Ikea kitchens

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, we badly want to remodel our 1956 original kitchen (ew). It’s extremely inefficient as well as being just plain ugly. We have the money set aside, but we want of course to get the best bang for our buck.

We have a friend who is a designer for a custom cabinet outlet, and she has come up with a brilliant design. We love it–problem is, the cabinets are pricey. Not unfairly or surprisingly so, but still. It’s about $2000 more than when we redid our smaller condo’s kitchen, using KraftMaid–considering it’s a larger kitchen, that seems in keeping with the price increase.

Grabbing an Ikea catalog and sketching out a similar kitchen with one of their similar cabinet styles, and it was a $5000 difference in price. That makes it very, very tempting.

But–is Ikea worth it? Anyone do the Ikea kitchen thing? Anyone LIKE the Ikea kitchen thing? Or, should I run away screaming?

(BTW, we will definitely pay the designer for her design if we go with another company–it’s only fair, and we DO plan to use her ideas!)

2

Yep, we just redid our 1970s kitchen with Ikea cabinets. We really really liked them! There’s a huge range of door styles, and the actual boxes are very sturdy, easy to assemble, and easy to install. Are you planning on DIYing? I did some of the kitchen, mostly the simple stuff - put together the boxes, installed the shelves, doors, drawers and hardware - and the Ikea system really made it all very simple. The soft closing drawers and cabinet doors are really good, top quality Blum hardware. We also got a sink, microwave, dishwasher and laminate counters, all great quality, and great prices. We went with Adel beech, which is at the higher end, as it has wood facing over the laminate, and is a great compromise between traditional/contemporary style.

There was a sale on earlier this year (who knows, they may repeat it!) which was 20% off the total price of cabinets and appliances, if you bought three appliances over $199. I think that was the deal, anyway. We only bought two appliances, and still got 15% off.

The other great thing is how modular everything is. Once you’ve chosen a door style, it’s available in every size you can think of. This helped us a lot - for instance, we realised we hadn’t installed the false drawer fronts under the sink, which have to be put in before the sink is fixed into the counter, so we just returned the drawer fronts and doors, and got taller doors, which went all the way up. Sorry, does that make sense?

The messageboard at www.ikeafans.com is helpful, if somewhat fanatical :slight_smile:

We intended maybe on using some of our saving to splash out on the backsplash :slight_smile: but ended up buying loose 4x4" tiles from three separate Home Depots and making our own mosaic mix. Looks great!

Hope this helped, feel free to ask more.

3

I’m doing it soon - I’ve most stuff in already but I’m waiting for some tiles and stuff. Got everything except for the tiles from IKEA for a little over 2000 euros (including dish washer, stove, oven, sink, cabinets and 3.5 meters of oak board). I did go for the cheapest door panels (plain white, no foil) - the kitchen is pretty dark and small so I didn’t want any other color - and spent a bit extra on a sturdy cast-iron stove and a decent oven.

Seemed like a pretty good deal, and most people I know who have an IKEA kitchen are pretty satisfied with it. I might post an update when everything’s installed.

4

I have some IKEA cabinets and they’ve been great for the 3 years I’ve had them. I was hesitant at first, but my brother in law (who does finish carpentry and cabinet installs) recommended them. He even put them in his own kitchen.

5

I was just reading about people who had original old kitchens and decor "Living in a Time Capsule " http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/garden/25capsules.html

Seems in New York City you can rent out your retro-classic to film studios shooting period movies.

6

You might want to do a search for Ikea on Gardenweb’s kitchen forum. Here’s one thread. That forum is incredibly helpful in all aspects of kitchen design–I’d run the floorplan by them before you commit to anything.

Ikea cabs have a great repuation, and have a lot of extras you have to pay for in other lines, like full extension drawers and blum softclose glides. You can also have custom doors made for them, since everything is modular–just buy the boxes. They’re also easy to assemble and install. We’ll be putting them in the house we’re building (hopefully) next year.

