We got our IKEA cabs installed last week and we love them. They were $13k lower than the next lowest quote! They also were running a special for 40% off counters, so we got counters, cabs and installation for both for $7k lower than any cabinet alone/uninstalled quotes we had gotten.
They are so pretty and neat. We got them in Applad, which is white, and is exactly the same finish we had compared them to when getting quotes. We like that they are not painted and should not chip over time with heat/humidity variations.

Get the IKEA cabs in one of the finishes that have the painted look. And get your soapstone. Then some day, when the spirit moves you or you have money saved up again; either paint the IKEA cabs or have Scherrs make you up new fronts. You just snap those puppies off and snap new ones on. Scherrs specifically knows how to bore for IKEA cabs.

You can get the Ikea cabinets without doors/drawerfronts. And then buy one of each size of the cheapest doors for the custom guy to copy. I think they're Harlig?

You'll get the amazing function and price of Ikea, with the custom front you want. Depending on what Ikea doors you had picked out, you might not spend much more for custom. There is a huge price range with Ikea's fronts.

Sarah Richardson uses Ikea cabinets all the time, and has them custom sprayed. I think it would still be less than your GC's quote...and you'd get a beautiful finish.

She did that on Sarah Richardson's farmhouse kitchen and she did the same thing with Home Depot cabinets on Design Inc. 'sean's yurt' episode. It's a great way to get a custom look, without a custom price :)

Try HGTV for full episodes. Here's a couple of pictures of the famhouse kitchen. She had the cabinets sprayed in gray for the lowers, white for the uppers and yellow for the island. This is all Ikea cabinetry, with some paneling painted to match on the island and drawer under the sink.

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Is it the color of the IKEA you don't like? On hgtv's "Sarah's House" she frequently gets IKEA and then has them sprayed. I don't know if that's an option for you but might be worth looking into. I know a lot of people are very, very happy with their IKEA cabinets, however, custom is easier if you don't have a straightforward layout. Lastly, and this is coming from a conversation I had with a friend, she told me she wouldn't recommend having someone install IKEA who hasn't done it before. But maybe someone else on these boards could speak to whether or not they agree with that.

Many homeowners DIY installing the IKEA cabs, but we were wary of that. We had their recommended company do it and my gc was glad that his guys did not need to figure it out for their first time (and I did not want them learning on my cabs!).
The installation was reasonable and it helped move things along to have people who work with them day in and out.

Depending on how long you plan to live in this house, what I would do (just me) is to pay for the custom cabinets now, put some kind of very cheap but functional temporary countertop (plywood?) on and then save up for the soapstone you really want. That way, you can have exactly the kitchen you want w/o compromising anything!

Another thing to consider, if you haven't already, is that you can DIY your soapstone. There may be others, but M. Tex and Dorado will both ship slabs to you. There are lots of how-to videos online, and both M. Tex and Dorado were great about telling us exactly what we'd need to do to install it. (We ultimately decided to have ours fabricated on-site, but we felt up to the challenge of doing it ourselves if we'd gone that route.) There are many GWers who've done their own soapstone, so if this piques your interest, you may want to post and ask for some feedback about the process.

It will save you a substantial amount of money, so maybe you can have your custom cabinets and soapstone, too!

Have you checked M. Teixeira soapstone at www.soapstones.com? You can purchase slabs at various stages of DIY-readiness for fairly low prices. I can't imagine getting a 120" x 30" slab of granite for $1100 - but you can soapstone.

Here is a link that might be useful: soapstone

We were in exactly your shoes (at those price points with a pretty modest kitchen remodel; originally the goal had been to keep total cabinetry costs including hardware under $5K) and in the end decided to go with the custom cabinets. I like IKEA cabinets a lot and would have been fine with them, but I'm also very, VERY glad we went custom for our kitchen. We had to bump our cabinetry budget to $10K to cover everything but I'm very pleased with what we wound up with. Major factors were:

- Ability to fit the space better---with IKEA we were dealing with hacking several cabinets because we wanted some sizes they don't make, an angled cabinet, and a cabinet at a non-standard depth to clear a door swing. I was ready and willing to do the hacking, but man am I glad we didn't have to in the end!
- Custom price included installation and crown. Check to see if yours does, since this was a big factor for us since we would have installed the IKEA cabs ourselves. This meant that the gap wasn't really $4K, but more like $4K less the time and headaches associated with the install. Cabinetmaker also came back to fix little glitchy things.
- Ability to choose colors. We didn't love the IKEA options in the door style we wanted. Looked at using Scherr's for the doors with IKEA, but it ate away at a lot of the cost savings. Our white cabinets match all the original built-ins in our house in color and door style, and I *love* that since you can see them from the living and dining rooms.
- Ability to have inset cabinetry, which we couldn't do with IKEA. All the rest of the casework in our house is flush inset circa 1915, so that was a huge factor.

