How to Read Your IKEA Kitchen Plan and Order List (Before You Hire)

Your IKEA Kitchen Planner export is two documents: a plan drawing that shows where everything goes, and an item list (IKEA calls it a shopping list or product list) that shows every piece you are about to buy. Read the item list first. It is longer, duller and more honest than the drawing. Every line is a frame, a door, a drawer, a hinge, a leg, a panel or a rail, and the count of frames is the count of cabinets. Once you can read that list, you can check it against your walls, catch the mistakes the planner lets through, and hand it to an installer for a quote that means something.

We review these lists for free before we quote, and most of what we find is not exotic. It is a missing cover panel, a run with no filler, a hinge count that is off by two. This guide is how we read them.

What the IKEA Kitchen Planner gives you

When you finish a design in the planner and save it, IKEA generates a few outputs. The exact layout of the export changes with software updates, so treat this as the general shape and check the current planner for what you actually see. If you have not built the design yet, start with our guide to using the IKEA Kitchen Planner.

The plan drawing

This is the picture: a floor plan with cabinet positions and dimensions, usually one or more elevation views of each wall, and a 3D rendering. The drawing is good at showing intent, which wall the sink is on, where the range sits, how tall the uppers are. It is bad at showing what is missing, because the renderer fills gaps with wall color and never draws the part you forgot.

The item list

This is the inventory: every article, with its name, size, color, quantity, price and an eight-digit IKEA article number. It reads like a warehouse pick list because that is what it becomes. A modest 10x10 kitchen often runs somewhere between 60 and 150 lines. Items are usually grouped, but not always in the order you would want, and the same door style appears many times at different sizes. Print it. Everyone who touches the project will work from it: you, the installer, the person at the IKEA counter, and you again on delivery day when you check boxes against it (see our guide to missing or damaged IKEA kitchen parts for that step).

How to decode the item list

Every line falls into one of a dozen buckets. Learn to sort them and the list stops being noise.

Frames. Lines beginning with SEKTION and a phrase like "base cabinet frame," "wall cabinet frame" or "high cabinet frame," followed by a size such as 24x24x30 or 15x15x40. That is width, depth and height, in inches. These are the cabinets.

Doors. The style name (VEDDINGE, AXSTAD, BODBYN, LERHYTTAN, VOXTORP, ENKÖPING, HAVSTORP, NICKEBO) followed by "door" and a width by height, such as 15x30. Doors go on wall cabinets, on base cabinets with a single door, and on tall units.

Drawer fronts. The same style name followed by "drawer front" and a size. Drawer fronts come in a few heights that stack to fill a 30-inch base, typically a low front, medium fronts and high fronts, in combinations like 5-10-15 or 10-10-10. If a base cabinet is a drawer cabinet, you will see no door for it and two, three or four drawer fronts instead.

Drawer boxes. MAXIMERA drawers in low, medium and high, sized to the frame width. The count should match the drawer fronts, one box per front, with the exception of a few configurations where a shallow inner drawer sits behind a tall front. Soft-close is built into MAXIMERA at the time of writing; our guide to IKEA soft-close hardware explains how it behaves.

Hinges. UTRUSTA hinges, generally two per door for doors up to 30 inches and more for taller doors. They are sold in packs, so the line count on the list is not the hinge count; check the pack quantity.

Interior fittings. UTRUSTA shelves, pull-out interiors, corner carousels, wire baskets, cutlery trays. These are the parts that make a frame useful, and they are the parts people forget most.

Legs. SEKTION legs, sold in packs. Each base and tall cabinet needs at least four; wide cabinets, sink bases and anything carrying a heavy countertop benefit from more. The pack count on your list needs to cover that.

Cover panels. FÖRBÄTTRA cover panels in the door finish, used to hide an exposed frame side: the end of a run, the side of a tall cabinet, the back of an island, the wall of a refrigerator surround. They come in a few sizes and get trimmed on site.

Toe kicks. FÖRBÄTTRA toe kick strips, sold by length, clipped to the legs to close the gap under the base run. You need enough linear feet to cover every visible base front plus any exposed ends.

Suspension rail. SEKTION suspension rail, sold in lengths, one continuous run per wall of uppers plus more wherever tall cabinets need it. Cut on site.

Fillers. FÖRBÄTTRA filler pieces in the door finish, used to close the gap between the last cabinet and a wall, or between a cabinet and an appliance. Our guide to toe kicks and fillers covers where they go and how they are scribed.

Handles, lighting and extras. Pulls and knobs, under-cabinet lights, deco strips and crown, drawer organizers. Nice to have on the list; not what an installer prices from.

Counting cabinets from the list: frames are cabinets

Ignore the drawing and count the frame lines. Add up the quantities of every line that says base cabinet frame, wall cabinet frame or high cabinet frame. That number is your cabinet count, and it is the first thing any installer wants to know, because most quotes, ours included, are built per cabinet and adjusted for the hard ones.

Then split the count three ways: base, wall, tall. A kitchen with 18 frames made up of 9 base, 8 wall and 1 tall installs very differently from 18 frames with 4 tall pantry units and a stacked run of uppers to the ceiling. Tall units take longer to build and level, and stacked uppers mean a second rail and more careful alignment.

Now cross-check fronts against frames. Every base frame should have either a door (or two, for wide cabinets) or a set of drawer fronts adding up to 30 inches. Every wall frame should have a door or two matching its height. If a frame has no front on the list, either it is an open cabinet on purpose or the planner lost it. Open cabinets in a kitchen are rarer than the planner makes them look.

