Delivery Day (#1)

Yesterday we received the IKEA cabinets. Two dudes in a truck had everything unloaded within a few minutes.

My wife and I sorted and inspected everything - we have 48 hours from receipt to report any issues. We do have a few issues to sort out - there appears to be an extra handle, but another handle we ordered was open and missing a few pieces. They sent the wrong color panel for the back of the island, behind the cabinets. Some of the lights we ordered never actually made it into the order that our rep put in.

I went ahead and set up the two island boxes - note that the dishwasher goes between the sink box and the post, but there is no actual cabinet needed for that since I'm doing a waterfall edge with the counter.

Some observations:

• Everything was packaged really well. Example: cabinet doors are boxed face down so if you don't follow instructions and use a knife to open the box, you'd only risk damaging the back of the door. Panels are packed face-to-face, so should any damage occur, it is unlikely to be anything of concern.

• The IKEA hinge hardware is really nice. Really well made; I was seriously impressed.

• IKEA drawer design is seriously cool - the sides of the drawer are the actual slider assembly, not something screwed to a slider. Integrated soft-close in everything, and easily replaceable.

• The cabinet boxes are the particle board boxes you'd expect, and they appear to do a nice job fastening the pieces together in such a way to add to their strength.

• Everything comes with a manual, and each manual is unique to the product it comes with. I got the hang of assembly really quickly, but the manual was definitely referenced frequently. This saved a lot of guessing as to which hole you should fasten the drawer sliders to for your application - just check the manual.

• The feet that come with the cabinets feel pretty flimsy, but I only installed them for mock-up purposes since I have to build an actual base that can secure the cabinets down to the floor. They'll tell you when you design your kitchen that island cabinets must be secured to the floor, and you're on your own to come up with a solution. Not a big deal at all, just something to look out for.

• All the mistakes in our order go directly back to the sales person helping us get our order placed. Watch them closely and go over everything, even though they are trying to help you as quickly as they can so they can move on to the next customer. When you create your order using the IKEA kitchen design tool, the sales person has to manually transfer (some of) those items into their sales system, and this is where mistakes are made. We now have to order a few more lights to be mounted on the island overhang and get the back panel replaced.

I'm pretty impressed overall, and that is mostly a result of the little details that are apparent with the packaging, instructions, and hardware.

Awesome! I'm still waiting on my cabinets to arrive, not that I'm ready to put them in though, lol. The soft close stuff is pretty cool shiz, I swapped all the hardware in the master bath to soft close when I replaced all the doors and drawer fronts.

Dude, you need to read this and write these guys:

Man uses piece of wood...

You got this guy beat!

Hungary Bill wrote: Dude, you need to read this and write these guys: Man uses piece of wood... You got this guy beat!

Hey, I'm nearly reformed! I tried to get rid of the stuff even! Best line from the above article:

Wife of man who put wood in garage in 1982 said: “He’s a lazy twat. All he had to do was stick the drawer leg back on but oh no, he wanted to prove me wrong after all these years. I’m thinking of divorcing him soon. He’s done nothing for me these last 30 years. And his arse smells too.”

In reply to t25torx:

Yeah, the second half of my cabinets (Canyon Creek) will be a few more weeks, but I'm thankful for that - I have a lot of work to complete between now and then.

Keep up with the pictures. We just had one of their planning specialists come by yesterday. Still not sure on the final choice and there is a chance we may not go with Ikea after all, but I like their system.

In reply to Enyar:

I take requests for photos! Let me know if there are any details you'd like me to capture for you.

How was the home visit? We did not take them up on that service, and as I'm prone to second guessing, I wonder if I should have.

Mezzanine wrote: In reply to Enyar: I take requests for photos! Let me know if there are any details you'd like me to capture for you. How was the home visit? We did not take them up on that service, and as I'm prone to second guessing, I wonder if I should have.

It was good and bad. Good because I was a little too ambitious trying to fit in a 36inch sink + a pantry and now I agree it would have been a bad idea. He had a couple clever idea to fill voids. For example you can cut down a 12" cabinet to 10" and then use the 30" drawers as doors (which are available in 10"). I don't think we will be using his design but we kinda took a blend of his design and my original design to meet half way. I really need to start a thread and get GRM's opinion on the deal.

