Fitting IKEA METOD on Pontypridd Stone Walled Terraces

Pontypridd stone holds a fixing beautifully once you are into sound stone rather than the mortar joint, but it is slow going and it makes dust. The plugs in the IKEA box are designed for modern blockwork and plasterboard, so they are simply the wrong product here. We drill into the stone itself, use resin anchors or long frame fixings, and set the rail off a level datum rather than following the ceiling or the skirting, because in a house that has settled into a hillside for over a century neither of those is straight. The same wall thickness is why coring for an extractor duct is a proper job with the right kit rather than a quick hole, and we agree where the vent goes and sheet the room up before starting.

Then there is the genuine assembly stage. Every carcass arrives flat, and in a Pontypridd terrace where the kitchen is a small rear outshut there is nowhere in that room to build twenty cabinets. We agree a build area, usually the back room or the front room, and work through the boxes in the order the run goes together. The other thing we do before touching a screwdriver is check what is behind the old units, because a single skin rear outshut wall that runs damp will destroy chipboard carcasses whatever badge is on them. If we find that, we say so and get the cause dealt with first rather than boarding over it with a new kitchen.

Almost nothing in these houses is square, so cutting carcasses down and scribing end panels around chimney breasts, boxed pipework and sloping floors is routine. Base units get levelled individually on their legs so the worktop runs true, and the plinth is scribed to the floor so the fall does not show. The newer estates at Church Village, Tonteg, Beddau and Llantwit Fardre reverse the problem, level floors and square rooms but dot and dab plasterboard standing off the blockwork, where the rail fixings have to be long enough to reach the block behind. We check the IKEA order against the room in both cases, since planner designs regularly miss fillers, panels and legs. Fit only, Gas Safe engineer and qualified electrician coordinated, fixed written quote after the survey.

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.