Our contractor did install our IKEA cabs. I'm not sure how much the installation alone cost since it was part of the larger whole (we did a gut remodel of an existing kitchen, including replacing windows, enclosing an exterior door, taking down a wall between kitchen and dining room and rewiring and replumbing).

As to whether it was easy: I'm just glad they were doing it and not us. We did assemble all the boxes ourselves but our house is about 70 years old and every flat surface  walls, ceilings and floors  is out of plumb. And since we were working with an existing space and with the limited sizes of IKEA cabs, there was quite a bit of creativity needed for filler and trim and such.

I have read  on ikeafans.com, I think  about people ordering IKEA cabs long distance, that is, to be delivered from afar when they are not close to a store. You might want to check out ikeafans for more info about that.

One year later we are very happy with our IKEA cabs. We saved a lot and love the look and function.

My apologies if this is hijacking the thread.

sw_in_austin, I have a 100 year old house and am doing a gut remodel (walls down to the studs, new drywall, etc). I'd like to consider IKEA cabinets, but the out-of-plumb possibilities in my house concern me.

What process did you/the contractor follow about fixing the out-of-plumb gap areas? I mean, did they first install the cabinets, see where the gaps are, and you go back to IKEA to get the fillers and trim pieces to make it work?

Thanks in advance!

shelly_k, if you do use a contractor, be sure they understand the ikea system, since their cabinets install differently from other brands. It's important to use the suspension rail for wall cabinets and actually that makes it a lot easier (I'm thinking of DIYing ikea but I'd never do it for other cabinets), but so many contractors aren't flexible thinkers. Just look for one who either has experience with ikea or is willing to learn something new.

Make sure the contractor has experience installing a european cabinet system German ,Italian etc. American cabinets go into the wall. Ikea (scandinavian) goes on a rail system.

Get references and go and look at the installation and speak to the kitchen owners, too.

It is an easy system but you need to know how to do it.

The more they do it the less chance of screw ups.

Shelly - we had a contractor install who has done a lot of ikea kitchens (so he knew how to install and wasn't hostile to ikea!). We did the ordering, pick up and assembly and he did the install and the trim, cover panels, etc. It cost us about $750 for 22 cabinets - which was his hourly rate of $65 for a day and a half, roughly.

Ikea also certifies installers who do the whole shebang - ordering, assembly, installation. The rates are different, depending on where you live. Where I live, I think it's between $100 - $150 a cabinet. If you're comfortable assembling - it's not hard, just tedious and you need a lot of storage room! - then you can save just hiring an ikea-friendly contractor for install.

BTW - Koala - you might have more luck getting answers if you start your own thread! Also, if you go to ikeafans there's lots of posts re. getting everything plumb - our house is only 50 years old and solid, but our contractor still had to do a lot to get things to fit properly.

la koala - I too live in an historic home. If you are gutting down to the studs, why don't you re-plumb the walls with news studs attached to the sides of the old ones? That's what we did and the result was straight walls. We just found the points that were the most outward (into the room) and used that point as the starting point. Some of the new studs were only 1/2" out in front of the old ones at the top, but may have been 1" or more out at the bottom. We also stripped the ceilings to level them too. Since you are already tearing out to the studs it would be quick and relatively simple to do this. I can upload some pictures if you like.

Nancy

Hi Nancy, thanks for that description about re-plumbing the walls! I can picture it more clearly now how that would work.

Hi reedrune, yes, I get your point about starting a new thread. That would make it easier. :-)

La_koala -- I don't know if you started a new thread (I couldn't find it anyway). In any case, first, I second what everyone said about finding a contractor familiar with IKEA or open to new things. Our contractor was familiar but the carpenters doing the work were not and there was a bit of a learning curve (and some attitude from them about it until they got further into it).

As to the out-of-plumb issue: Our contractor chose to build plywood bases for the lower cabs instead of using the IKEA leg system. They leveled the bases before installing the cabinet boxes and that took care of any wonkiness with the floor. They used the hanging rail for the uppers, which works great and then cut down the large sheets of matching cover panel material that IKEA sells (they sell varieties to match all their door styles) to cover the ends of the boxes (you'd have to do that even with perfectly plumb walls). They then scribed the edges of the cover panels that met the walls to make up for any gaps caused by out of plumb walls. Our cabinets don't go all the way to our 9-foot ceilings so any wonkiness in the ceilng wasn't a factor.

Because we were fitting the standard IKEA-size boxes into our existing space and wanted spacing around windows and doors to be consistent, we had to put some fillers between boxes. I'm not sure what the IKEA standard way to do that is, but our carpenters just built some fillers out of that same cover panel material, ripped down to size. I make that sound easy but it was actually somewhat difficult, I think, mostly because the material, which is all veneered, is a bit hard to work with. They used the same material to construct a light rail at the base of the upper cabs to hide our undercabinet lighting.

ALso, if you build plywood bases for the floor, it also makes it easier to make toe-kick drawers, using Ikea Rationell drawers, like I am doing.

Carla in Sac

Carla, can you post pics or any info on you're making your drawers? I'd like to show my carpenter, who's installing the Ikea cabs in a few weeks. Thanks!

Carla,

Ditto on what teddychicago says. I was going to have my contractor follow the instructions for making toekick drawers in the May issue of the Family Handyman, but it sounds like your method may be better for IKEA cabs. Thanks in advance!

