Kitchen - Ikea vs Freedom

Leaning towards Ikea - but it's a 5 hour round trip to Sydney ... whereas we have a local-ish Freedom so much more convenient.

There have been lots of positive reports about Ikea kitchens - but 50/50 good/bad for Freedom. Has anyone used Freedom? What are their prices like as they don't post them on the website?

**** it's hot here - living in a shed on a building site with no aircon at 43 degrees

 

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...and you're the one looking at kitchens

FWIW, the kitchens for Freedom are (AFAIK) made by DH Gibson Shopfitting at Girraween. They also make all of the fixturing, gondolas, shelving and counters for Woolworths and several other retail chains. Their fixtures aren't imported but made locally.

Not sure if you can fit standard appliances in the IKEA cupboards (I would assume so but you don't want to be stuck with having to rely on IKEA for all the whitegoods too).

 

I have better impression on Freedom kitchen...Can't have them custom made cheaper locally?

 

I put an Ikea kitchen in one of the rentals and have been pleasantly surprised at how it has stood up to the tenants. It still looks good 7 years later, I put a timber bench in so that it could be sanded back and refinished but so far have not had to do it.

 

Thanks Chrispy. Both have lovers and haters, so hard to know which way to go ... or even simply to approach a local supplier or online flat pack company.

I'm after shaker/hamptons style doors otherwise we'd go for our usual handy Bunnings Kaboodle

 

My understanding that freedom are just middle men/project managers.
And they are apparently appalling at it.
That and they have hard sell salesmen. My dealings left Me feeling uneasy - and I'm really glad I didn't run with them. Got a custom one for around the same price but with poly, etc.
No local builders who can hook you up with a well priced kitchen/cabinetry crew?

 

Don't ikea deliver now? Will hurt their business model - people purchasing heaps of crap as impulse buys
But I'm happy with mine. The online planner is handy to
Surely there is someone on here that will visit ikea and can post stuff up to you

 

Where's that Uber driver when you want one (with a ute of course).

 

I put in an Ikea kitchen at work a little over 4 years ago now.
That decision was based at the time mostly on price, as we had gone way over budget with our build.
The Ikea kitchen area (including the oven) has so far gotten a pretty damn hard work out 5 - 5.5 days per week by employees who treat it totally differently to how they would their own.
It has stood up (so far) fantastically well imo for all the abuse it has copped.
The slow self closing doors all still operating fine, no chips in any doors/drawers despite me seeing them closed with the occasional boot/utensils in hand etc.
I did pay extra for stone bench tops at installation (thankfully upon looking back now).....employees can be like tenants in someone else's kitchen on wooden benchtops.
Think of a cross between a My Kitchen Rules hopeful / Edward Scissor hands / Jack the Ripper on any wooden bench tops & you have my employee's treatment of them down pat.
I'm impressed so far with my work situated Ikea kitchen.
Not the standard I'd put in my own PPOR, but thats a different story.

 

Yep, we put an Ikea kitchen in an IP in Brisbane. We designed it on-line, got Ikea staff to review/tweak our design and got a chippie to install it. All went very smoothly and have had no problems with it. Very happy given the price.

I had a brother-in-law who manufactured and installed kitchens. The business was called Kitchin's Kitchens. True story.

 

We were in IKEA and freedom yesterday looking at kitchens for our new Ppor.

Our last kitchen was from IKEA (white shaker) and you can see the photos in the gallery here. It definitely doesn't have the high end finish of a custom build put together by a cabinet maker, but we couldn't say no to the price - $3-3.5k for the cabinetry and got a caeserstone bench separately for $3k.

Compare that to $20-25k for the same layout from 'The Good Guys' / Freedom. Our $6.5k kitchen was justified for the house being worth $650k, if the house was $1.3m then we would have spent $25k with freedom.

The colour schemes at IKEA seem very limited at the moment.. a look online might save you a long drive?

The display kitchen we saw in freedom yesterday was amazing! I was drooling over a particular design.

I'll steel freedoms design and go with another flatpack company that has the colour scheme we're after.

 

Freedom are running 20% off at the moment.. but 20% off expensive is still expensive for our budget.
Take another 5% off for becoming a 'freedom member'.

I think the rule is 1-2% of the house cost is the budget for the kitchen?

 

Fairly sure this deal is always on once you meet with their "consultant".
Part of their hard sale technique.

 

Has anyone used a Bunnings kitchen in a cheap rental?

 

Yep, I think 'the good guys' have the 20% off constantly as well.. they did when they came to quote a while back.

Freedom also have 6months interest free to distract from their cost as well.

 

Check out prices with small business cabinet makers in the industrial area.

For what only kitchen cabinets were going to cost me at Bunny's (then diy install etc) plus a couple of largish cabinet makers, kitchen specialists, I ended up with custom made, stone bench tops, new sink & mixer, slide out rangehood, all installed from a small two man team in a factory unit with all the machinery/gear required.

Not saying you'll get that good a deal, I was lucky he had some stone hanging around from someone who changed their mind, will ob depend how busy building is in the local area, however they don't all get work with builders, so they need work where they can get it, they have rent etc to pay.

 

Yes, one in 2013 and two last year. I like the convenience, easy to assemble, replacement parts are easy and the price.

Go for the colour chocanilla, much cheaper. Also, we're talking cheap rentals, I do away with the corner cupboard next to the stove, saves another few hundred.

 

Yeah - I'm starting to lean that way.

We're more than happy to do flat pak - and the benchtops I'm after only come from one place in Sydney (paperock). Have done a couple of Bunnings ones and been more than happy, but they don't have the door fronts that I'm after.

 

Lizzie I know these are not what you are after but these are the Ikea cupboards and bench top I put in at the rental