[tpagel]

Buy your cabinets AFTER your walls have achieved their finished dimensions! I had full brick interior veneer in my kitchen, inside of a wood framed wall which held the sheathing, the siding, etc., which we hated. I was going to build a wall face about 2" in front of the the brick, in order to fasten the tile board and the finished tile surface. We had to remove a little of the brick to scrap a built in range ("built in" as in it was a cooktop with a brick enclosure built around it. we demo'ed the brick enclosure and a little adjacent brick to remove an outlet. We saw the sill of the outer plate, behind the brick, didn't look in very good shape. So I decided to take a sledge to the brick. Once revealed, the wood wall behind the brick was shown to be mostly rotted away from water damage. I could push the wall in and out with my hand, because the sill plate connections had disappeared! Not good, since this wall was supposed to be holding up the second floor above it!. Sooo down cam the brick, and the existing wall. What was supposed to be a 2 week "simple renovation" became an exercise in rough carpentry. We had to remove the siding, sheathing, studs, and sill plate, and completly re-build the exterior wall. If I had known I was going to do that, I would have built an addition and made the kitchen bigger!
As it was, I had ordered all my cabinets already to match the walls I thought I was going to build. Guess my filler panels just grew by 4"-6" unless I can fit the next bigger size cabinet in the layout somewhere. Arghhhh.

[Abandon]

Let's say you want to reduce the height of a cabinet. Such as cutting off the top of an 80" or 88" high cabinet, so that you could have a 64" cabinet, and then stack a 30" or 39" cabinet on top, for a 94" or "103" cabinet... Still with me?

This is simple, as instructions point out that a fixed shelf goes in the twelfth hole from the bottom, where the 64" and 15" doors would normally meet. The cut needs to be just above that. Now you need to remember...

You must cut opposite sides of the side panels! Make sense?

If you cut each side facing the same way, when it is time to assemble the cabinet you will attempt to flip one side onto the other, and find you have an uncut end facing a cut end on the bottom and top of the cabinet. Either you will have a cabinet with one side longer than the other on the top and bottom, or you will have to scrap the whole thing, like I just had to do...

[personalshopper]

Guess my filler panels just grew by 4"-6" unless I can fit the next bigger size cabinet in the layout somewhere. Arghhhh.

Think of it as 4-6" more counter space?

Remember those glorious RevaShelf pullouts - or a narrow open space between two cabinets, perfect for cutting boards.

I'm sorry that you ran into complications, but glad you found the rotting wood before your second floor landed in your new kitchen.

[tpagel]

Yeah. The wife isn't nearly as annoyed as I am! lol

[archie]

"2. When installing a drop in stainless steel sink - plumbers putty is your BEST friend - I, unfortunately, opted for silicone caulking around the bottom edge of the sink. A complete mess to clean up afterward. If I had to do it over again, I would have used plumber's putty, which I had used to install the new garbage disposal. It's easy to work with and doesn't create the mess that silicone caulk does."

Please dont use plumbers putty for your sink and faucet installs. It is made with a funky oil that will stain your counter tops over time..... use a "siliconized" clear caulk! Easy clean up with water. Stick to the Putty on the GD or drain...

[tpagel]

If you are going to edge-band your face frames to match your cabinets, do it BEFORE you assemble the cabinet! I sure wish we had done it for our Nexus black/brown cab doors. That birch cabinet box is more noticeable than I thought it would be.

[personalshopper]

Want to consider the electrical tape retrofit solution? http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitch...een-doors.html

[tpagel]

Ha! Thanks personalshopper! I had actually had that same idea, but didn't want to suggest it here, or to the wife, because it seems "too easy". I WAS going to try it in secret though! ;-P Thanks for the posting of somebody else's success with it. Much appreciated

[LovinSpoonful]

I've assembled a lot of IKEA furniture over the years and its Achilles' heel in my opinion has always been the panel board that goes on the back. Try and move one a Billy bookcase and the panel pops off and the item collapses. I did not want to have a heavy pot push the panel off the back of one of my kitchen cabinets so I decided to make sure they would not budge.

Got some good quality panel nails from Home Depot...they are slightly beefier than what IKEA supplies and have much more aggressive ribbing on them. They go in tight and stay in. Also, "stitch nailing" by alternating the angle of each nail prevents the panel from working loose and results in a dramatically stronger assembly.

[coopersworkshop]

What is a "ledger board"? Someone wrote that he used beefier ledger board