push 'em in and then pull them back out

I had all of my base cabinets pushed into place and even leveled this week. Then we realized that we need to have baseboard installed. If water runs across the floor and there is no baseboard, the drywall with just suck up all that moisture.


So, pull them all back out again. Put up the trim, paint and caulk the the trim and shove them all back into place. Re-level them all since I had to move them an inch to the right. Yes, the floor varies that much.

I am hoping to have them screwed to the wall sometime this morning. Only question I have is, how so you decided how far they should come out from the wall and what is parallel to a wall that isn't flat?

MISTAKES - more bad measureing

The sink side of the kitchen has a 5 inch gap at the end. ugly
Oh well, I will just have to live with that

The stove side of the kitchen has a inch of cabinet poking past the doorway. oops
Okay, I go and get a 24" base cabinet and find another use for a 30" base cabinet.

The plug for the microwave is set outside the width of the tall, deep cabinet. stupid
That should have been a easy measurement. That will be a easy fix, the wall behind it is not drywalled yet.

I am sure I had the kitchen designed before the electrical went in. Why didn't I just draw the cabinets onto the floor?

I don't know how I made all these mistakes. No I take that back, I know how some of them came about. The light switch was installed without my input and I knew it was in a bad place, there just wasn't anywhere else to put it. What I should have done was measure out the cabinets before we assembled them, so we could return them. (I have enough extra now to start a wall of cabinets in the basement)

Biggest problem isn't the non returnable cabinets, I am sure I will find a use for them, it is that whenever I need a new cabinet from IKEA, I can buy the basic frame and take it with me. But I have to special order in all the doors and either pay shipping from Salt Lake City or drive there and get them myself.

And now I have to make a second special order and that will mean a second special trip to SLC.

I did want to put all the base cabinets in their places and look it over weeks ago and my husband said, "Why bother?"

starting on the base cabinets

We decided to go with the Capita legs and forget the little plastic legs and the toe kick boards. I saw this done on IKEA FANS site - someone had posted pictures of their kitchen and the dark wood with light cabinets looked great on those chrome legs. We picked up the legs last week and got them all screwed on this Sunday.

the wall cabinet vs light switch fix is up

We hit IKEA last week when we were in Salt Lake taking the kids to Lagoon. We picked up two 30"x30" wall cabinets to replace the 2 39"x30" cabinets that interfered with a badly placed light switch. I think it is a pretty good solution after all. It will look like we designed that way.

back to work!

The floor is finished. Yeah!

We had a major set back when the first install of the floor was a disaster. It looks like Lumber Liquidators gave us a bunch of 'Odd Lot' boxes instead of 'Select' Flooring. Translated that means we got boxes full of tapered pieces, or ones that were thinner than normal or ones that had miss cut grooves. We found this out after a room and a half had been finished. It took 2 weeks at least to get LL to correct the problem and replace the floor.

Gee, another whole month of nothing getting done on my house remodel. No wonder 4 to 6 weeks is now into its 7th month.

MISTAKE - that window is not where I need it to be

This is something I can't correct. I needed the edge of the window to be 76" from the left edge of the room. It ended up at 75". The problem is that I have exactly 75" of base cabinets going in on that wall and I will need an inch at the end for the cabinet door to open.

I guess it will only be noticeable to me, that the sink is off by an inch from the window, I hope.

The other side is ending up with a huge gap at the end because of this problem. I have to have both sets of upper cabinets the same distance to the edge of the window. Since the left side is now at 8 inches instead of 9, the right side had to move over an inch. An inch shouldn't be a problem but I had already factored in an inch at the wall and a inch at the side of the frig. That brings the gap to 3 inches along the wall cabinets above the frig. Well it should be 3 inches but it is actually 5 inches. Oh yeah, that wall leans out at the top. Too bad, extra space at the bottom might be useful along the side of the frig. That is where my mother hides her broom and dust pan.

the first cabinets to be set in place

These three are now up to stay! Yeah!

We even tried out one of the doors. If you don't get your hinges to 'CLICK!' like the instruction show, you have probably installed the inside the cabinet part backwards.

The IKEA FAN site saved us from spending hours trying to figure out why the hinges wouldn't go together.

We have to wait until next week to pick up the replacement 30" x 30" wall cabinet to finish this side.

I should have done this days ago

I finally dealt with all the ripped open bags of extra parts from all the assembled cabinets.

I now have a bag of extra nails, wood screws needed to attach the counter tops, the squares and bolts for the rail, and the square washer and nut for the inside of each cabinet.

And I am a lot less worried about having to drive 2 and half hours to get a missing part from IKEA.

details, details, details

I found a post on IKEA FANS titled Fess Up!! Lessons Learned During Installation.
From that post, I learned that you have to put your drawer supports in before you place the base cabinets, especially 30" and 36" cabinets. I also learned that you should go through your IKEA order and find out which cabinets have extra parts. I went through and highlighted the part number and then the whole name when I was done.



















