DIY Kitchens: IKEA,Bunnings,Masters,others...?

[GeoffA]

We have vinyl wrap doors, caesarstone top with an under slung sink set in the island bench. I wouldn't have anything else. Soft closing draw srunner and doors etc The kitchen is big investment.  Don't ask about the price of the tap.....

I worked in the kitchen industry for approx 17 years and I have seen may changes over that time. No longer in that industry.

How much was the tap??.......

[GU Rich]

How much was the tap??.......

More than the dishwasher 

It's a Perrin and Rowe Bridges style tap.......over $800. The box is even to good throw out 

Cheers

[prodigyrf]

You can order kitchens from Laminex and/or have a play with Designer3D yourself here-
http://www.laminex.com.au/products.php
Oh and don't use gloss laminates on your benchtops unless you're the 50s Aussie housewife Mr Sheen type. Noone actually prepares food or cooks in those showroom kitchens remember.
 
We did up the lad's unit recently with Bunnings white gloss cabinets because the module fit was there even with a U shaped kitchen.(that's the acid test with fixed modules) Also did the laundry the same. I had already measured up for the benchtops and ordered them through a specialist benchtop fabricator. Don't piss around with standard lengths from Ikea or Bunnings as there's no savings and you need specialist machinery for jointing those edge formed benchtops.

Remember one thing about careful attention to sealing those carcases and using top quality hardware, whatever doors and laminate benchtops you use. Look after the carcases (even with non slip matting and cutlery inserts in them) and you can always change the benchtops and doors fairly economically in future without the need for a complete makeover. Having a kitchen down for a week or so is not exactly ideal. Ditto for wet areas.

[prodigyrf]

It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive just modern, tidy and functional-

[Sharshebelle1]

We used http://www.flatpackkitchenssydney.com/ and they were fantastic,  they helped us design the kitchen and then ordered everything. We have a huge kitchen, we were quoted around 40k by Harvey Norman and ended up at around 12K plus appliances by doing it ourselves. It looks fabulous and the quality is fantastic,  much better than ikea and Bunnings. It was not too hard to put together either and took a couple of weekends.

[prodigyrf]

Here's an important tip for you with that built in oven and range hood setup if you look carefully at the pic. All the exposed plain laminate ends of your carcases need panels added the same as the doors and hence the panel covers added to the sides of the glass and aluminium door jobs either side of the range hood, lest you see the plain cabinet ends jutting below the hood.

Now you have to do that to both sides of the oven cabinets too or else the overheads and base cabinets will not align vertically when butted up to the fridge unit here. ie the bottom will be 2 panels in thickness shorter than the top although the oven can hide the ends of the adjoining cabinets by itself. Dont buy 2 base panels for the oven sides but simply one and cut it in 2 and fix them leaving the finished edges showing either side. After all you never picked that's what I did now did you

Edit: Tell a fib. I recall now I actually cut one panel into 4 strips approx 150 wide and had to also dock the heights (a base panel goes to the floor remember). That way the 2 finished edges face the front while the 2 bare edged strips space the back of the oven cabinet to the adjoining ones. Don't forget because I've seen plenty of installs that have whereby the range hood cabinet ends are bare to solve the stuffup where the cupoards need to butt up to a pantry or fridge unit.

[cruisindub]

Swaggers, thankyou all so much for all your valuable advice, hints/tips and and information.  I understand the kitchen is going to be a big investment, though unfortunately DIY it is, we so.ply can't afford any other option. We are doing our research and at times I have to calm the wife down who gets over excited circling everything in all the catalogues, but we are also being practical and sensible.
I have the help of my Dad which is invaluable and 'free' so thats saving us alot of money, this is the first time of large Reno/DIY on our first house.
Its a big learning curve.

My main fear is fitting g the counter tops,or joining them. My next biggest fear is screwing it up and costing us loads. I know the next advice would be to get someone in to do it,but we are really trying to save where we can.
Th
We've been on a single wage for far too long now.

