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Inexpensive cabinets for a rental house

12 years ago

We have made an offer on a short sale house as a rental. It is a 1920 Bungalow with original milwork which has been painted. The hardwood (fir on the bedroom) floors are intact. The kitchen currently has white laminate slab cabinets from circa 1970s to 1980s. Not sure if we will do the kitchen immediately or not but..

What are some options for inexpensive cabinets that would look period appropriate in a 1920s Bungalow? I am fine with Thermafoil white given that this is a rental.

If there is nothing better for price/look/design wise, I will go with Ikea white cabs. I like framless cabinets since there is more room inside. I also like the Ikea storage system and the tenants can create their own interior as they want to optimize and upgrade without costing them much money. (not sure if they will do it or not but Ikea is close to us.)

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Comments (11)

artemis78
12 years ago
We just finished a kitchen remodel for a 1915 bungalow that sounds pretty similar---I really don't think you can beat IKEA for the price, especially if you know you want frameless. We looked pretty exhaustively in the under $200/LF range, and there really isn't much else out there in that price range that gets close the the quality of the IKEA hardware. We didn't look at thermofoil so you might find a few more options there in the big box stock, though. (We ended up finding a local custom shop and upped our budget to $300/LF since it included installation, but I know our cabinetmaker has since upped his prices, too---we just got super lucky with timing and the economy, I think.)
User
12 years ago
Only caution I've heard about IKEA is that because they are shipped unassembled, they take longer to install. If it's DIY, no biggie, but a contractor will charge more for the installation because of the extra time involved to put everything together, which negates some of the savings on the cabinets.
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Even thin lights may show when you are sitting and look into the kitchen. It seems most new kitchen installs are done with a light rail added to hide the lights behind. We did an update several years ago and kept our old cabinets which had no light rail or moulding below the boxes. DH is rather handy and we bought some oak (our cabinets are oak) corner moulding about 3/4 or an inch wide. I got stain matched up at a good paint store. Cloverdale I believe and they can make stain to match if you bring in a door from your cabinets. We installed that below the cabinets and I stained and varnished the. They gave a little update to the cabinet look and do a great job of hiding our UCL's. They look like they were always on the cabinets and match perfectly. He also installed our UCL and drilled small holes in the bottom of the cabinet, fished the wire thru them and then behind, thru the wall studs up to a soffit where we have access. Wired in an on and off and dimmer switch in our Zephyr fan hood since it has lots of room in the metal body. Virtually no wire showing and the light switch is with the fan light switch. DH is so innovative!
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deeageaux
12 years ago
You can't beat Ikea's bang for the buck IF you assemble them yourself.

I would get off the shelf in stock cabinets from Home Depot for a rental.
Sharon kilber
12 years ago
Lowes has some really nice stock cabinets.
geokid
12 years ago
Period appropriate door styles would be a simple shaker or a white beadboard look.

Ikea's Adel, Ramsjo, or Stat would be appropriate.
Stacey Collins
12 years ago
It's been my experience that the Ikea cabs (even the cheapest ones, since the boxes and hardware are all the same!) last a lot longer than the cheap HD/Lowes type. Just go take a look and compare the hinges and drawer glides, as well as the drawer bottoms. There's no comparison.

I was just looking at the very cheapest two doors at Ikea with my mom yesterday. They're plain, yeah, and they "look" superficially like the cheap HD/Lowes white slab doors, but seriously, the innards will just last soooooo much longer.
Stacey Collins
12 years ago
P.S. while you're at Ikea take a look at their wood-edged laminate counters. Maybe faux wood edged, I'm not sure, but WOW they are good looking in charcoal, topping the Adel white cabinets. I never would have looked at them if I had not seen one of Ikea's display kitchens set up that way; my mom and I were both impressed. And it's even less than their butcherblock! (And it doesn't have that rounded front edge and 4" preformed backsplash that scream "Home Depot"...)
kaismom
Original Author
12 years ago
Bump. Any other companies?
What do Kraftmaid cabinets cost relative to Ikea?
chicken1020
12 years ago
I had a Kraftmaid qoute of $13,000 while a similar layout in Ikea was closer to $7500. We have two rental properties with Ikea cabinets and both are holding up well.
dash3108
12 years ago
Aristokraft makes laminate doors -- there are two white laminate styles I think would work for you -- Monroe (shaker) and Ellsworth (beadboard center panel). We sell them at the kitchen store where I work. They don't look like the "thermofoil" most people think of. They are "PureStyle" laminate, so you don't get those "rounded" corners. Great price point.
sw_in_austin
12 years ago
We had a Kraftmaid quote of about $10,000 and got IKEA cabs with their most expensive door for about $4,000. I think the KM quote may have included a pantry that we didn't get from IKEA but still . . . we used the savings to upgrade our counters to soapstone -- my favorite part of the new kitchen (although three years on I'm still a big IKEA fan as well).

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