7

Excellent link, Renee, thank you. DeathLlama went by Ikea last night and gave the cabinets a more thorough looking-over. His main concerns are the particle board construction and the mismatched color of the boxes. We want the darker colored doors, but the boxes are all the same light colors. This means we’d have dark wood doors with light colored sides. Additionally, if the dark stained wood is hit, the particle board will splinter apart and leave a glaring light-colored scar. Sure, we can stain/paint over it, but it’s not as easily covered up as wood.

Still, we’re going by Ikea today. I’ve heard nothing but positives on all of the message boards I’ve been to, so this just may be what we end up doing.

Um…if we do, what’s a fair price to offer the designer for her work?

8

Can your current cabinets be refinished? We just remodeled our kitchen and instead of spending mad money on new cabinets, we had a team come in and (among other things) take the doors off of the cabinets and ‘faux finish’ them, along with the rest of the cabinetry, making them look pretty awesome.

You can see samples of what this looks like from the place that did ours
http://www.beautifauxfinishesanddesign.com/

9

Our cabinets are beyond help. One, they’re entirely too small, and two, the kitchen layout is entirely too odd. We have soffits that will be ripped out as they rob us of 10" of cabinet space all the way around, and there’s this funky oven thing that jutts out awkardly and takes up space. Then, there’s the corner cabinet thing that, because of it’s triangular prism shape, is terribly inefficient.

We need about double the storage we have (seriously, the most inefficient kitchen layout I’ve seen), and should get it no problem with the new design.

Once we’re in the process, I’ll post pictures. It’d be nice if it were a cute 1956 kitchen; instead, it’s a '56 kitchen with '70s gold-weird-ugly linoleum flooring. It be UGLY.

10

My anal-retentive friend God of Citroens installed Ikea cabinets in his kitchen. But because he was worried about swelling if water seeped into the joints and got to the exposed “end grain” of the particle board, he smeared every exposed-grain surface with gookum (I think he used latex caulk) just before assembling each cabinet; that way every joint was sealed.

Now, granted, sometimes he goes a bit overboard; but having seen the effects of water on particle board, I’d sure think about doing something like that if I were installing them under a sink in a kitchen or bathroom.

11

We’re at the beginning of the process for putting in a new kitchen. The first place we looked was IKEA. The units seem decent, but we found that the styles and the sizes were limited.

Unforunately, things like the pantry units only being offered in 15" (rather then 12", 15", 18" and 21") made IKEA a no go for us.

12

We’re on our second IKEA kitchen now and I’d recommend them. Kitchens are one of their strengths - I think IKEA’s design is outstanding across the board but their fabrication can be poor, their kitchens are made to a decent standard though. It makes for a strong combination - excellent design and value for money, and good overall quality.

I do live in an apartment, though, that I’ll probably have moved on from in 5 years. If I was fitting a kitchen to my ultimate house - the house I intended to grow old in, then I’d probably be looking at a level above IKEA.

13

The light boxes problem can be solved by painting the edges, or covering them with a matching strip of laminate. I know some people do that, and I probably would if we got dark doors.

Also, if a door ever got damaged, and I think that’s pretty unusual, you can easily buy a new door.

Regarding the particle board, that’s standard cabinet construction unless you pay an upcharge for plywood boxes on the more expensive cab companies. There have been several discussions about whether this is worth it (general consensus:no) on the kitchen forum I linked to.

14

I have an Ike\a kitchen, and overall it’s pretty good. I’m not thrilled about the quality of the doors, the finish isn’t holding up. If you go with Ikea, keep your receipt, that activates the warranty, so if you have a problem like I am*, you would likely be able to get relief.

Ikea is also nice because it is pretty easy to install, you put up a steel rail, level it, and secure it tightly, and the cabinets attach to the rail. For a DIYer, much easier than traditional cabinet installation.
My design was discontinued, so if I went for the warranty repair, the colors would all change. I’m probably just going to get some paint made up in a matching color and fix the finish myself.