[prodigyrf]

My main fear is fitting g the counter tops,or joining them. My next biggest fear is screwing it up and costing us loads. I know the next advice would be to get someone in to do it,but we are really trying to save where we can.
Th
We've been on a single wage for far too long now.

With that Bunnings kitchen in the pic it takes more time to unpack it all and read the instructions and get rid of the packaging than actually screwing up the particular carcase. Monkey see monkey do and follow the instructions. The base cabinets on their adjustable legs are set up dead level at a height that allows the kickboard to easily clip underneath ALSO allowing for the floor covering to finish underneath (who wants to cut floor tiles or edge floating floor around kickboards?)

In the case of the kitchen shown the wall cabinets were set at a height to allow those large 450mm (x 300W) high white tiles to fit between without cutting because I'm basically a lazy B and the less grout joints to clean the better (glass splashbacks anyone?)

One thing about large tiles is they're thicker and that means they'll better cover runout in walls when benchtops are all square to those square cabinets. An L shaped kitchen can be hard enough to control that sort of wall runout but with U shaped you've got 3 sides to control and allow for runout/out of square. Worst comes to worst you'll have to put a trim between benchtop and wall tiling but the art is in trying to avoid that and you can plane back laminate benchtops where flushing and plastering always leaves wall corners at greater than 90 degrees. Try that with granite, etc

You don't have to worry about fitting those benchtops together because they're all jointed ready to silicon and clamp together. The fabricator just wants those 3 wall length measurements, what edge detail where and end finishes(ie laminate finish to that laundry side end but unfinished to butt to the fridge cabinet) The art is in YOU working out what those measurements are, allowing for out of square and runout and thats all about checking diagonals for runout and allowing for planing some corners. That's where you can see U shapes present most headaches and youre doing some averaging to keep it all hidden under the tile tolerance.

Sinks come in boxes with templates for cutting out and if you stuff it up well you you just stuff it up, assuming you havent bought a double bowl sink and you've noticed a wee problem with the dishwasher fit now





 

[heath74]

Having done this project a couple of times, I'd agree with the above. 
1 point I'd make is check your walls and floor. Nothing will be square, so this makes fitting a bit difficult, and you need to keep this in mind.

Another option that's not mentioned is to see a cabinet maker, and give them dimensions to build to, but fit yourself.  I have found this to be the best way to go. It's not as cheap as ikea, but at least you can use every mm of space.

 
Also a tip for running silicone. Run your bead, then give a light mist spray of metho along and around the bead.  Then run your scraper to remove excess and get the shape of bead you are after.  The metho stops the silicone from sticking where you don't want it!

Best of luck with the job.

[cruisindub]

Hello all Swaggers,  again, Thank-you all so much for your invaluable advice and encouragement. Slowly learning all the things I need to look out for and pitfalls.

Being in country WA, we don't quite have the range or availability of the city. Heard Trojan guy yesterday that bought an IKEA kitchen it cost as much to get it freighted from the only IKEA store in WA to the freight company depot. As it did to yet it freighted down here. $600 I was told.

Still lots to work out,it again, thanks for the encouragement.
As I found out when doing laundry and toilet, bathroom, the house is not square and nothing fits properly.

Thanks all so much again, and if anyone wants to keep contributing I would welcome all the advice I can get.
A bit nervous as I see the mistakes I made in bath/laundry and there I can close the door. The kitchen is in the lounge/dining/kitchen room.
Though I am learning not to look at the mistakes too closely ........

[cruisindub]

My bathroom and laundry attempt.

....both are unfinished projects still on the go.... 

[ozbogwam]

In our first house we had a kitchen from Mitre 10 Mega warehouse put in. We picked the style of kitchen fittings etc and then they installed. Their installers were from Spinners. They were excellent. They took out the old kitchen, boarded up a door and replastered it, installed new kitchen, wired, plumbed, tiled and put new appliances in.

