I’m strongly considering putting IKEA kitchen cabinets in my brand new kitchen in my brand new, custom-built house. (I say “I” and “my” because I have the best husband ever who has agreed to do whatever I want in the kitchen as long as I stay within our budget.)
When I tell people that I think I want IKEA cabinets they look at me like I’ve lost my mind. I thought the same thing for a second. Back in December I was minding my own business,wandering around IKEA window shopping for Christmas presents while my kids were in the playland and I found myself drawn to one of their show kitchens. I was shocked at the quality and the options inside of each drawer and cabinet.
But I already have high quality shaker maple cabinets in my budget quote. We are very fortunate to be able to afford “better” cabinets. WHY would I ever consider IKEA? I won’t even buy my children furniture from IKEA. I’m kind of a snob.
Something kept pulling me back though, and I took Eddie to the showroom and he was impressed too.
I started doing more research.
Apparently their kitchen cabinets are much higher quality than most other IKEA products. I was shocked to see how many professional cabinet installers, architects, and designers had chosen IKEA cabinets for their own homes. Even Sarah Richardson.
This photo is from “Sarah’s House.” I LOVE Sarah! And she’s even more particular than I am. Did you see the episode where she made her crew rip out and re-do an entire foundation for a house because it was about 2 inches off? She knows what she wants, and apparently IKEA is good enough for her.
I came across so many designers in my research who said that because of the way IKEA flat-packs their cabinetry, they have to use stronger joints than most other cabinet makers. Their joints and hardware (drawer glides, etc.) are on par with cabinets more than 5X the price. Say what?
Yep. Apparently it’s a well-known trick of the trade for kitchen designers to use IKEA cabinet frames and then just put other doors on them. Why pay three times as much for the same quality?
My friend Satoko has them in her kitchen and she’s happy with them.
They come with a 25 year warranty, which is just about unheard of.
They performed very impressively in a study done by Consumer Reports. The basic IKEA model outperformed ten other brands of higher cabinet grades, including names like Thomasville and KraftMaid. Direct quote from Consumer Reports: “The ready-to-assemble Ikea outperformed much more expensive units, despite its low price. High-quality drawer hardware and doors and a robust mounting strip helped.”
In researching them for the past 3 months, over 99% of the reviews I have found from owners are overwhelmingly positive. The only negative reviews I saw came from a renter who wasn’t even 100% sure that the cabinets in his house were actually from IKEA and one guy who didn’t use the mounting strip and was upset that his cabinet fell off the wall.
Also, I have heard (although I haven’t been able to verify this) that because IKEA cabinets have to pass stricter European guidelines, they do not contain the type of formaldehyde that most other cabinet frames manufactured for the U.S. market do. Formaldehyde in furniture has proven to have a negative impact on air quality and has been linked to serious diseases. If what they say about the IKEA cabinets is true it would be a big plus for me, especially having small children in the home. Who wants dangerous chemicals seeping out of the cabinets where you store your food?
They can be made to look really attractive and custom.
I like their online design tool. I put my own dimensions in and started playing around. This is not my final design, but, even if we do not decide to go with IKEA, it helped me get a better idea of how many cabinets will fit in our space.
We also can’t ignore the fact that they are REALLY affordable. If we do go with IKEA cabinets I should be able to afford better appliances and counter tops and still stay on budget.
So far the cons are:
1. Some of the custom features I would like (but might not necessarily be able to afford anyway if we go with a different brand) such as a built-in, cabinet-front, counter-depth refrigerator, are not available.
2. It is going to be a major pain in the you-know-what for someone (not me) to have to assemble all of those cabinets.
3. The IKEA kitchen sale is happening right now. (This part is actually a plus) I could save 20% off the cost, which is a BIG savings on something like cabinets, but since the house isn’t built yet we would have to find somewhere to store everything or convince the store to hold onto it for an extra month or two. This also means I have to make a decision by April 28, before the sale ends.
Do you have any experience with IKEA kitchens? Do you love them? Hate them? Tell me why.
The kitchen is literally right in the middle of our house and open to all of our living space, so I’m scared to make a bad choice.
UPDATE: We DID go with IKEA. Our real kitchen layout looks like this:
You can click over and see my post about installing our IKEA kitchen and more pictures.
For #1 – I’m convinced that built-in cabinet-front refrigerators are going to go out of vogue quickly and suddenly make kitchens that have them look very dated (I picture buying a house in 10 years and saying “that is a 2013 pinterest kitchen”).
As for #2 – you can totally hire someone to install them for you if you’re saving that much on the materials. Just spend a little bit of it on labor instead!
Hi, just an FYI- I have read terrible things about the reliability of counter-depth refrigerators. I was pretty surprised considering the exorbitant price tag. It seems to be across the board. When I was researching I discovered right away it was out of our budget but when I read some reviews I was intrigued and decided to see if I could find a model that received good write ups. Couldn’t find any!
I would go for the IKEA cabinets. Clearly, they are a good quality product that perform well. Why not save money where you can? Any where you save money can add up to getting something else on your wish list later on. Save money on cabinets? Get that dream range you never thought you could get. Pay someone to construct/install your cabinets. In fact, I think IKEA has installation services for kitchens. Rent a storage unit to store the cabinets. They pack flat so they won’t take up as much room as pre-built cabinets. You can also work with the kitchen designers in store as well and they can help you.
Oh and one more thing I LOVE about the IKEA kitchen designer: it gives you a materials list so you can take it right into the store and order exactly what you need.
