I've joined the forum but not the club of Ikea kitchen owners...well, not yet. I'm over 2 hours from IKEA and never gave them much thought in planning our kitchen reno. Years ago I remember looking at IKEA kitchens at the beech wood and thinking they looked nice. But looking at the catalogs I learned that 1) drawers are just metal, not like the nice wood drawers of many kitchen cabinet companies (e.g. Kraftmaid), and 2) a very limited selection of wood/colors. If you want a natural looking wood, you only have a small handful of choices (again, unlike a company like Kraft maid with dozens of combinations of species of wood, stain and style of door).
However, a trip to Toronto this past weekend changed my view. I learned that the drawers, although metal (I still prefer the nice wood ones) have full extension good quality drawers and are self-closing. I saw the display for Adel Medium Brown, which, in the catalog looks kind of plain and boring, but in real life looked rich and very appealing. I then went home and downloaded the planning software and, with the calculator, determined that I can have all the nice types of cabinets...lots of drawers, pantries, some pull-out cabinets...etc., all for like 1/3 of some of the kitchens we had been looking at (which was giving me stickershock
to the point of planning to abandon my kitchen reno ideas and just live with our current situation with doors hanging off and wall cabinets sliding down).
I read one post where a member spoke with a HGTV person who said that IKEA was like the number 2 rated kitchen in some big comparison, even though it was number 10 in price. I looked at the downloaded DVD and installation seems very DIY friendly (thus saving another $1500 or so in installation fees). So, good quality, a style of kitchen Adel MB that I really like, nice drawer slides and a price that rivals that of the lowest end Home Depot assemble yourself stuff with few options. So, I'm sold.
Now, if someone can answer my question over on the Installation part of the forum...re: using an OTR microwave, fan cabinet and in-wall venting duct that is already in my house
, I will have the confidence to move forward.
Barry
All the best on your kitchen remodel - this is a great site for information and inspiration, as I'm finding out!
