Kitchen downgreaded to Ikea... Or...?

After a year of dreaming, scheming, and imagining my last meeting with my designer and contractor finally popped my bubble. My budget is nearly blown for finishes on my house remodel -- and the first suggestion out of my contractors mouth was, We'll need to consider Ikea for the kitchen cabinents. ops:

I'd originally been eyeballing Henry Built, knowing that I'd probably have to let go of that dream, eventually. But Ikea? My gosh, are there alternatives or is Ikea better than I'm imagining? I know their furniture is sort of cheaply made, but a friend was telling me their kitchens are an entirely different division and are quite sturdy? True?

Thoughts? Suggestions? Other ideas that might come close but be just a tad more expensive?

Thanks folks.

Ikea cabinets are excellent value for money and seem quite sturdy. You might want to also check out the Venicia line from Kraftmaid, at Lowes since they are also very reasonable. The Marco style is the most reasonable, but they are built like tanks, very sturdy. make sure to specify Blum hardware vs the standard hardware that way you get the nice Clip Top hinges and Tandem BlueMotion drawers.

Thank you jjasper, appreciate the feedback. I'll check out the Kraftmaid line at Lowes.

Anyone else?

It's funny to me how the discussion of the merits or demerits of IKEA kitchen cabinets pops up in so many threads. I have no particular allegiance to IKEA - in fact I experience their products more than I ever wanted to because my significant other is an ineveterate IKEA shopper. But I do have their kitchen cabinets and I have been a professional cabinetmaker both in the high-production, insitutional context and on the custom-made, precious end of of cabinetry also. I can say unequivocally that IKEA kitchen cabinets are the best value out there. I have little experience with installing KraftMaid. I am familiar with them and know them to also be a good mass-market product. My question to the detractors and perhaps those on the fence is, What do want of a kitchen? Are you looking for high-touch, name brand recognition or functional furnishings for a room that is all about function and utility? Do you want storage and worksurfaces or do you want the boutique appeal of a high-end, overpriced eurokitchen? IKEA manages to meet the aesthetic standards that many of us have as well as being eminently affordable.

I am well aware of the ubiquity of IKEA products. Like I said, I've got way too much of it in my house. But their kitchen cabinetry satisfies on every level. There is nothing cheap about it. 3/4 particle board boxes(most built boxes are 1/2), Blum hardware, stainless steel, solid wood and veneered fronts among others - it's all better than most of the off-the-shelf stuff you'd find at the Home Depot or Lowes.

If you like the look of the IKEA stuff, go with it. You won't be sorry. If you're worried that people will think, Oh. It's just standard IKEA stuff, remember: There are over 2500 Home Depot stores selling the lines they carry. There are over 1100 Lowes stores selling much the same thing. There are but 24 IKEA stores nationwide selling IKEA kitchens.

I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY.

I'm no expert like mordo, but I have at least SEEN below the exterior aesthetics on nearly all brands I have looked into (IKEA, Siematic, Poggenpohl, Allmilmo, Artcraft) and was VERY disappointed with the high end european products. They are nice, BUT are a far stretch from VALUE. The product quality (material build) was not the multitude improvement over IKEA by any stretch. Sure they have awsome variety that IKEA will never have, but does that justify the ~15x price difference?

THe ONLY thing keeping me from jumping on IKEA is that they don't offer the laminates/veneers and or box sizes I desire... yet. THey're getting closer though.

Henry Built seems like a damn good product, BUT then it BETTER be! It looks handcrafted!!! For people to denegrate IKEA (which is mass produced for some of us pukes who are not good enough for those heavenly brands) is not right. IKEA's products range from crap to great, but I feel a lot of their kitchen cabinets are good - great... especially for the money. What cracks me up is that they are far better than the likes of Merrilatt... and CHEAPER!!!

Honestly, I love, LOVE the IKEA kitchen in our house. I never even considered anything else. I'm almost embarassed to say this, but I think it's one of the reasons I wanted to build in the first place.

I have what essentially amounts to two kitchens, the main kitchen and the pantry. With any other major brand of cabinets, the cost of outfitting those would have been well in excess of $100K, double that with a European brand. With IKEA, it was around $10K and it all works so darn great and is SO practical. I feel like I won the kitchen lottery. They're inexpensive, look nice AND they work as good or better than anything else.

I love that I can drive 20 miles to the store and get any of the entire range of products and interior fittings designed to go in them as cash and carry, anytime I want, now or in the future. And theres new and better doo dads seemingly every month. The best part is I don't have to save my pennies for ages for this stuff and the cleverness of it all is really satisfying.
And then, I can change door styles easily for a few $K instead of taking out a home equity loan to remodel.

I'll add my two cents, even though I no expert on cabinets...

