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Ikea Kitchen


lancastermike

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We are very early on in considering a kitchen renovation. We were at Ikea the other day not to look at kitchens. But as we strolled through the top floor a couple of the kitchens caught our eye.

Does anyone have one or know anything about them? Quality? Some of the prices seemed pretty fair to me.

Would be happy to hear anything about Ikea kitchens.

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Ikea offers good design and decent value. I've installed a few kitchens containing their cabinets and it was quite painless. I can't speak to durability, but I can say it looks good, it's easy to install, and the price is right.

Plastic laminate is more or less the same wherever you go -- make sure you get decent hardware, it bears the brunt of daily living.

Ikea carries some unusual appliances aimed at compact condo living. Although cool, some are barely code compliant even if installed by a licensed electrician.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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We are very early on in considering a kitchen renovation.  We were at Ikea the other day not to look at kitchens. But as we strolled through the top floor a couple of the kitchens caught our eye.

Does anyone have one or know anything about them? Quality? Some of the prices seemed pretty fair to me.

Would be happy to hear anything about Ikea kitchens.

I've installed 5 Akurum kitchens in a rental property I have with good results. Above average durability when compared to basic kitchens but maybe not at the level of custom i.e. Kraftmaid, etc

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I have a kitchen with Ikea cabinets for over 3 years I like them. They are durable and I have not had any problems with them. One good thing with Ikea is the mounting system for their upper cabinets. The upper cabinets are all mounted on a single rail so they are easy to move / replace. It saved my contractors a lot of work when they had to run some new wiring in my kitchen.

It also looks like they hardly ever change their shapes. So in theory I can go in and buy all new cabinet doors and give my kitchen a whole new look with minimal work.

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MelissaH has one( and a blog about her renovation).  There is also a few websites out in the web that offer lots of help with design.

By the way, that mounting system is quite the standard for northern Europe/Scandinavia (and the possessions in the Caribbean). Seems that most dwellers take their cabinets with them when they move, like furniture.

Ray

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. . . Would be happy to hear anything about Ikea kitchens.

Mike, we have been very happy with the Ikea cabinets that we installed in the kitchen four years ago. Ikea uses the same cabinet hardware as many high-end (and high-priced) cabinet manufacturers. Kitchen pictures and reams of information scattered throughout my foodblog (particularly Post #149) and on Kitchen remodeling, see what others have recently done (click for Post #23).

Good luck with your renovation!

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My husband ,for a few years, literally hand-crafted boutique upscale kitchens. People still ask him, now and then, to do a project. Without fail, he directs them to Ikea. Quality, style and price can't be beat.

Margaret McArthur

"Take it easy, but take it."

Studs Terkel

1912-2008

A sensational tennis blog from freakyfrites

margaretmcarthur.com

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All Ikea cabinets start out the same, then the dollars start to add up when you want nice cabinet doors and drawer faces.

Still, the quality is pretty darn good for the price. 5/8" termite barf (a.k.a "particle board" is 5/8" particle board. Only custom cabinets would offer 3/4" plywood, or heaven forbid, real wood.

So, in other words, They won't fall apart, and if you get tired of the them, you simply upgrade to a better/higher quality door/drawerface and toss the old doors out--no need to "redo" the whole set of cabinets.

Of course, the reason WHY they're cheaper is becsue you have to assemble yourself.......

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  Only custom cabinets would offer 3/4" plywood. 

Henrybuilt, an American company, offers plywood boxes in their standard cabinets. They also have a new company, Viola Park, at an easier price point.

My understanding is that Ikea's Blum hardware (used in many high end cabinets) are made in a separate factory and are not fully equivalent in quality to those used by other companies or sold retail. I can't give you a footnote for that. But I have also heard of lots of contractors using Ikea boxes, adding custom doors and drawer fronts. They say, what shows, sells.

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I've got one, too. Not quite a year old. Thus far, I love it. They're a great deal and the quality is very good. A couple of years ago Consumer Reports rated kitchen cabinet systems and gave them high marks, much better than many more expensive options. The cost savings let me spend money on other things--like my Bluestar range--and stay within my budget.

I've got a number of architect friends who specify expensive custom cabinets for their well-to-do clients but who have Ikea kitchens in their own homes.


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As CaliPoutine stated above, we have an IKEA kitchen. We put it in three years ago, and still love it. They were easy to put together and install. And very easy to tweak from the "standard" setup, if you want to do something slightly non-traditional (as in our under-microwave drawer).

But if you do corner cabinets with turntables, build your own rather than use their cheapo wire baskets. I've been bugging my husband to write up exactly what he did, and if he ever does, I'll come back to link to it.

MelissaH

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

foodblog1 | kitchen reno | foodblog2

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Our Ikea kitchen is about 4 years old and doing great. Everything is holding up beautifully and the kitchen still looks new. I love the functionality and the sleek, modern look of our cabinets. The only complaint I ever hear is that, for some people, the size limitations pose a problem. Our kitchen was a complete gut, so we didn't have to worry about fitting cabinets into existing spaces. It is definitely worth lots of measuring, because the cost savings are significant.