It’s hard to believe but we to hardly EVER go to IKEA and never buy anything there. It’s not my husbands cup of tea, BUT a contractor told us to go and check out the kitchens, since are ready to remodel. WOW. THAT WAS FUN. SOO MUCH FUN, that we signed up for the kitchen designer, and once our design plan is in place, will have it installed. So excited. WE LOVE the grey cabinets, glass panes, and can’t wait to see how our new kitchen will look. I have to say, we have been to many cabinet makers, nothing felt exciting, ALL the cabinet makers have the same everything, very BORING. UNTIL we stepped into the IKEA kitchens. All of them look clean, modern, well made and fun!!
The gray ones are new. I was really bummed that they came out RIGHT after we bought ours- I would have chosen the gray ones too!
We are considering IKEA cabinets, the white raised panel ones. Just curious what your opinion is a year later. Thanks!
I still really like them!
The Ikea shopping experience has been a nightmare. I ordered a $12K kitchen from Ikea and scheduled an install…but Ikea will not and does not help you with rounding up the stock (THEIR stock). If the items you need for your kitchen install are not on the shelf don’t expect any help or support getting them. I have 6 items that were not in stock and my kitchen install appointment had to be cancelled with a big mountain of parts just hanging out in my house. Did Ikea help = NO! Can I order the parts online? NO I just have to keep checking stock in my local store – if I ever manage to get them (5 little parts) then I can wait another 2 months to get an install appointment.
I have never done business with a company who makes it this hard to make a major purchase. NO help from Ikea – you are on your own 100%.
Good value I suppose once I get them but this is the price you pay. No customer support, no ability to order online conveniently. Everyone has to compete to get products off the shelves – WHY???
So my kitchen will be installed months after it was supposed to be because of 5 little parts which no one in Ikea will facilitate getting.
No end in sight.
Just keep this in mind when you’re looking at the beautiful displays…don’t expect any customer support…
you are on your own after you pay your money. In fact they found that 2 more items weren’t on the shelf and instead of helping, they cancelled those 2 crucial items off my order and sent me a refund.
Yeah, critical parts of my whole project…did they help me get the products? Order them online for me? No, they just cancelled them, in effect making the install impossible to proceed.
Now it’s up to me to watch the store and try to get them when they come in before another customer gets them first.
It’s really ridiculous…thinking of having the whole huge pile picked up and getting a refund.
I’m sorry you had that experience. We found that the staff at the IKEA where we ordered our kitchen (Baltimore) were very helpful. I can see how it would be very confusing and frustrating, though, for a typical homeowner. My husband is a civil engineer and project manager by trade and he did this project while there was a construction crew in our house to help with the install.
This will have the same POS Headache like the previous series, The problem is not with the design, It is well designed , The PROBLEM is with the CUSTOMER SERVICE and WARRANTY, IKEA Catchall Warranty will screw you form the start, you better ask a lot of question to these lairs and get everything in writing, you better ask how to correctly clean your unit and demand absolute proof within reason of as to why they will deny your warranty claim just like that, I was LIED to, I was led to believe that Their warranty was rock solid, BS, BEWARE IKEA Kitchens are NOT Designed to be in the Kitchen as per my experience today dealing with IKEA After Sale Department of 151 NW 136th Ave, Sunrise Florida 33325, IKEA’s Warranty Representative Yesenia Cruz and I guess Jason Longberry (He was CC on my claim for some reason) mentioned their kitchen could not be exposed to HEAT, Humidity, Normal Cleaning or near any water source, If exposed to any of these elements YOUR WARRANTY WILL BE DENIED. PERIOD, If you plan to buy a kitchen from IKEA make sure you install it in your bedroom and buy a REAL KITCHEN SOMEWHERE ELSE, because IKEA Kitchen might not look bad but KISS YOUR WARRANTY GOODBY if you use your kitchen like a kitchen, Oh and make SURE your kitchen will not be DISCONTINUED soon because that also mean YOUR WARRANTY IS DENIED. PERIOD, if you get them on a good day they might listen to you but a day like today they DO NOT GIVE A DAMM ABOUT THE CUSTOMER because they already got their MONEY!
Had a guy who custom made our kitchen here asking to make it bigger and that we haven’t got a lot to do new kitchen so if I buy idea pantry and island etc will he do it. His response were don’t buy ikea it’s made from toxic materials. Like wtf???? I then said ok how much for what I want added to this kitchen. He then says sell this do a whole new one. Said about 20 grand. The hubby and I said goodbye. So now on the hunt for handyman add the 3 door pantry and island for what I want. Wtf is a toxic kitchen ?
It sounds like that man was misinformed. Actually IKEA furniture has significantly lower amounts of formaldehyde and other chemicals than many other furniture manufacturers. Check out #42 on this list. (And many of the other environmental factors) http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CN/about_ikea/our_responsibility/the_never_ending_list/business.html
Hi Stephanie, we recently flooded after hurricane Harvey and have to replace our entire first floor. One way to save money I thought would be to buy IKEA cabinets and I am torn if that is really the right thing to do. Your article has helped a lot. Do you still like them? Would you still recommend them? I haven’t even priced wood cabinets yet, but I’m positive they will cost more. We had a beautiful custom kitchen before the flood. But it was 30 years old and outdated. I loved it, especially how solid it was. I would also like to pay to have our IKEA cabinets installed because I really love the drawer lighting and that would require professional electrician I hear.
Hi Lana, I’m so sorry to hear about the flood! We do still really love our IKEA kitchen and yes, I would recommend it, but I would have had a professional install it if my husband wasn’t as handy as he is. I hope that you are able to get a new kitchen that you love!
I think the best part about Ikea is that their warranty is completely a fiction. You can try to call their warranty phone number and they will route you to “kitchen department” that simply does not exist which then lead you to an end survey.