ᐅ The Right Time to Plan Your Kitchen in a New Build?

Hello everyone,
At the end of September, construction of our house will begin, and everything should be finished by March or April.

I’m the one who enjoys planning and organizing. My partner would prefer to leave everything to me.
Since the selections phase is starting soon, I’m wondering when is the right time to plan the kitchen?

So, when did you start with it? We have already visited KüchenAktuell to get some initial advice.

Of course, I have read through the forum a bit and found out that quite a few people here have bought a kitchen from IKEA.
Have you also compared other suppliers?

I’m just trying to find a point of reference to orient myself.
Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

As soon as you have the final layout of your kitchen, you should get started.

Then you can plan the kitchen exactly as you want and have the plumbing and wiring installed accordingly.

Once the pipes and cables are in place, you will have to adapt your kitchen design to fit them.

We planned the floor plan and kitchen simultaneously. Although we had basically finished the floor plan, a few change requests came up while planning the kitchen (relocated windows and door). So, we ended up adjusting the floor plan as well. Personally, I would take care of the kitchen before construction starts to allow for any possible changes...

It’s best to include this in the floor plan from the start; otherwise, you might face surprises like the countertop not fitting or something not looking right. In our case, the floor plan was developed around the kitchen because I a) wanted an area with tall cabinets and b) a kitchen island.

There were already kitchen planning attempts like: how to squeeze this and that into the “kitchen placeholder.” I wanted…, so why doesn’t this work now?! I don’t have space for tall cabinets, how am I supposed to get between the countertop and kitchen units with only 50 cm (20 inches)…

Also, the builder needs the plan for the water pipes.

I wouldn’t favor IKEA kitchens, since the effort to assemble it yourself is quite huge, but having it assembled is quite expensive. Afterwards, there is no warranty for defects, and when it comes to appliances, you’re not very flexible—you have to take the refrigerator from IKEA.

The interior fittings don’t last long and are flimsy; adjusting the drawer alignment is tedious, and the hanging cabinets have mounts that frustrate every carpenter, let alone a DIYer. So in the end, you don’t really save much…

In our household, the roles are similar: I do the work and can be creative, and my husband goes along with it.

We also immediately started working on the kitchen. For the electrical planning, the builder wanted the kitchen plan and electrical plan right away, so we began visiting furniture stores. We decided on Alno... they offer many options for cabinet height, depth, and so on. If you only want or need a standard kitchen, you can probably go with a more affordable supplier like Wellmann.

Have fun with it and always negotiate carefully... they have plenty of flexibility with their prices.

ypg schrieb:
Afterwards, there is no warranty for defects, and when it comes to appliances, you are not very flexible; the refrigerator has to be from Ikea.

Aren’t those all standard sizes? You can use other appliances as well, right? Even for the refrigerator, or am I mistaken?