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Does the IKEA home planner turn your kitchen design into a safety hazard?

Knowing how IKEA’s Home Planner works can protect your design — and your family Ah, the IKEA Home Planner. IKEA loves to remind you how it’s free to use! But you truly get what you pay for. In fact, the Home Planner is so buggy that IKEA’s home planning service doesn’t use the software. After many complaints from major authorized IKEA cabinet installers, IKEA finally relented and gave them access to their own proprietary software. That’s right, the Home Planner can be such a pain that the professionals don’t want to use it. But is it safe? Never mind the quirks. What worries us more at IKD [...]

  • IKEA kitchen remodel with kitchen table and gray cabinets

What IKEA Home Planner can’t do for your Kitchen Design

IKEA Home Planner vs. Hiring a Kitchen Design Professional IKEA stores are fun to visit and plan — especially when you venture into the kitchen showroom. With their mix of IKEA cabinets and accessories, the kitchens within the showroom look almost perfect. You can see all available door styles, cabinet boxes, sinks, appliances, and utensils. In the showroom, a team of kitchen specialists is available to help you every step of the way and give you access to the IKEA Home Planner. It looks like an ideal kitchen design experience that covers all your needs. However, our experience tells us this system could be better. This article highlights the pitfalls of [...]

Why IKD’s Designers Are Better than IKEA’s Home Planner

A Side-By-Side Comparison of IKD’s and IKEA’s Design Experiences Good kitchen design requires a great deal of expertise and attention to detail. When you first have a kitchen design idea you want to feel confident that your vision will become a reality. In that sense, IKEA’s Home Planner is a great conceptual tool to plan your kitchen; although it’s really more of an “app” used to fill in your IKEA kitchen with IKEA’s standard cabinetry shapes. Notice though that the word “planner” is used instead of designer. We here at IKD believe your IKEA kitchen deserves more. Realistically, unless you have professional kitchen designing experience, you’ll have a hard time deciphering [...]

Should You Avoid IKEA’s Home Planner When Designing Your Kitchen? (5 Things to Consider)

Exploring the Top Five Reasons for NOT Using IKEA's Home Planner If you’re in the market for a new IKEA kitchen, the IKEA Home Planner looks like a great option to design your kitchen. You can play interior designer, select and place furniture, try various styles, even view in 3-D. You can plan your dream kitchen, send a design and product list to your local IKEA store, pick up everything you need and start turning your vision into a stylish new kitchen. Easy peasy, huh? Well, not exactly. IKEA’s Home Planner sounds great at first but as a real-world tool it’s difficult to use, is not really a true kitchen design platform, [...]

How is IKD’s IKEA kitchen design better than the home planner?

Recently we received this question through our contact form, We’re expanding our kitchen and need a good flow, but I’m no expert. I need a better visual than the one the IKEA Home Planner can give me. If I use your service, will your design show me only the kitchen cabinets? Or can you include a dining room table (not to buy) so I can see how it would look? Can you provide other items such as lighting, under-cabinet lighting, or crown molding? We’re so glad you asked. First let’s look at the visual IKEA’s Home Planner can give you. Now, here’s what IKD’s full-color, 3D image [...]

Common IKEA customer home planner mistakes part #1 – appliance/sink location

How to avoid disastrous appliance issues in your IKEA kitchen IKD customers often complete their IKEA kitchen design using IKEA's home planner and send it to us because they're not sure it's right. They want a second set of professional eyes to review it for errors -- or how it can be improved. They don't have any kitchen design experience and it's too hard to design with IKEA's home planner. They'll be spending a substantial amount of money for the cabinets -- and they'll have to live with their design for the next 20 years -- they're worried. It makes sense to work with an IKEA kitchen design professional. We know [...]

  • IKEA Kitchen Remodel

How to Budget Your IKEA Kitchen Remodel: It Isn’t All Cabinets

A lot goes into remodeling a kitchen, and the design and supplies are just a fraction. We include an extra items list in our IKEA kitchen design package because many people forget to account for things like cabinet rails, hinges, and trim in their kitchen budget. It may be that they genuinely don’t know everything that goes into a kitchen remodel, or they get so excited they only have eyes for quartz countertops and shaker-style doors. We never want our customers taken by surprise, so we wrote an article detailing the budgeting aspects of an IKEA kitchen remodel—even the ones we don’t personally handle. 5 Key Elements of an [...]

  • IKEA Kitchen design with upscale elements

Seamlessly Blend Upscale Elements into Your IKEA Kitchen Design

How does IKD take IKEA cabinets and transform them into high-end kitchens? Let us count the ways. IKEA’s marketing department targets middle-class consumers between the ages of 20 and 34. Most of this demographic will have a career, maybe a young family, and want (and deserve) a nice home. IKEA provides a nice kitchen straight out of the box; just take one of their showrooms, copy, and paste. We work with IKEA customers who want more than nice. Our customers want elements of that IKEA showroom kitchen with a more personalized touch; they need help working around an architectural anomaly like a kitchen chimney or soffit; or they aren’t sure how [...]

  • Many People illustration

3 IKEA Kitchen Designs that Solve Real Accessibility Problems

No one gets left out when IKD creates an IKEA Kitchen Design. IKEA makes affordable kitchen products for the masses. With our IKEA knowledge and design skills, we transform those mass-produced products into custom kitchens. Often, homeowners come to us because they want a unique touch during their kitchen redesign. Sometimes, however, a homeowner needs a unique design solution. Because we are professional designers, we understand what it takes to design for aging in place, ADA specifications, and even children. Keep reading to discover three ways we’ve made it easier for customers to navigate their kitchen. How IKD Designs Accessible IKEA Kitchens 1. IKEA Kitchen Designs for Aging in [...]

Need a Second Look at Your IKEA Mudroom Design?

Having IKD review your IKEA mudroom design can save you time, money, and Tylenol. Creating an attractive, built-in mudroom can be a fun (or at least satisfying) weekend project if you have a straight forward design and easy-to-follow instructions. Otherwise, it’s a headache. IKEA is a favorite store for DIYers since their products are affordable, high-quality, easy to assemble, and hackable. However, installing a custom mudroom takes more than an idea and determination; it takes design knowledge. We can take your vision and help you get the look you want while ensuring the new addition is structurally sound and optimized for storage. Whether you have nothing more than an idea and [...]

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