[Richp11387]

I'm in the final process of remodeling my kitchen. Its now time to decidewhich kitchen cabinet maker should be chosen. We've been looking at the brands being offered by Home Depot and Lowe's and several small kitchen and bath stores. Every time we think we know what we want we find something else but having visited Ikea several times to look at the cabinets in the store, we're still undecided. From reading the forums, it appears that there's a lot of DIYers out there that can give me their first hand opinions/experiences about the quality of Ikea kitchen cabinets and how well the stand up to the everyday wear and tear of being used.

I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks,

Rich

[DesignDiva]

Of course you will find rave reviews on this forum, but you don't have to take our word for it! Consumer Reports recently did a review of cabinet lines and IKEA came in third overall, behind the top two premium brands, well ahead of the big box store brands. I think there is a link on this site to the article and ratings. The premium lines cost about 3 times what the comparable IKEA cabinets did, and did not include the upgrades to Blum hardware that are standard on the IKEA cabinets.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised, both at the quality and the value.

[Tigratrus]

As Eva said, we're hardly likely to be *impartial* here but many of us have been through the same search that you are currently going through. Some things that finally decided me on IKEA cabinetry:

1: The hardware is superb, several orders of magnitude above what you get with the Kraftmaidlevel of cabinets. It's hard to really stress this enough; the IKEA BLUM hardware is VERY nice, and the IKEA version of the Blumotion soft closing door bumpers is an elegantly simple solution that lets you add a REALLY high end feel to the closing action of the doors forabout $1.66 per cabinet door.

2. Thequality control: IKEA cabinets have been, in our experience, much better and more consistent in fit/finish than the Big-Box store brands. My mother works atHD so we've heard many stories of problems customers have had. The pre-assembled cabinets that most stores sell are much more prone to damage in shipment than the IKEA flat packed cabinets.

3. The options:The various add-ins, RATIONELL pullout pantries, organizers etc are very flexible and a LOT cheaper than anything else we've seen of even vaguely comparable quality.

4. The ability to mount and dismount cabinets quickly and easily: The doors pop on and off VERY quickly and easily, and the unique mounting rail makes installing and removing upper cabinets incredibly simple. We added electrical outlets after the initial installation and may well reconfigure things when we get to doing the main part of the kitchen, so being able to remove and reinstall the cabinets with ease was a big selling point for us.

5. The final reason for us was the price: We were doing relatively few cabinets in our project, so we were quite willing to pop for fairly expensive cabinets to get what we wanted. To our very pleasant surprise, the IKEA cabinets (3 upper and 2 lower) combined was less than the cost of 1 or 2 cabinets from HD, Lowes or the special order companies we looked at. The pullout pantry with 3pullout drawers (BLUM tandem box)was $60I think? In any case it wasa LOT cheaper than the Kraftmaid alternative and the quality/durability is REALLY impressive.



Our experience:

We installed the cabinets ourselves and found what many others have, assembling the first box takes 15-20 minutes and after that you can put them together quite a bit more quickly and easily. Hanging themon the wall was absurdly easy by comparison with more traditional cabinet systems.

We have 2 small children (3 and 4 years old) and they are responsible for putting away and getting out their own dishes andsilverware, so they use the lower cabinets on a regular basis. They have yet to cause any damage to any of the doors/drawers, despite a tendency to attempt to slam things when aggravated or in a hurry.

I honestly wouldn't consider putting any other cabinets in when we remodel the main kitchen unless I build them myself , and even then we'd probably use IKEA doors and hardware.



As a P.S. the Consumer Reports comparison that Eva mentionedcompared one of IKEA's least expensive door options against VERY high end custom cabinetry, and it held it's own very well indeed. As I recall (though it's been awhile since I read the article)there were about 14 brands represented and IKEA tied for 3rd and was 1/3 the price of 2nd ranked cabinet and 1/5th the price of the #1 pick. It's also worth noting that quite a few architects spec IKEA cabinets for their own kitchens.

Edited to fix afewtypos.

	Rationell definition Rationell is a line of kitchen products that enhance the basic AKURUM/FAKTUM lines, including the Blum-made drawer boxes.

[Richp11387]

Thanks for the input. I've kind of had the feeling that what's been said in these posts and from what others have said in other forums/questions that Ikea was the way to go. Right now, I think the main thing that has to take place on my part is to decide which cabinet color/style do we want.

