Ikea carcasses especially the uppers are cheap, the cost is in the doors and trim panels, hardware, drawers. I'd be surprised if the 6 upper cabinet carcasses cost you more than a few hundred dollars. I would take out the old uppers since you will be changing the doors anyhow. It'll just save you a lot of headache for relatively little cost. Lots of people have used 3rd party doors for Ikea cabinets- Scherrs and Advantage Cabinet Doors come to mind - with success- you can paint them yourself or have them pre-painted.

won't Scherr's paint their doors to match an IKEA white for you?

have you thought about buying a small spray painter contraption to use?

can the applad white slab base cabs excite you enough if you think of keeping the 6 uppers-and re-invent the look atop with paint color or replacing the doors on the 6 to give you a look you'd actually like for your space? Can you leave the space where the ill fitting 2 cabs are? Make that choice for open shelves or glass doored proper fitting cabs later? White slab base cabs should be enough of a starting point so you can do some things, get some stylish knobs/handles, good counters. You will save money with the Ikea, but the concern from what you are and aren't saying is you are not thrilled with the look. It's up to you to create that with Ikea-what else can you put the focus on? Thousands of people work with Ikea...take a visionary approach-get a look going-blend stuff-Ikea works best when the look is mixed and the owners imagination the driving force.But of course, some people are not adept and yes, a big jumble of mistakes can ensue. I guess it depends on what your tolerances are and where your abilities lie-that is for you to say.[Don't concern yourself with demolition-haulaway at this stage.]

scrappy25 -- Yes, it's incredible to me just how inexpensive their bare carcasses are. I guess I am mostly thinking of the amount of work and bother in either scenario. Budget is definitely a consideration, but 6 wall cabinet carcasses would be a small drop compared to the electrical/plumbing work etc.

desertsteph -- Yep, got a quote from Scherr's earlier and they can just prime, or paint and prime. $$$ compared to doing it myself but of course it would save lots of work. Hmm, I hadn't thought of a sprayer.

herbflavor -- What you say makes sense. The style that I really want is slab drawers and Shaker doors, specifically a version of Shaker with a beveled (or possibly rounded-over) inner edge. So I was thinking that it would be very convenient if I could use the Ikea painted slab lowers and just have to paint the uppers. This is an older house, and brush marks in white paint look perfectly at home here because that's how all the rest of the woodwork is. Unfortunately it didn't look quite right next to Applad, though. So your idea of different uppers, perhaps glass fronts or a different color, might work. I think our handyman and I can come up with a workable solution for the not-quite-fitting place; I did think of shelving (easiest by far) but I know I would hate dusting it.

So none of you are too concerned about the 39" vs 42" uppers if I switch to Ikea wall cabs? The 42" ones come within 6" of our ceiling, and that space is currently trimmed out with a lovely (hmm) flat piece of matching melamine which does have the advantage of effectively taking the 42" cabs all the way to the ceiling. They also are only 17" above the counters, which suits me very well. I wouldn't want them higher.

go over the 39/42 in difference with your handyman-put some cardboard or something-it's not clear exactly from your description-it could be a nasty regret later on. I think no one commented because the visual on that is hard to understand.

I was not clear, I think. What I meant was that the uppers I have now are 42" tall and reach to the ceiling with the addition of a bit of trim. Ikea's tallest uppers are 39", so if I got rid of mine and replaced them with Ikea uppers, I would be giving up the ceiling-height cabs. There would be a gap of about 9" between the cabs and ceiling. I guess I could stack shorter cabinets to reach the ceiling, but I'd rather not. Probably not a make-or-break point, and of course there are other companies besides Ikea that make cabinets. They are just convenient, plus I want frameless and I like the metal drawers.

I'd get the 39" ones and install them higher (all the way up) with an open shelf running below all your uppers. That give you an easy way to reach some lower stuff and you still have mainly upper cabs for storing. It is easy to keep a low shelf dust free.

I have the Applad cabs and just love them so much. I did not get any uppers in our layout, but did get tall cabs and the ones over the fridge and freezer set. It is a soft white and it cleans like a dream. I like the edges on it much more than the Abstrakt. If your uppers are anything like the tops of our tall cabs, the will look nice. It becomes all about the hardware. They remind me of a little black dress that can be dressed up or down.
I'd do the Applad kitchen now and you can always swap out the doors later on if you don't love them, but I think you will really like them after all...

dianalo, I'd love to see your Applad kitchen if you care to post photos! I think I remember seeing a shot of your drawers with the vintage pulls -- that was yours, right? The only problem I have with the idea of Applad uppers is that we have slab white uppers now, and they look kind of stark covering the whole wall next to white appliances too. But then ours are more like the Ikea Harlig ones -- square-edged, slightly textured laminate. Perhaps a different finish would make a difference. I agree with you about the Applad soft white; it's a good color. I've got a Lidingo sample door (a dollar or two from the as-is room) and the color is just right in our kitchen. I know Applad is the same finish. The paint I got to test-match (BM Simply White) looks great in here too.

