Blasphemy, I know...... Ikea kitchen cabinets

[Dave Avery]

Good Afternoon All,

Before you run me out of the Creek, please read with an open mind........

Kitchen cabinets are shot - 20 years of cheap builder grade is all I could expect. Want a high-end look, but am limited by time to build my own. Not planning to stay in the house long enough to justify paying for high end.

So here's the plan. Buy Ikea boxes and drawers. LOML likes the metal drawers - I was going to use Blum Metabox or Tandembox if I built my own cabinets anyway. LOML (stay-at-home mom who is handy) assembles boxes and drawers. I make drawer fronts and doors from highly figured woods and veneers.

Tell me why I shouldn't. Ideas and thoughts are appreciated. All the best. Dave.

[Joe Jensen]

We have some Ikea stuff for the kids bedrooms. Stuff look nice and is cheap, but it doesn't seem like it would be very durable. However, I haven't looked at their kitchen stuff.

[Lee DeRaud]

Sounds good to me.

Friend of mine is doing the whole thing (including doors and drawer fronts) with stuff from Ikea...so far, it looks great. They have gone through a bit of flailing around with damaged and/or misordered stuff, but the Ikea people have been treating them right: returns/exchanges with no questions asked whenever there's a problem.

[Matt Meiser]

Can't you get RTA cabinets at the borgs too? Maybe you can order them without doors. Don't know anything about Ikea vs. borg price and quality, but there may be several options. Now that I think about it, I think Custom Service Hardware has them too.

[tod evans]

dave there are a plethera of companies offering "cabinets in a box" you`re not stuck with the shopping mall mass merchandisers. i think if you spend an afternoon researching or even the local phone book you can beat both the quality and price if ya`ll want to assemble `em yourselves...02 tod

[Dave Falkenstein]

I installed two tall pantry units for a client recently - she bought them at Ikea. The quality was decent. With custom-made doors the quality would be better. The door style was very plain - flat panels with roundovers on the edges. The cabinets went together easily and the metal drawer modules were flexible in installation. I saw no reason to be concerned about durability. The cabinetry seems well designed. If you want to save more of your time, consider ordering doors and drawer fronts from someone like California Door:

http://www.caldoor.com/home.htm

I have used some cabinet doors from Cal Door with great results. They make the doors to your specifications in many different styles and ship them to you unfinished.

[Parker Nicholson]

Do IKEA cabs have plywood or particle-board carcasses? I'd say your idea is a go if they're made of plywood (at least 1/2"). If not, you're pretty much into a second set of cabs in about 15 years (If you're lucky)!

[Jim Becker]

The Ikea kitchen cabinets are very well made...I say go for it. I may do the same for some of the cabinetry for our addition just to save time. They also have a wealth of "accessories" conveniently available in one place for ease of sourcing.

[Dev Emch]

If I were one of your perspective home buyers, I would derate my offer accordingly. The old cabs or these new ones are one and the same. I would have tear it all out anyway so why should I pay top dollar for these in the first place.

Some advice. When redoing items in your home, esp. for resale dress up, always use something that is consumer neutral. You may really like purple carpet with pink poka dots but most folks do not. Its not an acceptable color scheme, thus, it has to be gutted for resale or you take the derate on the price.

These types of cabinets are not the standard and most folks like myself really cannt stand metal drawers, etc. in the kitchen. I have redone some that had prefab kitchen kits from the 1950s. You bought the whole kitchen turn key and installed it. The cabs were metal boxes. Horrid stuff. I just took a 20 pound sledge hammer and removed all this stuff and hauled it to the metal junk dealer who in turn most likely shipped the scrap back to china. Who knows, some of these leave it to beaver kitchen items may be comming back here as a spiffy new jointer or planer.;)

[Steve Schoene]

Ikea cabinets are better built than many of the big box cabinets. Check out consumer reports on kitchen cabinets for some ratings.

Whether Dev is right depends on the particular market. But since the kitchen started life as "cheap builders cabinets" then the IKEA would be an upgrade, and would likely be fully appropriate to the market for the house. If everything else were very upscale, and the neighborhood too, then it would not be as good a choice.

[Dave Avery]

Thanks, guys....... appreciate the thoughts.

Steve - in respect of the house and neighborhood - already the biggest house in the neighborhood after a large addition a few years back. While it's a nice neighborhood, I wouldn't recoup much of a large kitchen remodeling bill. That's the main reason why I'm thinking of starting with Ikea. In terms of style, the house leans toward contemporary so those drawn to the house would likely be drawn to the minimalist Ikea look. Again, thanks. All the best. Dave.

[Brian Knop]

It’s a matter of how you look at it. I made all the kitchen cabinets for our house. I would never do it again, why because woodworking is my hobby and making one box (that all cabinet are) after another is boring, it was like having another job. When ever I finish the high boy that I’m making my girls want a Curio cabinet next, but I really would like to make something else so I may just buy them one. I only have so much time and you should enjoy what you’re doing, or it’s not really a hobby!

[Lee DeRaud]

I only have so much time and you should enjoy what you’re doing, or it’s not really a hobby!There's also the fact that living through a full kitchen remodel is seriously inconvenient unless you have a house with two kitchens. Anything that speeds up the process is a good thing.

[Jim Becker]

There's also the fact that living through a full kitchen remodel is seriously inconvenient unless you have a house with two kitchens. Anything that speeds up the process is a good thing.
I do agree, although with good (or more likely, LUCKY) planning, you can keep it down to something reasonable, especially in the summer when you can grill every night. Between that and having the microwave and toaster oven along with the mobile island that served as the prototype for our kitchen, we were only "fully down" for about two weeks or so. If you look at the demolition/construction pictures on my web site, you'll see that the old sink and old range top stayed until the very last minute while the new range went in as soon as the drywall was up. A cheap laundry sink served that need until I could get the cabinets in and finish the plumbing work.