The issue for us is we're jumping through a few hoops to get the ikea system to work. I love the design and options for Ikea but I want shaker style doors in white wood. The options are jump through hoops by buying white boxes and bjorket doors and then painting them white or just avoid Ikea and order through a contractor. The contractor set is less modern but it would already be white and it has plywood boxes (debatable if that's better or worse) and maple fronts.

I really need to figure out the final price for both options including painting and go from there. If I DIY the painting like I want to and it turns out like crap in a couple years I'll never hear the end of it from my wife.

Enyar wrote: The issue for us is we're jumping through a few hoops to get the ikea system to work. I love the design and options for Ikea but I want shaker style doors in white wood. The options are jump through hoops by buying white boxes and bjorket doors and then painting them white or just avoid Ikea and order through a contractor. The contractor set is less modern but it would already be white and it has plywood boxes (debatable if that's better or worse) and maple fronts.

TIME OUT.

You do know about Semihandmade, right? They make cabinet doors for IKEA boxes. So you get the cabinets you want, and they make doors in a lot more styles and finishes than IKEA offers. From cheap up to $$$$. Here is one image Google offered me for Shaker doors from Semihandmade:

Flooring

Flooring delivered today. Had to coax the FedEx Freight driver to back in, but it saved me a LOT of hard work.

This pic looks familiar...Like the cabinets that were delivered a few days ago!

We went with a Cali Bamboo product, after a ton of deliberation. Their products oozed quality compared to most every other sample of flooring we received, and I'm pretty happy with it. Still apprehensive about the color choice, but that would be true for ANY floor I could have bought. This apprehension will be here until I get it all in. Now to get all of this moved into the house to acclimate.

Here's the stuff:

Oh yeah, see that "Team Lift" note on the box? Screw you. I packed all 18 boxes myself. It sucked.

The main complaint about this floor is how hard it is, and the fact that you'll ruin a few saw blades making cuts. It scores 5574 on the Janka scale, compared to white oak at 1360.

Here's the video describing the manufacturing process:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_13pj7rrFek

It needs to be sticker stacked in the house to acclimate for about five days, then I can get started on installation.

Mezzanine wrote:

Enyar wrote: The issue for us is we're jumping through a few hoops to get the ikea system to work. I love the design and options for Ikea but I want shaker style doors in white wood. The options are jump through hoops by buying white boxes and bjorket doors and then painting them white or just avoid Ikea and order through a contractor. The contractor set is less modern but it would already be white and it has plywood boxes (debatable if that's better or worse) and maple fronts.

TIME OUT. You do know about Semihandmade, right? They make cabinet doors for IKEA boxes. So you get the cabinets you want, and they make doors in a lot more styles and finishes than IKEA offers. From cheap up to $$$$. Here is one image Google offered me for Shaker doors from Semihandmade:

I do. I've reached out to both them and Sherrs but it's anything but cheap!

And WOW! I like those floors a lot. Keep up the good work and feel free to post some details re prices!

Enyar, I thought of you yesterday - I was at Lowes picking up my new dishwasher, which meant standing around for 20 minutes while they found my order in the back. So I read this magazine, and it had tons of very relevant things in it, including a section on painting cabinets:

It also had a great article on choosing RTA (ready to assemble) cabinets, which might be relevant to your interests.

Regarding sharing costs, I'm happy to share what I'm paying for things, but I'm guessing you don't care that I just spent $325 for gas plumbing stuff to install new gas lines for the whole house. Is there anything specific you're interested in? I should probably make a detailed budget post...this whole project is colossally expensive, and I haven't been able to save a lot in the process.

Enyar wrote: I do. I've reached out to both them and Sherrs but it's anything but cheap!

Hey Dude, I don't know what price range you're looking for but for my kitchen I wanted white shaker like you're talking about. After much stress and searching, comparing, reading and stressing more, I fanlly made a choice and went with these guys RTAKitchenCabinetsonline.com

There are manufactured in my home state of TN and were quite a bit less than other places I priced out so I figured that was enough to tip my decision to them.

I'll post up my experience with them and pictures once I get them assembled and installed.

