Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 May 25, 2011 3:07 pm Hi to all those who bought and installed a DIY Kitchen! (Bunnings, Ikea, various kitchen companies etc).
A friend is currently going through the process of re-doing her kitchen. She did a lot of research and decided upon a Perth company (as she is in Perth) who could supply the complete kitchen in kit form. The idea being, you pick up all the pieces yourself and go home to install yourself (as per all those home renovation shows that "make it look easy". However, once all the stuff was brought home - she discovered there were absolutely no instructions at all for putting it together. Do you think its reasonable to expect that when paying for a DIY Kitchen in kit form, that instructions would be supplied. Even if they are basic in terms of what order to put things together in? Or is it the standard that you get home and just work it all out yourself ? Do the Ikea kits come with instructions ? Thanks for your feedback! Cheers Re: Should a "DIY Kitchen" come with instructions? 2May 25, 2011 3:35 pm I can't imagine any first timer assembling and installing a DIY kitchen without some form of instructions. Given that the product is marketed to the end user it would be a safe bet for the manufacturer to assume that many of their customers will not have done this sort of thing before. While a lot of kitchen assembly is relatively intuitive there are still enough aspects of putting together even the most basic cabinet that a first timer would often need to have clearly explained with pictures and preferably text. Without knowing much about the business at hand it appears that they are just providing an unassembled kitchen in the same form that it goes to a Cabinet Maker after having added the assembly hardware and are marketing it as DIY - this would be gross laziness as there is real work and time in generating a functional instruction set and is what providing a DIY kitchen is really all about. Not supplying an instruction set is unprofessional and unacceptable. Cheers, Earl Re: Should a "DIY Kitchen" come with instructions? 4May 26, 2011 9:17 am Generally, the kitchen should have come with a cabinet list with each component grouped under a cabinet number. the parts should have labels on them, and its a matter of putting all of the parts into little groups, then start the assembley. the company you bought from should have given some kind of instruction on their basic cabinet construction, as there is many ways to construct a carcase. who was the company, if you dont mind me asking? I was looking for a company over there last year and only found a couple of flat pack companies that i thought were not much chop, and ended up freighting a flat packed kitchen over from the Gold Coast. Re: Should a "DIY Kitchen" come with instructions? 5May 26, 2011 1:48 pm Thanks for everyone's feedback! It was my feeling that even some basic instructions should have been provided. This was only 1 of a number of issues from this particular company. Sadly it seems there are still the bad apples out there spoiling it for the good guys! She can chalk it up to a learning experience but still makes me mad! Being a small business owner myself, and always going above and beyond for my customers - I cant fathom why any small business would want to leave their customers with a negative experience. That's many referrals you would then be missing out on. Clowns! Re: Should a "DIY Kitchen" come with instructions? 6May 26, 2011 1:50 pm Pitto who was the company, if you dont mind me asking? I was looking for a company over there last year and only found a couple of flat pack companies that i thought were not much chop, and ended up freighting a flat packed kitchen over from the Gold Coast. In the interests of not being done for defamation, I wont be naming them. But Mum has a huge amount of friends in Perth and will no doubt be sharing her "personal experience" with this company . Which wouldn't inspire others Id imagine. Re: Should a "DIY Kitchen" come with instructions? 7May 26, 2011 9:06 pm er, is it your Mum who is going to put this flat pak kitchen together? Whilst I am sure she has all the energy and keenness to want to do the project, has she any skills or experience in cabinet making? The fact that she is looking for instructions suggests that she actually doesn't. I am sure the flat pak provider would have thought their kit of parts would be assembled by someone with the necessary skills and competence as I am sure every other flat pak provider would expect. What you get is manifest of items and then each item is labelled according to the manifest and then there are the screws and the feet. No competent tradesman, sorry tradesperson requires more than this. Plus of course all the drawer slide rails to be mounted on both cabinet and drawers and the hinges and handles etc. barkly Re: Should a "DIY Kitchen" come with instructions? 8May 26, 2011 10:59 pm One of my favourite shows on Fox right now is "Renovation Realities" and in all the kitchen renovation episodes, they have instructions. Maybe this is the done thing in the US but not here? Assuming the structure of your cabinetry is good then I would DIY everything as follows: - replace your counter tops entirely, - replace all drawer runners with soft close… 1 4782 hey there! π so, itβs kinda common for standard drawer depths to be around 500mm since most cabinets use this size to fit the usual runners… 3 20906 |