I have been looking at cabinets, dreaming of the Euro's but in reality they are out of my range... I did some research on Ikea and found hundreds of owner reviews on dozens of sites. I only found 2 negatives reviews, one was because the owner had gotten a door wet and it had swelled but he still loved his cabinets, the other owner could not get Ikea to give him all the parts so is was more a negative on Ikea rather than the cabinets. I found this very surprising. Its not often that people take the time to say how much they like something, so owner reviews are normally very bias on the negative side, this says alot for Ikea cabinets.

But for me I think I will go with the Venicia cabinets for two reasons, they come prebuilt so you don't have to hope the guy doing the assembly is doing it right and there are more sizing options/configuration. They may cost a little more than Ikea but I guess if you include delivery, and assembly that gap shrinks rapidly.

I pretty much agree with what has been said about Ikea cabs. I put them (Akurum with Adel doors) in my last house. For the money, nothing comes close. Consumer Reports backs this up as well. I would like to give you a couple things to ponder, simply because there were a few details which I hadn't really expected, and it might help you be more informed. Functionally, they work great. The hardware is a pleasure to use. The installation couldn't be easier once you figure out their number system (or just ignore it after you realize it doesn't match your order). There is a cheapness in the boxes that I just couldn't get over. I kept thinking, What if this gets a scratch or gets hit with something sharp? I don't think this is unique to Ikea, I think it's inherent in particle board furniture. Shouldn't you be able to get kitchen cabinets a little wet from time to time? From what I could tell, the boxes only come with melamine laminate, and that includes the 'wood' patterns. If I'm wrong here, please correct me. This isn't the worst thing in the world because The doors are mostly what shows, but I just hate fake wood. I think the boxes are a far cry from plywood boxes, but you pay through the nose for plywood. In my house we are going to build the cabinets for the kitchen and use Ikea for the utility room and some other cabinet needs. The only reason I can do this is that I have some talented woodworkers who already work for me and I've done some cabinetry as well. I've seen lots of examples where people make hybrid systems out of their own boxes with Ikea doors and hardware. I don't think you can buy the hardware for less than Ikea has it. Their drawers are pretty great, you can buy a few of the doors in solid wood or at least wood veneer. Henrybuilt is my favorite out there too! I'm going to do my best to achieve a similar build with my kitchen.

Hope this helps and good luck! I'll probably have to eat my words when I get to my cabinets and have no money left.

I put Ikea upper cabinets in the kitchen in my old house, and Kraftmaid base cabs. (These were the main Kraftmaid line - not Venicia.) The cabinets from Ikea were the horizontal type, with the doors that open up. We put fairly heavy pulls (long metal bars) on them, and had problems with the doors not staying open. There are two little devices on each door that hold the door open (up), and I couldn't tighten them enough to stay open. One of them also came apart, and I had to constantly push it back together. I don't know if the hardware has changed in the 4 years since we did that kitchen. I also don't know if the doors would have stayed up with lighter pulls.

My other complaint about Ikea is aesthetic - for some of the door styles the doors don't go well with the boxes, and look sort of tacked-on.

We were very happy with the Kraftmaid stuff - felt very solid both as boxes and in operation - but I think the Venicia line may be somewhat lower-end construction.

(This time we're doing custom from a local shop. Our kitchen will be in the same space as our living and dining rooms, so we really want to get exactly what we want. Still much cheaper than German.)

Also: we put Ikea vanities in the baths of our new house, as temporary replacements for the aweful things that were there when we moved in. The Ikea stuff looks and works great, and will probably be there when we sell the place in 20 years.

Like I said Ikea is great value for money. Venicia is more expensive, but cheaper than the Euro brands. If you go with the Marco line it is pretty close to Ikea pricing.

The benefit to Venicia over Ikea for me was the doors were thicker. Venicia doors are the same 3/4 thickness as the boxes. They used the Blum Clip Top hardware which looks awesome and has great adjustment, and is nicer than the Blum hardware used in the Ikea boxes. They have a beefier header at the top. Ikea's is about 2 1/2 inch which is the smallest I have seem. And they come pre-assembled so all you have to do is drop them into place. If you are into solid wood doors they have a pretty good selection with the Natura line. Venicia has a ton more sizes for cabinet depth, height, and width to fit just about any space or function. They are a great alternative to more expensive Euro cabinets.

Drawbacks of Vinicia over Ikea is they charge extra to have Blum over standard hardware. Anything beyond the Marco line is a bit more expensive than Ikea, especially the Natura.