I'll be watching to see how that bamboo holds up. We put similar flooring in the upstairs of the Grosh and while the floor itself seems to be tough as hell, the finish scratches fairly easy. The whole project is looking good.

t25torx wrote: Hey Dude, I don't know what price range you're looking for but for my kitchen I wanted white shaker like you're talking about. After much stress and searching, comparing, reading and stressing more, I fanlly made a choice and went with these guys RTAKitchenCabinetsonline.com

RTA Kitchen Cabinets Online was one of the boxes reviewed in the aforementioned remodeling magazine article! Definitely worth a good look.

t25torx wrote:

Enyar wrote: I do. I've reached out to both them and Sherrs but it's anything but cheap!

Hey Dude, I don't know what price range you're looking for but for my kitchen I wanted white shaker like you're talking about. After much stress and searching, comparing, reading and stressing more, I fanlly made a choice and went with these guys RTAKitchenCabinetsonline.com There are manufactured in my home state of TN and were quite a bit less than other places I priced out so I figured that was enough to tip my decision to them. I'll post up my experience with them and pictures once I get them assembled and installed.

Those do look really nice, and higher end compared to Ikea. Cost wise though I compared the white shaker RTA compared to the Ikea Grimslov and the price difference for a 15" lower drawer was $299 vs $168. I'll put together a comprehensive post tonight about our dilemma and see what the GRM hive thinks. My wife and coworkers think I'm a nut for wanting to do what I want to do so maybe I need to agree with them and accept the standard Ikea stuff.

Are you putting a pantry to the right of the fridge? We're going to have VERY similar layouts in our kitchens.

Another question, if you aren't using the legs how do you plan on attaching the toe kicks?

Enyar wrote: Are you putting a pantry to the right of the fridge? We're going to have VERY similar layouts in our kitchens.

Yes, although it will be a pretty small pull-out style pantry. I plan on using some of the drawers to the left of the fridge as pantry storage, so I'm not worried about getting enough storage.

Enyar wrote: Another question, if you aren't using the legs how do you plan on attaching the toe kicks?

The only IKEA cabinets we have on the base are for the island, so I have a 69" length to get toe kicks mounted...I plan on cutting the clips off of the toe kick mounts and screwing those to the wood base I'll be making, thus allowing the toe kick to mount the way it is intended, just not clipped to the legs.

Enyar wrote: Those do look really nice, and higher end compared to Ikea. Cost wise though I compared the white shaker RTA compared to the Ikea Grimslov and the price difference for a 15" lower drawer was $299 vs $168. I'll put together a comprehensive post tonight about our dilemma and see what the GRM hive thinks. My wife and coworkers think I'm a nut for wanting to do what I want to do so maybe I need to agree with them and accept the standard Ikea stuff.

Looks like the RTA Online cabinets are all face frame style boxes...be sure to take that into consideration when you compare them to IKEA or other brands. I wish I'd come across those sooner; not sure it would have changed my order...

Mezzanine wrote:

Enyar wrote: Those do look really nice, and higher end compared to Ikea. Cost wise though I compared the white shaker RTA compared to the Ikea Grimslov and the price difference for a 15" lower drawer was $299 vs $168. I'll put together a comprehensive post tonight about our dilemma and see what the GRM hive thinks. My wife and coworkers think I'm a nut for wanting to do what I want to do so maybe I need to agree with them and accept the standard Ikea stuff.

Looks like the RTA Online cabinets are all face frame style boxes...be sure to take that into consideration when you compare them to IKEA or other brands. I wish I'd come across those sooner; not sure it would have changed my order...

Meaning that you prefer the face frame style boxes? Why is that? How wide is your pantry?

In reply to Enyar:

I don't prefer face frames - I like the euro faceless style. I just wish I'd seen their site sooner, for comparison purposes.

Cabinet guys prefer face frame boxes because it is easier to get them installed when there are issues with level and plumb in the room - you can hide a lot with how you mount the frame, according to what I learned talking to cabinet guys. Faceless style affords a good deal more interior volume for cabinets with drawers, but can be a little more laborious getting everything set level and plumb since you'll see the front edge of every box.

The pull out pantry is 12" wide, 24" deep, and...84" (I think?) high.

Punchlist

Started Saturday by making a punch list of items to complete. Kind of wish I hadn't - there is a LOT of work to do still.