(We have that corner cabinet w/the wire shelves and, while they look a little flimsy, have held up perfectly even loaded down w/ heavy equipment like a crock pot, food processor, blender, ice cream maker, and heavy ceramic mixing bowls.)

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I installed my IKEA kitchen 7 years ago and it's the primary reason I hesitate to leave my house, much to my family's and friends' dismay. It's the best kitchen I've ever had, done MY way, so I have no complaints. The best features are the drawers and the European-style pull-out pantries. All of the American-built cabinets I researched were too clunky and overbuilt; IKEA's are sleek but sturdy. I'd say go for it.

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I'll share a trick we did a few years back when we installed our IKEA kitchen.

We choose the simplest cheapest cabinet fronts then never put them on. We had a local cabinet maker build custom cabinet cabinet fronts instead. In our case they were oak, but we could have had anything we wanted.

We simply took the unused & un- unpacked IKEA cabinet fronts back & got a refund.

Worked a treat & we have what looks like a custom kitchen at a relatively low cost.

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We outfitted one (tiny) kitchen in Prague entirely from Ikea: cabinets, range, oven, etc. Nearly everything is as solid as it was after installation, two years on. (We hired an Ikea subcontractor to install the cabinets, stove, etc.)

The only thing not entirely up to par has been the sink faucet, which leaked mightily until we replaced it--two weeks before the warranty was up.

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I'll share a trick we did a few years back when we installed our IKEA kitchen.

We choose the simplest cheapest cabinet fronts then never put them on. We had a local cabinet maker build custom cabinet cabinet fronts instead. In our case they were oak, but we could have had anything we wanted.

We simply took the unused & un- unpacked IKEA cabinet fronts back & got a refund.

Worked a treat & we have what looks like a custom kitchen at a relatively low cost.

You can actually just order the units themselves without the doors, rather than buy/return. They price the inner construction, then add the specific fronts, but you don't need to take the facades.

I've done variations, though I must say with IKEA fronts:

Bathroom - put their kitchen units in a redone bathroom - the only way I could get drawers 60cm wide. I even put the kitchen cutlery trays in two, which are great for separating make-up, pill bottles, etc. Two cupboard units on either side for towels/supplies, etc., and then a granite top with dropped in washbasins. Our plumber was rather surprised that we would have an IKEA unit under the granite, but it fit our needs, and still looks great after 7 years.

Kitchen - I needed an island, with lots of drawer space - so again, used their bases, and had our carpenter put walnut end panels to match the existing walnut cabinets, and an oak slab on top. Again, the drawers are well designed, strong, slide beautifully, and do exactly what I want them to.

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I'll share a trick we did a few years back when we installed our IKEA kitchen.

We choose the simplest cheapest cabinet fronts then never put them on. We had a local cabinet maker build custom cabinet cabinet fronts instead. In our case they were oak, but we could have had anything we wanted.

We simply took the unused & un- unpacked IKEA cabinet fronts back & got a refund.

Worked a treat & we have what looks like a custom kitchen at a relatively low cost.

You can actually just order the units themselves without the doors, rather than buy/return. They price the inner construction, then add the specific fronts, but you don't need to take the facades.

I've done variations, though I must say with IKEA fronts:

Bathroom - put their kitchen units in a redone bathroom - the only way I could get drawers 60cm wide. I even put the kitchen cutlery trays in two, which are great for separating make-up, pill bottles, etc. Two cupboard units on either side for towels/supplies, etc., and then a granite top with dropped in washbasins. Our plumber was rather surprised that we would have an IKEA unit under the granite, but it fit our needs, and still looks great after 7 years.

Kitchen - I needed an island, with lots of drawer space - so again, used their bases, and had our carpenter put walnut end panels to match the existing walnut cabinets, and an oak slab on top. Again, the drawers are well designed, strong, slide beautifully, and do exactly what I want them to.

Carlux - You're absolutely right about not having to order the fronts in the first place.

We didn't do that because at the time our French wasn't up to puzzling it out. We bought our kitchen in the IKEA near Toulouse.

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I'll share a trick we did a few years back when we installed our IKEA kitchen.

We choose the simplest cheapest cabinet fronts then never put them on. We had a local cabinet maker build custom cabinet cabinet fronts instead. In our case they were oak, but we could have had anything we wanted.

We simply took the unused & un- unpacked IKEA cabinet fronts back & got a refund.

Worked a treat & we have what looks like a custom kitchen at a relatively low cost.

Or, you could tweak the order sheets before you submit them and not even bother to order the fronts at all. When you order a kitchen, everything is a separate piece. You can pick and choose to take or leave pretty much whatever you want. That's how we didn't get the wire baskets on the post in the corner cabinets. Good thing, too, because our nearest U.S. IKEA store is a 5+ hour drive away!

MelissaH

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

foodblog1 | kitchen reno | foodblog2

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I have a partial Ikea kitchen, since we didn't do a full renovation when we first moved into our apartment. It's going on 5 years, and the cabinets that were installed have never given us a problem. I really like the drawers - they hold more than I expected, and it's great to be able to pull the drawers out easily to get stuff in the back.

Also, we did our walls with the inexpensive bars and hooks so I can have everything within easy reach. Two sets hold lots of pots and pans, and two more sets hold the following:

gallery_6902_5624_128903.jpg

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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