this statement has been a common statement in the last few years, in this forum.

Reworded in different ways, it all comes down to buying from Ikea those parts and piece that you wish to use Ikea for, and buying the rest from other sources.

so, yes, there are hundreds who have firsthand experience with the advice you are asking about.

instead of hiring someone CUSTOM to make a CUSTOM cabinet face, you can buy ikea-compatible drawer fronts and base cabinet doors from Scherr's and many others.

That is what we did. We have the IKEA cabinets, but with custom door and drawer fronts--this way we were able to afford the nice upgrades like the Blum full-extension drawer slides with soft close, which come standard with IKEA cabinets, but in the panel design and color that I wanted. (If IKEA had what I was looking for WRT doors, I would have not hesitated to use them.)

We used an IKEA door and both a shallow and deep drawer front for templates. The door company did the hinge boring for us per IKEA specs, but we did our own drilling for the drawer fronts.

We are thrilled how it turned out!

However...if your kitchen really does call for custom sizes, Ikea has a pretty limited size selection. If making use of ever inch is critical, it might be worth going custom anyway.

(There are some pretty great Ikea kitchens in the FKB if you search there, and many of them have the custom fronts.)

We also did exactly this. IKEA bases and had all our door/drawer fronts made from premium QS white oak from Scherrs. We couldn't be more delighted. And... super super affordable.

i started a thread about the general case, of Ikea kitchen cabinet purchases

Here is a link that might be useful: Use Ikea to Get a Custom Kitchen (High Quality)

Just as an added note in follow-up with fori's point, one of the mottos over at IKEAFANS is that what IKEA lacks with customization, it more than makes up for in the capacity to make modifications. The website is filled with creative examples of people mixing pieces and parts to create lower microwave drawers, pantries, spice racks, broom cubbies, etc.

You do not need to hire a custom cabinet maker to do the doors and drawer fronts unless you're having them tack on a few custom cabinets while you're at it (not a bad compromise, actually). You just order your doors from door companies. They're all over, and many custom cabinet makers order THEIR doors as well. Apparently just doors was how Scherr's started.

Ikeafans is wonderful.

And Ikea has almost as many size options as the other stock cabinet lines, so they really aren't deficient compared to those.

I really like Ikea cabinets (and have some that aren't in a kitchen) but the most appealing thing about them is WYSIWYG. If you get a quote from a cabinet store, be it the local Wood-Mode dealer or the Home Depot, you just won't get a line by line price. With Ikea, cabinet x costs exactly X dollars and if it's defective bring it back and we'll get you a new one even if we secretly think YOU broke it.

The straightforward pricing is very appealing to some of us who aren't necessarily on a budget but like to know where exactly the money is going. Most DIY cabinets are like this of course, but they don't all have useless diagrams to ignore as you do it.

I didn't do Ikea on my last kitchen because I wanted extra deep cabinets (and drawers especially) because it was the only way to expand my kitchen without EXPANDING my kitchen. But I'd do Ikea on my current kitchen so I could do it at my own pace if they hadn't discontinued the Best Ikea Door Ever. (I am not too lazy to assemble my own cabinets but I'm too lazy to custom order doors.)

Yes - to add to Steph2000's post, we are using Ikea cabinets and doors - and we were able to mod to include a microwave drawer and warming drawer in our island, we easily installed a Rev-a-Shelf spice pullout, will be able to have a 15" overhang for seating on our island with no corbells by cutting into the cabinets and adding support rods, used 2 cabinets to create a blind corner instead of being stuck with the angled corner upper cabinet that Ikea sells...and more. It's all been done fairly easily and Ikeafans has a lot of good information and tutorials for you. Good luck!