Kitchen Time

It has been raining on and off for days.. That does create few problems in an outdoor conversion. The main issue is humidity. Most paints and glues don’t work well in these conditions, but another problem (for me) is light. Everything seem to be coloured in a perfect English beige 😀.

Because I still hadn’t decided which brand of kitchen to use for Gigi’s galley, it just seemed right to take advantage of this weather for getting on with the kitchen purchase. Since the beginning, I did spend some time looking at both Ikea and Bunnings kitchen.

This week, as per usual, I started to separate the pros and cons for each brand, and it wasn’t easy to come up with a winner, but we did..

Lets start with the looks. It is undeniable that Ikea seem to have the edge on this. After all, they are the kings of live display retail. You see, touch, try, (sometime even break 😀) and they have a huge variety of accessories for their kitchens. Bunnings on the other hand, have just began the game of  live display and they have limited space and surely nowhere near the amount of kitchen accessories Ikea has. Take a look at both kitchen catalogue or website picture’s gallery and you can easily see that Ikea does spend a lot more money on presentation in making those kitchens look like a dream kitchen for most of us.

I know for a fact that, it does work wonders with the female shopper. On the other hand, builders and renovators, tend to look for a bit of simple but still practical approach to this kind of purchase. I like to think that I’m in this category myself at the moment.

Both brand do offer several choices in either profiles, materials and colours, but it seem that Ikea gets out of their way to use the most stupid and childish names for their products. That, use to be funny in the beginning, but it does wear you out in the long term, especially when you need to write all those name down for the kitchen list. I know I’m getting old… 😡 Other than that we are still even..

They both use a system for their cabinets and here is where the differences start to shows up. If you are building a kitchen and have room to spare, you can still use either brand, but if like in my case, you do have space limitations, this is where you will have to start to pick between the two.

Some main differences are:

Ikea cabinets are 80 cm while Bunnings are 72 cm high. Both have adjustable legs but you are losing 8 cm in the Bunnings cabinet. On the other hand, it allows you, to have a lower bench top..

Ikea cabinets are available in 40 60 and 80 cm wide while Bunnings starts for 15 cm all the way to 100 cm with several sizes in between

Ikea drawer cabinet are available in 40 60 and 80 cm wide, while Bunnings start at 45 then 60 80 and 90 on the basic model. Bunning also offer the option to use other size by using metal side drawer, but do not offer anything in the 40 cm wide. So if you need a 40 cm wide drawer, you must look at Ikea.

Ikea also offer more drawer per cabinet combination, while Bunning is only two, three of four drawer. So it seem that while Bunnings, in the ‘base cabinets’ width range has the edge, Ikea wins when it comes to drawer options

Thing is that, the cabinets are the most important part of the kitchen. Here is where the two brands, the Metod of Ikea and the Kaboodle of Bunnings similarities, come to an end.

Ikea still use their system of fastening, that they use for everything else they sell, even for their kitchen cabinets. Some people like it but it is not the standard and if you have use them previously, you know how fiddly and easy to damage they are. They also don’t offer the same strength of a proper chipboard screw, as the alloy wedge, it is always only few millimetres from the edge, and that’s normally where the timber do break.

Ikea also use plastic panel or thin laminated MDF for all their back panels. I can see the weight saving for them, but it goes at the expenses of strength and durability for us.

In the end, the Kaboodle cabinets are just better built, following the traditional system of using laminated waterproof chipboard all the way around including the sides and the base of the drawer.

Because of the environment where this kitchen will be built, being constantly subjected to bumps and movements, the Kaboodle cabinets won the race.

Finally there was another issue with Ikea that it has emerged lately and it seem that, my case, was not an isolated one..

With Bunning, I went in, sat down at the desk with the lady and within an hour I managed to purchase the complete kitchen and take it home (just all the cabinets). With Ikea, I had to spend 35 minutes on the phone, just to make an appointment!?? Then you need to check, before you drive there, that the cabinet you have chosen, they are actually available in that particular store.

Sorry, too much of my time..