One thing is, this kitchen has always had white slab doors. Its original cabinets had plain doors with rounded edges, partial overlay on painted wood frames. Next it got the slab melamine frameless, which as you know is a very different look because of the square edges and no space between the doors and no hinges showing. If I put in Applad everywhere it would look sort of like the old 40's steel cabinets (I think you have said this yourself) -- except that I don't usually think of steel wall cabinets going to the ceiling. Probably not a bad option for this house though.

I don't know if the IKEA Ramsjo appeals to you, it isn't white-white, but it does have solid wood doors, is a Shaker style, and the top drawer of each drawer stack is a slab, the others are Shaker.

Don't know if you have the room but have you though of moving the uppers down 3" to accomdate a full 12" upper with the 39"? What about going with a 30" and 12" to give you what you have now?

Re the height of the uppers, I'll second Dianalo's suggestion to run an open shelf underneath. Here's a picture I clipped when I was looking for inspirations - unfortunatley I don't have high enough ceilings to carry it off:
{{gwi:1746546}}From Drop Box

Re mixing Applad dawers with ones you DIY, I wouldn't suggest it unless you were doing a completely different color on all your uppers. I think you're right that you'll never be able to match the texture, even if you can get close on the color.

I went with Scherr's for my Ikea boxes and they are really great to work with. My installer was extremely impressed with the quality and fit (they drilled all the hinge and drawer holes perfectly). They painted them too - logistically that was the best option for me - they are beautiful but the finish cost was almost as much as the doors themselves.

With Scherr's, you have a wide range of options for door and edge style, and if you go with glass front, you can design the mullions however you want. Here are mine:

If your budget allows, I'd recommend getting all your doors/drawers, including all new uppers, from the same place so you'll have a uniform finish.

iroll -- I really like the Ramsjo door style and I even brought home a small drawer front from as-is (practically free) to check, but unfortunately it looks a little pink next to our orange-ish oak floor. Hard to tell if it'd be a problem in large quantities, or if it would turn out fine.

aloha2009 -- Do they have 12"? I guess I had thought that stacking cabinets would be too much going on in this small-ish room, but you know what, that is what the IKEA planner software is for. I'll try it out and see how it looks and also run the numbers tonight. Thanks for the suggestion!

ZoeCat -- thanks for the visuals! That shelf does look handy. Hmm. Your kitchen is beautiful! Love your countertop. Your doors are just great -- I guess I was balking at the cost of having them do the finishing, but there would be a lot of advantages that way.

You can hack the smallest IKEA wall cab down to 12" height and use a drawer front as a door. Check out ikeafans for ideas.

Ramsjo definitely has a pink cast in some lights/against some colors. I was considering it until I put a sample in my kitchen next to my yellowish heart pine floors.

Remodelfla makes an excellent point about hacking the Ikea cabinet box, and if you're doing custom doors they can make one in any size/style you like.

I forgot to mention, if you wanted to go the open shelf route, you could have them make the shelf (and the brackets) with whatever edge style you choose. I had Scherr's make some quarter-round shelves with the same edge profile as my doors and they came out great - I just gave them a drawing and dimensions.

Remodelfla and ZoeCat, thanks for the ideas!

So I take it that the consensus is that it would be easier to do a full Ikea kitchen than to work with my existing uppers (and do the partial demo myself)? Is that the case even if I get custom third-party doors?

(Part of this is psychological, you know... I keep thinking that if we don't take out all the cabinets, then this is just a "little redo" but if we replace them all, I will be faced with a totally bare kitchen and then can't deny that it is a big deal. -- As if replacing the plumbing and the flooring won't be a big deal. ha.)

Have you ever hung ikea uppers? It's going to be less work to replace all the uppers than to try to match in only a few.

With the rail system, you put that across the wall where the upper go and hang them, then slide them into place and tighten them down. It is so, so simple.

We put a couple of Ikea uppers for our built in buffet, and after dealing with them we'd strongly consider going with Ikea for a whole kitchen if we ever do that again.

One bad part is glass doors are limited in color. We wanted a different color/style but had two to choose from with glass. For non-glass, you can get a color that is a bit more of an offwhite.

Our trim is BW Atrium White, and it matches a lot better than we thought. Unless I get right up close and really look, I can't tell they are not the same color.

This picture shows the mounting rail. Makes hanging them so, so simple.

That looks really nice, macybaby! It does seem like an easy way to deal with upper cabinets (wonder why they aren't all like that?). I suppose I will be deciding sometime in the next week or so. Thanks!