>ALso, if you build plywood bases for the floor, it also makes it easier to make toe-kick drawers, using Ikea Rationell drawers,

There's a mod on ikeafans without the plywood base:

Here is a link that might be useful: toe-kick drawers

Sorry, my remodel has been on hold forever due to family illness, my "plans" are in my head (although all my supplies are around the house and in my garage :]) So no photos yet! But the plan is to put them under each of my cabinets, because my bungalow house is very small and I have no storage (literally none, except for my bedroom closet) I know I'm going to make one toekick drawer for foil and wax paper, one for cookie sheets, etc.

But my plan is a lot like the ikeafans link, except I want each drawer to be almost the same width as the cabinet it is underneath, because I like the look of the toekick drawer matching the width of the cabinet above. I won't need the legs because the toe-kick box will support it. I plan on using marine-grade plywood (in case it gets wet), probably 3/4 inch (I'll need to check bearing weight of the plywood), to construct the boxes holding up the cabinets%

Sorry, my remodel has been on hold forever due to family illness, my "plans" are in my head (although all my supplies are around the house and in my garage :]) So no photos yet! But the plan is to put them under each of my cabinets, because my bungalow house is very small and I have no storage (literally none, except for my bedroom closet) I know I'm going to make one toekick drawer for foil and wax paper, one for cookie sheets, etc.

But my plan is a lot like the ikeafans link, except I want each drawer to be almost the same width as the cabinet it is underneath, because I like the look of the toekick drawer matching the width of the cabinet above. I won't need the legs because the toe-kick box will support it. I plan on using marine-grade plywood (in case it gets wet), probably 3/4 inch (I'll need to check bearing weight of the plywood), to construct the boxes holding up the cabinets, where the sides of the drawers will be fixed. Since I plan on a certain cabinet height, I might also make a waterproof box to put the dishwasher on, so it's even with the top drawer instead of sitting on the ground.
Someday...:)

Carla in Sac

Yes, our contractor installed our Ikea cabinets. He'd had a fair amount of experience doing it and was recommended by someone on ikeafans. We were generally very unhappy with him, but he did reasonably well on that portion of the job. He charged $4240 for the installation, which included installing 26 cabinets, 7 of which had to be modified.

Ikea has a number of approved installers and I think Ikea sets the price they're supposed to charge. Even if you're not using one of their installers, you can probably get an estimate from one, for reference.

Good luck.

in our last house, yes - contractor did it. He'd never done Ikea before and only charged $500 for it. He vowed to triple that for the next Ikea clients! The cabs looked great though - couldn't tell we were test bunnies.

This time around we are doing them ourselves - should be done this weekend. They truly aren't hard, and not too time consuming once you get the hang of them. (No pun intended!)

I used an official Ikea installer for mine - he cost $45 per linear foot of cabinets, plus a couple hundred extra for doing some cabinet modifications that I wanted.

Thanks, everyone. I know that our contractor is definitely not familiar with IKEA cabinet installation. So this is good info for me.

My contractor installed ours, although he was initially not enthusiastic. When we made it clear to him it was Ikea or nothing, and we quite understood if he didn't want the job, then he agreed. He knew I'd researched it every which way, and we booked some time to go through everything I'd worked out. The Ikea kitchen people talked me through the need for end panels, toe kicks etc, and then I went through the draft order with my GC, he was reassured that I DID know what I was talking about!
He also built a plywood box to mount the base cabinets on, because of our wonky floor. I planned two cabinet modifications, and printed out the tutorials from Ikeanfans for him.
I also had my laptop ready whenever a question arose - we'd look up the website and go through the instructions together, which helped.

I'm delighted with the choice I made, and I think he's happy he now has the experience with Ikea, as people are trying to find ways to save money on their renovations.

>He also built a plywood box to mount the base cabinets on, because of our wonky floor.

You're the second person this thread to say this, and it confuses me. I would have thought it would be much, much easier to level four individually adjusting legs. Can you explain why this was necessary?

Well, I thought it would be easier too, but because I was also having my wall oven installed under the counter, it allowed the oven to rest directly on the plywood base, without needing a cabinet of its own. Since my GC is primarily a carpenter, I think he just felt the box was something he felt very comfortable with, whereas - to him - the feet were a bit of an unknown quantity, so I was content to let him find a solution that worked for all purposes.

Writersblock -- I think our contractor, like sara_the_brit's, was more comfortable building the plywood boxes than he was with the legs. He also said that the one thing he didn't like about IKEA's system was their toekicks, which are sort of snapped on to the legs (as I understand it; I may not have it exactly right). He said it would be easier -- and he thought, look better -- to have the boxes to attach the toe kicks too (we weren't putting in toekick drawers, though after reading the thread above I wish we had!).

Thanks for the replies. I totally can see it for the oven. BTW, FWIW a fair number of people have just nailed toekick to the legs, but to me that clip on toekick is one of the major appeals of Ikea because of where I live. In a hurricane zone, to be able to just unsnap your toekick and replace it if it the floor gets wet in a storm is mighty appealing. :)

My contractor also did not like the Ikea legs, and built level platforms out of 2x4s and mounted the cabs on those. The toe kick is scribed I believe and nailed to the platform-- the carpenter was meticulous, and I like the finished look.

Actually, I think some other lumber besides 2x4s was involved in constructing the bases because the toe kicks are higher than 4".