I've been having issues getting into the home planner for my kitchen as well. The link I've been using redirects to the planning tools page. More on reddit.com

I work in the commercial construction field, and I've seen a lot of cabinets. The differences between IKEA cabinets and custom cabinets are very minor, and most of them are in the finishes, not the construction of the cabinets. Custom cabinets are made from MDF and particleboard with a finish veneer, just like IKEA. The biggest difference will be in the cabinet thickness. All Akurum and SEKTION cabinets are 3/4" thick, most custom cabinets are 3/4" thick, whereas Home Depot and Lowe's off the shelf cabinets are 1/2" thick. I installed a SEKTION kitchen in my mom's house this past week. I was skeptical of the quality beforehand, but I was blown away by the engineering that has gone into the design of the cabinets. Assembling them is very slick and made me feel like I was putting LEGO sets together. Everything from drawer glides to hinges is high quality (I took a hinge into Lowe's to discuss it with their cabinet maker and he was blown away by the design. They use a tension design instead of screws so you can easily swap out doors if you want to upgrade.). In contrast, I installed a Home Depot cabinet kitchen in my dad's rental house last December, and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Parts came damaged or broken, thinner cabinet frames, and lower quality hardware. IKEA was definitely worth the money. Having said this, my only gripe was with the SEKTION suspension rail. The holes for the rail are located at 12" on center. Almost zero houses were designed with 12" on center studs. You will be drilling holes in the rail to install. It's not a big hassle, but it seems odd to use a 12" spacing pattern. More on reddit.com

We did a full kitchen I think in 2015. It was so much simpler and about a fourth of the cost of what Ikea is charging now. We sold that house and built a cool storage center using three tall Sektion cabs with Grimslov (shaker) doors and drawers in a tiny apartment we rented in 2018. We left the centers of each tall cab open and put butcher block at counter height because we were desperate for counter space. I would say the price then was double what we paid for our original kitchen. We've now purchased a condo. We took the three tall cabs with us. (Surprisingly they left only a few small screw holes when they were taken down. We paid someone $60. to fill the holes and other holes from Ikea things around the apartment.) We are now scurrying to purchase all of the Grimslov doors and drawers we need before they are out of stock because they are being discontinued. Maybe you can tell from how many times We've purchased Ikea cabs that I LOVE them. I had never seen drawers that glide open and don't stick before, or doors that close so softly. We moved the tall cabs (with professional movers) into our condo. They have one tiny ding on the corner of a drawer that will be easy to fix with touch up paint. We'll be using the tall cabs in our new kitchen. In our house we had a company that Ikea recommended install the cabs. I would highly recommend you have a professional install them unless you are super good at DIYing. I would go in and sit down with the Ikea kitchen staff to make your layout. They can come and do the measurements but with our condo we waited all day, and no one showed up. If you think they would show up I would also have them come out to do the measurements. It's worth the fee you pay them. (I think it was under $100.) I would have them deliver everything unless you have a strong back! In Oregon they will deliver to a room for $119. Try to get everything at once cause if you don't you'll have to keep paying that $119. fee (like we are) because nothing is "sold" or "in-stock" in Portland and we can only get it by having it delivered. Some people don't like IKEA's laminate countertops. In our home we got Saljan laminate counter tops in White Stone and we LOVED them. They held up very well. (Not sure what we will use yet in our condo but we got the Ekbacken in light gray concrete to make a desk in our computer room. We'll have to see how that holds up.) We have purchased several lengths of Karlby butcher block countertop. It is beautiful and has held up beautifully although I would NOT use it near water. We used it in kind of specialty places to set hot things on and will be using it on the counter by our stove in our new condo. Also, we may buy our butcher block at Home Depot this time because the Karlby is now pretty expensive. The two things I did not like about Ikea kitchens are: I can't remember the style we got the first time around and fortunately it is not sold anymore but it was white and the area around the stove did yellow after only maybe 3 to 5 years. Our new Grislov cabs are white and we have had them for 4 years with absolutely NO yellowing. The second thing is that the cabinet styles are often discontinued (as our first one was, and now Grislov has been discontinued. When you get the brilliant idea like we did, to add matching cabs around our family fireplace, IKEA no longer sold what we had used in the adjacent kitchen. That can be a real bummer. And my final piece of advice is do everything before you want your kitchen installed and then wait for IKEA's twice yearly kitchen sale to buy everything. Go on the morning of the first day of the sale so your things will/might be (during the pandemic) in stock. I have heard that people are waiting months for things they need to complete their kitchen. We didn't have that problem pre-pandemic. Oh, and become an IKEA family member if you aren't already! We got perks when we did our big kitchen remodel because of that. Good luck! More on reddit.com

Ikea living room design More on reddit.com