Is it better to go to the store with the room dimensions in hand and the current layout of the cabinets? I have a blind corner cabinet now that is not shown in the ikea catalog or planner. Using the blind corner cabinet that is shown in the planner may require the movement of some electrical and reduce the size of the cabinet on the opposite side of the stove. Do the employees at the store have access to other cabinets not shown in the planner or catatlog?

[DesignDiva]

Have you downloaded the planner? It works well and is easy. You can bring your plan on diskette or upload to IKEA and then access it at the store for the kitchen planner to work with you.

[Richp11387]

Thanks for your insight into the Ikea world of kitchen cabinets.

I worked with the kitchen planner last nite, but for some reason, when I go to "hang" some of the wall cabinets, they don't go to where I want to hang them. I'm not sure why they won't. Also, the kitchen planner has "cabinets over fridge" in their menu file, but when i acess the file, no cabinets are included. Makes it kind of hard to plan for a refrigerator cabinet when there are none identified in the file. So I'm improvising with other cabinets over the fridge just to get an idea of what they will look like. Same thing goes for a "fan" cabinet over the stove. Does Ikea make a combination "cabinet/fan/microwave" cabinet?

Maybe someone can answer a question about the kitchen planner. Why do they include counter tops with all the cabinets when you select them and then print out the "parts list" of the cabinets selected?

Other than that, I think I'm on my way to deciding on just which cabinets are going to be selected.

[nyc_home]

Richp, are you working with the Ikea kitchen catalog or the larger, general catalog? The kitchen catalog shows many cabinet sizes that aren't in the main catalog or the 2006 planner.

Fridge cabinets come in 30wx24hx24d, 36wx24hx24d, 24/30/36wx24hx12d and 24wx17hx12d

fan cabinets: 30/36wx15hx12d and 30/36w x 17hx12d (I think these fit exhaust hoods but not microwaves)

m/ w cabs: 24/30w x 30x39h--depth is 12 on top and 20 on bottom. Basically a regular wall cab with a small door on top and a larger shelf on the bottom, so they wouldn't work for a combined micro/fan (but if you post on the modifications thread, I'm sure someone will have ideas....)

I've found graph paper to sometimes be easier than the planner, especially if you're staggering cabinet heights. (IRL, I've heard it's easy to do, but you need another hanging rail.)Nothing you can do about counters etc being included.

	W definition W is a wall cabinet designation, as in W18, can be a stand-in for Wide, or when followed by a / stands for With.

[jen_va]

I'm not sure what you mean by a "cabinet/fan/microwave cabinet". If you're planning to use an over-the-range microwave, then you'd use a 24" high cabinet if the surrounding cabinets are 39" high, or a 15" high cabinet if the surrounding cabinets are 30" high. There's no shelf needed for an OTR microwave. If you're talking about using a non-OTR microwave and putting it over the stove -- don't do it! Very bad idea, for many reasons.

Jen

[Richp11387]

We ordered our cabinets today with the promise of a 2-3 week delivery. The IKEAn at the College Park, MD store was very helpful and made sure we ordered the right side panels and cabinets for our needs.

Who knows, with a little luck, we'll have a new kitchen by Christmas.

[patlukes]

I just ripped out brand new Kraftmaid cabinets...the whole kitchen. I hated them. I installed the cabinets and never put a countertop on top because I'm a firm believer that you cannot put pants on a pig.

I checked into Valcucine and Siematic and they are expensive, but just for fun, I decided to check out Ikea, because quite honestly, I keep seeing Ikea kitchens in a lot of my magazines, like Dwell, Met Home, Home, etc. I was very surprised to see the quality of the Ikea carcasses. I like the doors also, but want a certain color that Ikea does not offer, so I may just use the carcasses and hinges.

My Kraftmaids turned yellow within six months. Kraftmaid did nothing. Home Depot did nothing. I was very disappointed in the quality because their European line used particleboard. I had water on my floor in my bathroom and the bottoms opened up. That was a loss. My recommendation is not to use Kraftmaids in the kitchen or bathroom or anywhere moist...oops...they're cabinetmakers.

So basically, Kraftmaid does NOT get my vote. Their new Venizia line is very cheap. So Ikea is my choice, unless I win the lottery in the next month...