The hardware on our cabinets is actually the same as IKEA's (Blum full-extension undermount slides) so that part didn't change between the two. The other major differences were plywood boxes, wood drawers, and wood doors/drawer fronts. (IKEA's vary; we were looking at Tidaholm for pricing which is one of their higher end doors, but the wood part was important since I'd seen friends' kitchens where the lower end doors didn't do as well over time.) I really like the Blum hardware, and would make sure to find out what your GC's custom guy would use if you went with him.

The funny part was that we ended up getting our soapstone too in the end---when we got around to getting counter quotes, it was far less expensive than I'd assumed it would be, and actually ended up being our lowest quote of the things we were seriously considering (Caesarstone, Paperstone, a couple of other manmade materials). I think this varies a lot based on where you live, though, since I've seen people here post with much higher costs for it. We live near enough to the supplier that they could also be our fabricator, and I think that made a big difference in containing costs. (We also have a small kitchen, so weren't dealing with huge expanses of counter, and did IKEA butcher block on one section to balance out the cost of the soapstone.)

Have you looked at honed granite? I don't know the cost, but it seems similar to soapstone in look, but much harder.

I guess I fell in love with the look of soapstone and marble when I found GW and was searching for inspiration. I guess I could/should look at some of the honed black granites. I should also do some pricing of soapstone since the GC currently gave me a $3,500 allowance for counters. I think if I go with IKEA, I would want IKEA qualified guys to install. I do not know what my GC is charging for the install as the quote just contains allowances for certain materials and then a final number. Should I have them break down the quote? I have not yet signed a contract with them. The door style I am looking at is the white adel--but would prefer the tidaholm painted (see Sarah Richardson photos above). But I think I could/would be happy with adel. My home is a 1957 ranch-- not a period style home so I am not looking to match any particular style. Thanks for your comments/advice. I am so anxious to get this kitchen started but at the same time I do not want to make an expensive mistake!

Whoa as much as I look at these forums I had no idea I could DIY soapstone. I may need to consider this too!

Newbieremodeler, I have Ikea, am very satified, and believe you'd likely be quite satisfied; however, in your place I'd probably go for a staged approach: Custom cabinets (as long as they have full-extension drawers almost everywhere, won't give THAT up!) and Ikea butcher block counters, with soapstone as a second stage. The temporary counters are very inexpensive comparatively speaking but avoid tackiness with their "real wood" aesthetic and could be used elsewhere when it's time for soapstone. You can have it all. :)

I am with the get the cabs you want. Your cabinets are a very long term item, not something you can change easily.
If I could save money in a year or less for the counter then I would live with plywood. If it took longer I would go with the Ikea butcher block. Then it wouldn't matter how long I had to wait. Actually I would have to compare the price of plywood to the Ikea BB.

Get your GC's quote broken down to avoid problems further down the line. That way you each know exactly what the GC is responsible for. Many people on this forum say they have everything put in the quote down to the type and quantity of nails.

Newbie- I would recommend you get good quality cabinets and the counter that you really want. It's easy to say that you can replace it later...but if you're planning to start a family, any extra money will probably be going for something kid-related.

Get what you want now, while you can still afford it...and then you and DH can enjoy the kitchen you love, with the little ones you plan to share it with :)

I liked my ikea cabinets in my last house for function etc. loved the soft close drawers with the metal boxes.

i didn't like the doors and drawer faces. I had a terrible time getting ones without defects. then in the three years of having them, in certian spots along the edges the paint was not holding up. We had Lindingo

i'm in the process of remodeling my new house and we're going with custom cabinets. we were orgioanlly going to do IKEA with sherr doors but after a lot of thought and the fact that we didn't want white again, we chose to go a different route.