I made it to the warehouse, dodging and weaving my way through scores of customers. I helped myself to the 3 items I needed and loaded them onto my cart. I still had to visit the pick up department (not sure why but I was told I would have to pick up 2 items from pick up and roll them to the delivery area. Even though this area was slammed with customers too, I had been working on this since 9am so, my pick up items were quickly ushered to me. Thankful that something was finally going more smoothly, I headed to the delivery department.
After speaking with #3 (I don't remember his name so he is just #3), I was advised that I hadn't paid for 3 cabinets. There wasn't a payment and, for some reason, they had stapled the sales receipt to a paper that was not correct for the order I had placed. Apparently, in my haste to quickly pull my warehouse items, I had also grabbed 2 cabinets that were not on the correct shelf. People must have dumped and moved items onto the incorrect shelf/aisle#. Uggg.
I was then told I had an additional $400+ amount I owed. At this point, I lost it. From what I could tell from my prior knowledge of IKEA Nordic speak, I HAD paid for everything in the kitchen department. After all, the MANAGER herself, G had keyed in my order! Why would she leave off 3 cabinets?!? After hearing my cry of frustration, #4 came swooping in. She ushered me into a room where SHE looked over my order and proudly stated that I was incorrect and had not paid for everything. In fact, I had paid for the wrong item and needed to switch that for another item -due to the warehouse mess and items not being in their correct place. I paid the additional amount, annoyed and confused. I set up and confirmed delivery for my new kitchen. I was tired, hungry and in shock. It was now 3:15pm. Over 6 hours in my favorite place. No food only water. #4 saw my exhaustion and gave me a water and some dry cookies that i didn't look at until I got home an hour and 3/4 later. I didn't even get an opportunity to shop for goodies! My desire to flee was greater than my desire to shop.
Once home, I spread out ALL 5 receipts on my countertop, vowing to give myself 24 hours before revisiting and decoding this Nordic nightmare. It's been over 48 hours and I attempted to decode the order. I cannot. WAY to confusing. I will be heading back to IKEA (probably this Saturday) to, once again, sit down with a kitchen "expert" to go through my order. If you are one of the many friends that have asked me, "How did it go at IKEA?" I have been too exhausted to explain and, I hope this blog entry serves as a sorry-for-not-replying to your text, emails or phone calls.
PS - I will eventually add Before photos of my too-little-kitchen and each step in the process of my DIY IKEA kitchen renovation. And, once I square away my receipts with someone at IKEA, I can give you all the lowdown on what I paid. At this point, I have no clue.