Best thing was how clean they kept the place while doing the work. It was spotless every night we got home from work, except for one night because he had to use a different tiler who did a good tiling job but was very messy. The foreman knocked $200 off the bill

[OleFella]

We used http://www.flatpackkitchenssydney.com/ and they were fantastic,  they helped us design the kitchen and then ordered everything. We have a huge kitchen, we were quoted around 40k by Harvey Norman and ended up at around 12K plus appliances by doing it ourselves. It looks fabulous and the quality is fantastic,  much better than ikea and Bunnings. It was not too hard to put together either and took a couple of weekends.

Just had a look at the website, I'm impressed. I know Mitre10 Flatpack Kitchens come from Hafele. These kitchens, I would think are identical but these have a far greater range of doors. I've done one Ikea, one Bunnings and a half dozen Mitre10 and I like them. I'll e/mail them for some paperwork, looks interesting

[prodigyrf]

Yes the flatpack ones look good with the that 1mm PVC edging as protection for clumsy kiddies and you occasionally. Also check out their benchtop ordering site for how to spec straight, L and U shape benchtops and the only measurements YOU supply them.

Also there are plenty of videos on the net re certain tasks like this one for info-

10 - Installing Benchtop	Small | Large

so don't be coy about building it a few times on your screen before the real thing.

That particular video shows how to mark out without a template and always be cautious and check templates provided. Always use a new jigsaw blade for cutouts and don't force the saw lest it strays off vertical and your hold down clips struggle to meet and grip the underside of the benchtop. A trap for newbies watching the top line only and lacking tool experience.

[Rumpig]

whilst not completely necessary, i like to run some masking tape under what i'm cutting out first and then mark the pencil ines on top of that. IMHO it helps to stop chipping the bench top out some, and if it's a stone bench top you then see the lines properly.

[prodigyrf]

Here's another tip for you with laminate floating floors. Although the laminate is hard wearing the weak link is water egress in the joins, causing them to swell just like those exposed cabinet edges in your kitchen. Now that Bunnings kitchen is in a renter with 'Jarrah' floating floor from this mob- http://www.inovarfloor.com.au/laminate/original/
If the tenant damages a door it's a new one from Bunnings but note Inovar have that 25yr domestic warranty because their product is waterproof and won't swell at the joints which will then be vulnerable to chipping at the edges with wear and tear. They even reckon it can go in wet areas but I wouldn't press my luck in that regard.

With general mopping and particularly vulnerable around kitchens, some water egress is inevitable so Inovar laminate on premium close cell foam underlay it is. Around $25/sm instead of some cheapies $10/sm cheaper, but the peace of mind plus a spare pack for any localised drama is cheap insurance in the long run. Check out some laminate floors that have been down for a few years to spot their Achilles Heel which Inovar have addressed superbly.

[dazzler]

I used a flatpack kitchen from Bunnings for our reno.  Here is link to some of it that shows the flatpack;

http://www.renovateforum.com/f176/kitchen-family-study-reno-77590/

What I found useful with the kit style is that I could design it all myself off the website/info sheets and there are so many different sizes to make them fit the space.  Plus, I could buy them as I had time to fit them.

With any kitchen instal the best advice I could give is to NOT use the leg adjusters but build yourself a pine plinth that is DEAD LEVEL all the way around the kitchen to sit the cabinets on.
This will save you hours of frustation later trying to level them all to an unlevel floor.

 The HIGHEST point should be the thickness of the kick panels so you can scribe the kicks in when finished. The plinth width needs to be set at the cabinet + door width less door thickness less kick thickness less overhang.

I replaced the door handles supplied with some upmarket ones.

Have fun.  I may have some more photos if needed.

[BLKWDW]

Some of the ikea look great. What are they cost wise as i havnt read the whole thread. We just got our kitchen professionally done and cost us 10k. Wish i had of seen this earlier.