Common item categories and why they matter

What installers look for when quoting from a plan

When a plan lands in our inbox, we read it in a fixed order. This is roughly what any experienced installer is doing, whether they say so or not.

1. Cabinet count, split base, wall and tall. Sets the baseline for labor and days.
2. Tall units. Pantries, oven housings, refrigerator surrounds. Each one is a small project: heavy, tall, often needing a cover panel and a rail tie-in.
3. Corner solutions. A blind corner, a carousel, a diagonal corner cabinet, or two runs that simply die into the corner with a filler. Each installs differently. See IKEA corner cabinet solutions.
4. Wall cabinet heights and stacking. Are the uppers 30 inches, 40 inches, or stacked to the ceiling with a bulkhead above? That decides rail count and whether we are building soffits.
5. Island. Any island means back and end panels, a way to anchor base frames to the floor, and coordination with whoever is running power to it. Our IKEA kitchen island guide covers the extra parts.
6. Appliance openings. The gap the planner left for the range, the frame around the dishwasher, the height over the refrigerator. We check those dimensions against the actual appliance spec sheets, not the planner's stand-ins; see IKEA kitchen appliance dimensions.
7. Cover panels, fillers and toe kick. Whether the finish pieces exist on the list, and whether there are enough of them. This is where most plans fall down.
8. Anything not IKEA. Countertop material, hood, backsplash, demo. These change scope and sequencing.

From those eight items we can give a firm number for cabinet assembly and installation, usually within the $150–$300 per cabinet rule of thumb, with a clear list of what is and is not included.

Common mistakes we spot in plans

• Missing cover panels. Every exposed frame side needs one: the end of a run, both sides of a tall cabinet that sticks out past the uppers, the back of a peninsula. Count exposed sides on the drawing, then count panels on the list.
• No fillers. The planner places cabinets edge to edge and lets the last one touch the wall. Real walls are not straight, and a door hard against a wall will not open fully. Every run that ends at a wall needs a filler, and so does a door beside a protruding refrigerator.
• Wrong hinge count. Usually short. Count doors, multiply by two, add extra for tall doors, then check the pack quantity on the list.
• Not enough legs. People count cabinets and buy one pack each, forgetting that wide bases and sink cabinets want more, and that tall units need them too.
• Missing toe kick. Or too little of it. Add up the linear feet of visible base run plus any exposed ends, then compare to the lengths on the list.
• Wall cabinets that hit windows. The planner will happily place a 30-inch upper across a window opening if the wall measurement was entered without it. Check every upper against window and door trim on your own measurements.
• Drawer stacks that do not add up. Three 10-inch fronts equal 30 inches; a 5, a 10 and a 15 equal 30 inches; a 10 and a 15 do not. A mismatched stack means a missing box or front.
• Appliance gaps sized to the wrong appliance. A 30-inch range needs a 30-inch opening plus whatever the manufacturer specifies for clearance. A dishwasher needs a real 24-inch space with a cover panel or a frame beside it.
• Suspension rail sold short. One length per wall is not always enough; long walls and tall units need more.

For the broader list of things that go wrong before and during installation, see IKEA kitchen mistakes to avoid.

Checking the plan against your measurements

Before anyone quotes, put the plan against the room.

1. Re-measure each wall at counter height and at upper-cabinet height, corner to corner, and write both numbers on the drawing. Old houses give two different answers.
2. Add up the cabinet widths along each wall from the item list, plus any filler widths. The total should be an inch or two less than the wall, not equal to it and never more.
3. Measure from the floor to the underside of each window sill and to the top of each window and door casing. Compare to where the plan puts the top and bottom of the uppers.
4. Check the ceiling height in at least three places. If the plan stacks cabinets to the ceiling, the difference between the lowest and highest reading is a problem you want to know about now.
5. Locate the sink drain, the gas line, the range outlet and the dishwasher supply. Confirm they fall inside the cabinets the plan assigns them to.
6. Note anything the planner cannot see: a radiator, a chimney breast, a bulkhead, a floor that slopes toward the back door.

Our guide to measuring a kitchen for IKEA cabinets goes step by step, and if you are working in a pre-war house, IKEA kitchens in old houses covers the surprises.

The New England part: what the planner does not know about your house

The planner assumes a square room with flat walls, a level floor and drywall. In a Somerville triple-decker or a Providence Victorian, none of that is guaranteed. We look for a few tells in the plan itself.

Runs that fill a wall to the exact inch with no filler are the first. A 1920s wall is rarely within a half inch of straight across ten feet, and plaster-and-lath walls bulge around the studs. Uppers drawn to a ceiling that has not been measured in more than one place are the second; a ceiling that drops an inch and a half across the room will leave a visible taper along the top of a stacked run unless someone plans for it. Radiators under windows are the third: the planner shows a clean base run where a cast-iron radiator lives and is not moving.

None of this is a reason to avoid IKEA cabinets; SEKTION is well suited to crooked rooms because of its fillers and adjustability. It is a reason to have someone who works in these houses read the plan before you order. We do that across Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the review is free.

How to send your plan for a quote

Export or save the item list as a PDF or spreadsheet and the plan drawing as a PDF or image. Take two or three phone photos of the room as it stands, including the ceiling line and any radiator or window that touches the run. Then request a free estimate and attach all of it, with a note about what else is in scope: demo, countertops, appliances, a bulkhead.

We read the list the way this guide describes, flag anything missing or oversized, and send back a quote per cabinet with the hard units called out. If the plan needs changes, we tell you before you place the order, not after the boxes arrive.