We have Pianor cabinets which are a French/Chinese cabinet and are very close to the Ikea design and came flat pack (although you have the option of doing pre-assembled). For ease of install I doubt I will ever do the flat pack kitchen cabinet thing again. You REALLy have to take your time to get everything just right. Our Pianor cabinets have the same hardware as the Ikea cabinets and functionally they are good, I just like the Clip Top look much better. The Pianor cabinets have a 4 header vs. 2 1/2 on the Ikea and the Pianor cabinets have 3/4 thick doors. This may vary with door style for Ikea I only measured one which was 1/2. Also our Pianor cabinets used a hydraulic lift for the over the fridge box were the Ikea uses a pivot arm.

[quote:jleary format=text/plain] The cabinets from Ikea were the horizontal type, with the doors that open up. We put fairly heavy pulls (long metal bars) on them, and had problems with the doors not staying open. There are two little devices on each door that hold the door open (up), and I couldn't tighten them enough to stay open. One of them also came apart, and I had to constantly push it back together. I don't know if the hardware has changed in the 4 years since we did that kitchen. I also don't know if the doors would have stayed up with lighter pulls.
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I think they must have changed the hardware. We have these same cabinets with very long bar pulls and we've have no problem with them staying open once they were tightened.

Those are the only Ikea cabinets we have in our kitchen, and I have to say, we love them. A quote for -two- horizontal aluminum/glass cabinets (and an aluminum appliance garage) from KraftMaid was almost $2000, and we got the four Ikea cabinets for only $320. There are some pictures of these on my blog, 618lincoln.com, if anyone is interested.

an ikea kitchen is constructed just like a boffi kitchen. same materials, same construction. it's all MDF. boffi has a name brand, and they are designed better (aesthetically) but they aren't made all that well. and, oh, a decent sized boffi kitchen will run you 80 grand. where you can do the same thing with ikea for $6000. it's no contest.

the other thing you can do with an ikea kitchen is buy the boxes from them and have a cabinet maker make you custom doors out of whatever you like. then you will have a cheap, unique kitchen that may not be built as well as if you did 100%custom cabinets out of all plywood, but it will cost you a lot less.

I don't know if I agree with that, Boffi has some innovative design and quality that far exceeds Ikea and even many other Euro cabinet makers. Their floating wall mount cabinets are simply amazing, quality I have seen in their showroom is outstanding. They are also way minimalist in their styling compared to Ikea.

Ikea is great and value for money it makes Boffi look like a joke, but they are far from the being the same thing.

Yeah- a Saab is the same as a Ferrari- Steel, aluminum, four wheels, transportation.

Just to throw something else into the mix, I have had a kitchen priced out in Ikea, Std. Kraftmaid, Kraftmaid Venicia, and custom. The Ikea was $4000 (Nexus, assembly and installation an extra $3000). The standard Kraftmaid was $10,000 (full-overlay slab maple doors). The Venicia priced out in three different styles (not Marco) and ranged from $10,000 - $18,000. And the custom shop was asked to price out a similar kitchen (frameless, boxes and doors out of 3/4 Baltic birch or similar). Their price was $12,000 installed but not finished. If Ikea wasn't such a good deal, I think the custom cabinets would be our choice.

I have to say that both in the boffi showroom here in santa monica, and in homes I have seen it installed in, I have not been impressed with the quality. stainless steel countertops with seams showing in the middle or on the backsplash, the wall hung cabinets don't feel solid, I have seen stuff delaminating in homes and the boxes themselves feel like I could punch through them. Like I said before, they look nice, but I don't think they are made all that well. someone mentioned a ferrari, I think that's an apt analogy, italian cars are notorious for being beautiful to look at and regulare customers at the mechanic's.

in terms of a good mix of quality design and engineering, I was much more impressed by the bulthaup stuff. innovations in engineering, (I think they came up with the blu motion thing, among other things) the drawers are metal instead of particle board, and they seem like they will last. they are also ridiculously expensive.

I guess if you are made of money it's fine, some people will pay 400 bucks for jeans.

Your right, I actually confused the two. Bulthaup is the one I was thinking of with the sweet floating wall mount base cabinets. It has been so long since I was looking at the Euros I am getting them all confused. And yes, they were crazy expensive, but very well engineered.

If you're seriously considering using Ikea cabinets, you should check out www.ikeafans.com They definitely have a pro-Ikea slant, but not everyone on there used entirely Ikea products. A few have used Ikea boxes with custom doors, and there are several popular modifications outlined on the forums. I refaced existing cabinets with Ikea doors, added new Ikea cabinets, and replaced existing cabinets with open shelves from Ikea. Having done all that, I wish I had replaced all my cabinets with Ikea. I only saved a couple hundred dollars by refacing, and now I might spend that upgrading to the same Blum drawer glides that come with the Ikea boxes. In response to the worry that the Ikea boxes don't match all the door styles, Ikea does make cover panels to help remedy this. I'm not sure how well that works though because I haven't had to use them.