[D4D]

I used a flatpack kitchen from Bunnings for our reno.  Here is link to some of it that shows the flatpack;

http://www.renovateforum.com/f176/kitchen-family-study-reno-77590/

That's some nice reno work there Dazzler. I wouldn't be game to cut a hole in a wall to fit a new window.

[dazzler]

That's some nice reno work there Dazzler. I wouldn't be game to cut a hole in a wall to fit a new window.

Thanks mate

Check out the link to the other end of the room where the old backers chimney is.  Now that was work 

[prodigyrf]

I used a flatpack kitchen from Bunnings for our reno... 
What I found useful with the kit style is that I could design it all myself off the website/info sheets and there are so many different sizes to make them fit the space.  Plus, I could buy them as I had time to fit them.

With any kitchen instal the best advice I could give is to NOT use the leg adjusters but build yourself a pine plinth that is DEAD LEVEL all the way around the kitchen to sit the cabinets on.
This will save you hours of frustation later trying to level them all to an unlevel floor.

While I know where you're coming from dazzler that plinth method will be too hard for newbies but the point is just how level and even is your floor? In my pic there is a bit of a hump left of the stove and the kickboard has been planed at the bottom to accommodate that. What you can't see is a larger gap between top of the kickboard and the bottom of the carcase but who cares if it's 2mm or 5 or 6 mm because you can't see it anyway. It's the floor joint you see and if it's too uneven or running out of level  then use quad trim.

Using the leg adjusters make up all the base boxes with the adjusters set the same (set your combi square for height) and assume the floor will be level (hold that thought). Then set them all in position (you did plane a chamfer on the corner units to fit snug into the corners now didn't you?) and fix them all together in line and you'll soon see what feet on the floor and which aren't. So far so good but I've already marked a laser level work line around the wall above the cabinets and I'll work to that. Either hire one or use a very good 1200mm spirit level for the purpose. Then decide where the highest floor point is vis a vis kickboard fitting under allowing for flooring and that's where you'll level all the cabinets to with even tension on each adjuster and yes you will have to lay on the floor to reach the backs. As I said you might set the high point low enough to allow for some planing of the kickboard to the floor for fit but that's it.

Quad trim fixed only to the KB if it's all too hard to get the floor fit and pine plinths dont allow easy access for services like clip on KBs, particularly if you overlooked something.

[ozbogwam]

Friends just had an Ikea kitchen fitted but went with a Ceasarstone bench top and it looks fantastic

[Rumpig]

That's some nice reno work there Dazzler. I wouldn't be game to cut a hole in a wall to fit a new window.

cutting in new windows is easy when you know how, i guess everyone says that about stuff involving the trade they are in though....lol. i did this with our kitchen....

WENT FROM THIS...



WITH THIS INBETWEEN...



TO THIS...



OTHER HALF OF KITCHEN LOOKED LIKE THIS....



NOW LOOKS LIKE THIS... (photo makes kitchen look squishy, but it's not in real life)



doors are solid timber frames with inlays and draws solid timber fronts to try and keep the older look of the house. power points and light switches are heritage style now also.

[gowalkabout]

i did our kitchen and used a custom flat pack mob here in hobart and have to say it is the way to go. I got custom size draws and doors as well as being deeper than standard and it worked out alot cheaper and much better qulity than the hardware/ikea stuff. for the bench tops i went to a metal fabricator who was very helpful in saving me money letting me know if i cut the wood to the size and shape of the tops he would fold the stainless for what i thought was very cheap considering one top is around 4m long and he even welded in the sink i had for nothing. all up i think i came in around $5-6k which included smeg appliances so it will pay to shop around
have fun and good luck with the renos

[D4D]

Looks like there are a few handy people on myswag

We have a solid tassie blackwood kitchen, wife liked it when we bought the house. She now wants a provincial style, white with wood benchtops. I am loathe to paint solid tassie oak but happy wife happy life. Any options other than getting a new wife who likes the current kitchen?