I thought I was done with my 3 drawer cabinets, when I discovered 3 more sets of drawer parts. So I had 9 15" drawer boxes number 30107066 and 3 15" drawer boxes number 4010708. I had already opened and installed a 401 instead of a 301 but it turns out that the supports are all the same, only the drawer part is different.

I discovered that I could break the wrap on the drawer boxes and just lift out the support bars and the bag of parts. This way the drawer parts all stay in their plastic wrap and won't get lost. We are still dealing with getting our hardwood floor in, so the IKEA stuff keeps getting moved and moved again.

TIP - put the drawer supports in before placing base cabinets

I found a post on IKEA FANS titled Fess Up!! Lessons Learned During Installation.
From that post, I learned that you have to put your drawer supports in before you place the base cabinets, especially 30" and 36" cabinets. There is an extra support beam that goes down the middle of the cabinet. You can install it with the cabinet in place, but you won't be able to nail the backing board to that support beam.


I also learned that you should go through your IKEA order and find out which cabinets have extra parts. I went through and highlighted the part number and then the whole name when I was done. I just finished up putting in all of my drawer supports.

who needs instuctions....

ME!

When I started this blog, I found the Ikea Hacks blog and from that I found IKEA FANS site.

If I had not, I would have no idea how to put my kitchen together. I had many different service reps at IKEA direct and not one mentions instructions on how to put this stuff together. I thought the assembly instructions were all I needed. WRONG!

IKEA FANS also has a section of all of IKEA's instruction pages in case you threw out the one you really need.

Also on their site, there are downloaded versions of IKEA's installation posters and pages, plus a video you can watch. click here

putting up the wall cabinets

We determined that keeping the cabinets level would mean a significant drop as the cabinets goes across the wall. About 6 inches total from one end to the other.

We wanted them to start about an inch off the ceiling, so the rail got put up at about 3 and a hlaf inches down. We hooked up the first two cabinets. It seems that they should be shimmed at the bottom but I don't remember seeing that in the instructions. I will have to hit IKEA FAN's site and ask about that.


























We are stacking wall cabinets, a 39" with a 15" on top. This was a mistake, I should have ordered 12" cabinets for the top. We are going to have very little space between the bottom of the cabinets and the counter top. (Maybe it will keep us from storing everything on the counter?)


After the first 39" cabinet went in, a bigger mistake appeared. A double switch for the light over the sink and the garbage disposal are right in the middle of the next cabinet. Why I didn't just measure when my husband put the box in, I will never know.

He starts coming up with solutions. We can use metal conduit and jump to another box that would put the switches on the side of the cabinet. Okay, except that I would lose a chunk of storage space in that important cabinet. What about changing the lower outlet to a double and installing the switches down there. Nice. We would still need to cut out the back of the cabinet to expose the now plated off box, but I wouldn't lose any storage space. We decide to go for that.

He cuts out the old box and then has to run into town to get all the new parts.

Later that day, before he has installed the new box, he says, "What if we just get two 30 inch cabinets and they are just higher on the wall?" That would give us that missing hieght above the counter for 30 inches on either side of the sink. Nicer.

I have to patch the wall where he started to remove the old box, but that is a small price to pay for a better idea.

things are really starting to stack up

All the frames are assembled, yeah!

Our contractor wanted us to put down the base cabinets on the old flooring and then he would only install the new wood floor up to the toe kick. Sometime yesterday, it dawned on us that we would need flooring under the frig at least. I just left a message for my contractor to do the whole floor and then we would do the base cabinets. So I guess it would have been easier on the workers if we hadn't put them all together, but they are the ones that insisted. Once we hang the wall cabinets, the clutter should go down significantly.

We found one of our really large cabinets was damaged when we unpacked it. I have already called and left a message for the after sales guy at IKEA. No return call so far yesterday or today. Sometimes the help on the phone is fantastic and sometime you don't ever get called back. Back on the phone again.

visiting our new IKEA store today

I stopped in once before but just for lunch and no shopping. I wanted to check out a display that would show me my kitchen cabinets so I could make a decision about handles.

There isn't one setup with Tildaholm doors on them.

Oh well, I still had a terrific lunch, again.

on a roll

We got into a routine and in less than 3 hours we had 10 more cabinets assembled. Now the hard part will be figuring out how to get them anything close to level in a house with no straight walls.

MISTAKE - overoptismtic design

We started the assembly today with 3 of the cabinets that will make my hallway pantry. They went together pretty easily with only one mistake: I hammered in the dowels into the wrong hole.

The assembly went very fast and was quickly followed by a sob session by me when we discovered that they will not fit in their niche.

I made a BIG mistake but it was way back in the design phase. I love the look of wall to wall custom cabinets and that is what I wanted for this back hall. I just didn't realize how much the walls lean around here. There is only 89" for my 90" of cabinets. I should have realized this and ordered 2 36" cabinets and trimmed them out to look like a large hutch. My husband thinks we should keep two of them and then either put shelves down the center or on either end.

