[50s_kitchen]

Looked for this topic, but couldn't find it. I'm an IKEA kitchen novice. We want to freshen up our kitchen and add some new wall cabinets where there aren't any, but in terms of the base cabinet layout, want it to stay the same. Any way to simply put IKEA doors on our Kraftmaid bases? I kind of think the answer is no, but worth asking.

[DesignDiva]

Well...not necessarily no. IKEA doors work with frameless cabinets, so if your cabinets have a frame around the door area it will probably not work. The way the IKEA doors are designed they totally cover the entire face of the cabinet, so all you see are doors.

Other than that, there is no technical reason. The hinges are proprietary but they come with the doors and you would simply have to drill holes for the screws.

[Jase]

Ahhh, not so fast. Blum and Rockler come to the rescue with ikea/european style hinges that are designed to work with face frame cabinets. I'm thinking about doing the exact same thing.

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?&page=2283

[50s_kitchen]

Hmmm. So the part of the hinge that attaches to the cabinet door fits into the pre-drilled holes on IKEA cabinet front?

[Jase]

That's my next step, finding out that specific thing. If it doesn't, then you'd need to buy the extra little kit to drill a new hinge cup. Since they are both Blum hinges, I'd like to think that the hinge cups would be of the same dimension. Then again, Ikea might have specifically wanted them a different size to encourage folks to buy the whole cabinet.

I've got an email in to Rockler to ask that question, if they get back to me, I'll let you know.

[Jase]

Anyone with an Ikea cabinet door fancy disassembling it and doing some measuring?

I asked him about the Blum 2-Way Nickel-Plated Face Frame Hinges in reference to the Ikea cabinet hardware, also by Blum.

From Rockler...

These use a 35mm cup hole. the hole is placed at 20.5mm from the edge of the door to the center of the hole.
Steve
Technical Support
Rockler Woodworking and Hardware
support@rockler.com

[kmcg]

My Ikea door has a 35mm hole and it begins 5 mm in from the edge.I believe that puts the center at about the right place, but I didn't have proper tools to calculate that exactly. I think it will work for you - be sure to let us know!

Kathy

[Jase]

I think that means that the center of the hole, unless my math is off, would be about 2 mm off from the Blum hinges from Rockler.

35 mm hole with a center at 20.5mm (for the Blum) would mean that the edge of the hole would be 3mm from the edge of the door. 20.5 - (35/2) = 3 mm.

Depending on how adjustable the hinges are, though, those 2mm may not make a big difference. I'm going to order some samples this weekend and see what I can do with them.

[50s_kitchen]

I can't wait to find out if the experiment worked. What about the actual dimensions of the ikea cabinet doors themselves? Do they work with the dimensions of the kraftmaid bases?

[Jase]

Actually, I don't know who makes my own cabinets. They may be Kraftmaid, they may be some other generic cabinet. There are several cabinets in my kitchen that will require modifications to the ikea doors/drawer fronts. Of the 19 doors needed for my cabinets, I'm expecting that only 7 or 8 of them will be true to an Ikea size. The rest will need to be cut and then have a new piece of edge banding stained and attached. I'll also have to cut new hole cups for those as well.

If the dimensions/layout of the Ikea delivered hole cups doesn't work, then new ones can be cut using the templates that Rockler/Blum provides.

I just realized over the weekend that all my drawer fronts are attached via staples instead of screws, it seems. Those will be tricky to replace intact and, in fact, it looks like one drawer was rebuilt because of a bad job in the first place. I might get some practice in building new drawers.