Aberdare IKEA Kitchen Fitters, Twelve Minutes Down the A4059

Levelling is where an IKEA kitchen in an Aberdare terrace is won or lost. We take a datum off the highest point of the floor, level each base unit individually on its legs so the worktop line runs dead flat, then scribe the plinth down to follow the fall so the gap never shows. Above that, the METOD suspension rail has to go in dead level too, and into something solid. These houses are stone with no cavity, so the plugs in the box are the wrong fixing and we use resin anchors or long frame fixings set into sound stone instead.

The next thing we look for is what the old kitchen was hiding. A lot of Aberdare kitchens still have a bricked up chimney breast or a redundant back boiler recess in the wall, and both change the plan. A recess can be squared off and boarded so the run of METOD cabinets is continuous, or opened out properly to take a range if the structure and the flue allow, which is checked at the survey rather than decided with a hammer on day two. Around Trecynon and Gadlys those alcoves are often the best storage in the room once they are used deliberately.

Then there is the assembly, which is real work with IKEA and not a formality. Every carcass arrives flat and gets built on site, so we agree a build area and work through the boxes in run order, and we check the whole delivery against the plan before we need it. Planner designs regularly miss fillers, cover panels and legs, and a valley terrace needs more of all three than a square room does. Rear lane access is often the easiest way in with packs, subject to the gate width and any steps up into the yard. Newer housing around Hirwaun and the estates off the bypass is plasterboard on block and behaves far more predictably. We are fit only, we coordinate a Gas Safe registered engineer and a qualified electrician, and the written price after the survey is fixed.

What is included

• METOD system specialists
• Flat-pack assembly experts
• Custom modifications
• Worktop cutting and fitting

Fitting IKEA kitchens

METOD is a suspension rail system, so the whole kitchen hangs off a rail that has to be fixed dead level into something solid. In the stone walled terraces common across the Cynon and Taff valleys that means proper fixings rather than the plasterboard plugs supplied in the box. There is also a genuine assembly stage with IKEA, since every carcass arrives flat and has to be built before it can be hung.