I think it will work out and we will only be stuck with one assembled cabinet frame that can't be returned.

It is just that I had a walk-in pantry before this and I really wanted as much space covered with doors as I could get.

and now the hard part begins...

putting them all together.

We are going to start with the bottom cabinets in our hallway pantry. There are 3, 30" wall cabinets that will have 2 other sets of 3 sitting on top of them. It should end up look like a built in set of cabinets on the wall of our back hallway.

I am not too worried about the assembly, IKEA's directions are usually pretty easy to follow. It is the installation that I am worried about. There aren't a whole lot of straight walls in this house. For example, if I measure the wall for these three cabinets at the wall, there is 90" for 90" of cabinets. When I measure out about 15 inches, I think the cabinets are 12" deep, there is only 89" of space.

Like I said, if I can get my IKEA kitchen installed in this house - ANYONE CAN DO IT!

TIP - how to make the delivery go easier

Okay, my delivery was a nightmare. Yours could be much better.

First, do have a camera. It is actually an amazing amount of stuff that is going to arrive. Besides, taking a quick picture of anything that looks hammered before it gets buried in the pile is helpful. Snap the damage and the label.

Second, have space for it all. The cabinets come in very large and very heavy pizza boxes. Usually about 30 to 36 inches square and about 3" thick.

Third, have a marker - I used a pen - to check the boxes as you check them off your list. I didn't think of this at first. Mark each box on the box label as well as on your list. You might not recount as many boxes as I did. Watch out, though, some boxes have IKEA labels in two places.
I started with a red pen and did a green pen on the resorting. You can barely see my marks in that photo: get a marker you can see.

Fourth, have a list, and not the one from IKEA. The IKEA list is broken down by each cabinet followed by its componets. The frame first, then the doors, shelves, drawers if you have them, then hinges and feet. These will actually come as 5 seperate boxes.

When I was running around trying to stay ahead of the new boxes the delivery guys were bring in, I was struggling with a 5 page list of cabinets and stuff. Problems with this list are numerous. One, it is just too many pages to flip. Two, IKEA uses the same set of 3 digits repeatedly in different products: it is easy to mark off the wrong number. Three, you will have the same product number under 2 or more of your individual cabinet breakdowns: you will either think you have too many of something or you will mark them off on different pages.

Before your stuff arrives, rewrite or edit on you computer your IKEA itemized list. Sort out the numbers into order and get the like things together. This will probably reduce your order to one or two pages and you will have total numbers of 30" cabinet bases together instead of across 5 sheets like I did.

Fifth, read the numbers carefully, there is a lot of repetition.
30049383
50049344
80049347
40049349
40060331
00060329
60060331
70060335
You get the idea.

sorting boxes into cabinets

I am starting on my second sorting of all my IKEA boxes. I really regret not having thought of this blog from the beginning. You would have loved to see how load the pallet was when it arrived and how my living room and dining room looked complete covered in stacks of brown boxes.

When everything arrived, I tried to mark off each box as the guys dumped them into stacks. Only it is a pretty tricky job of chasing 8 digit numbers across the edges of very heavy boxes. My biggest problem was that the guys would just keep adding to piles that I had already marked off. I got a little lost about half way through and was completely freaking out by the time the movers left. I was sure that I was missing at least 9 cabinets and who know how many doors.

I decided to eat lunch, cool off - it was about 95 degrees that day - and try again.

That was my first sort. I went back and moved all the cabinet doors off the piles and leaned them against the wall. I put all the same numbers together. (The delivery guys could seem to make stacks of similar sizes that were all different numbers.)

That turned the rest of the piles into something much more reasonable. I couldn't move most of the them, but I could get around and read all the labels.

In the end, I had one damaged cabinet frame, one missing cabinet frame and 6 more doors that I didn't need. (That was a mistake in the order not the shipping.) Not bad for a total of 33 cabinets, 4 counter tops, 58 hinges, 8 extra side panels, 15 sets of legs, a double oven, a range hood, a kitchen sink, and one huge freak out.

everything and the kitchen sink

About 4000 pounds of IKEA boxes along with one kitchen sink arrived at my house a couple of weeks ago. It took about 2 months for me to get it. I placed my final order on April 29th, in time for the 10% back deal, and it was delivered on June 27th.

Do not let that time frame scare you. Everywhere else in the world the delivery time will be greatly decreased. The first scheduled delivery was for May 30th, only a month out. My kitchen actually arrived in Utah about May 15th, but the delivery company only comes to my half of the state every two weeks. We were in Yellowstone on the 30th, so I rescheduled for their next delivery date, June 15th. Besides it was not like we actually had a room to put the stuff in. One June 15th, I had to fly out to Chicago for a funeral and the shipping company had no problem with another 2 weeks of storage and a delivery at the end of June.

We actually had the dry wall up before the IKEA deluge arrived.