About 8 years ago, I bought one IKEA cabinet [white painted shaker style] for an open space in my kitchen...previous owners took the antique butcher block that was under a wall cabinet so we had to buy something. Anyway, I love the interior, easy to clean, great fitting cutlery trays. Besides the "fun" of putting it together, the cabinet front chipped and there is no sanding option, since it is MDF. The sides are thick MDF as well, the back is super flimsy MDF, almost like cardboard. Served it's purpose, but I'd buy the wood front if you can and paint them yourself. They are probably MDF too, not sure. The stainless steel option seems durable, but it probably dents. I'm renovating in DC, and am looking at Christiana Cabinetry seriously, but not sure. Higher end, but might be too pricey. I'm definitely willing to pay more for all wood fronts + plywood sides and back. Link below shows a few brands I am considering...open to more healthy options still. This process is worse than buying a car!

Here is a link that might be useful: My Eco Kitchen Cabinet Company Links

I put Ikea in my pantry about 5 years ago with Lidingo doors. I opted for drawers on the bottom and we put in our own shelves above them. We're in earthquake country, so I want bottles and jars behind closed doors. I ended up storing ALL my rectangular pyrex in the middle drawer, and Costco jars in the bottom drawer. Other jars and bottles are stored in smaller Ikea drawers. I'm amazed at how well they've held up. Yes, they can definitely hold up to weight. I have noticed a few scratches on the bottom, especially where the pyrex is stored but I'm rough with them. Ikea also has a plastic sheeting I could have put down to protect the bottom. I'm going to add cabinets to my current kitchen, and I've decided to purchase the Ikea carcasses and add doors from a door maker to match the rest of the kitchen . I too was dubious about the metal drawer sides, but they haven't been a problem. They sure beat what I have in my kitchen now.

I was hoping I would get a names for a cabinet maker or 2. Having a very simple modern look I would think it would be easy for a cabinet maker, so I was obtimistic that we could afford it. Without knowing one person in Colorado with a custom kitchen, I'm thinking it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I am further north in Windsor, CO and not sure how far you want to go. We are using Milarc who is here in Windsor. My mom used Tharp in Loveland and they did a great job. I am not familiar with any in Denver. Good luck!

I used RJM cabinets (4955 Pearl St, 303-298-9101. They are up near the stock show buildings). It's a small operation (Bob and his wife Joan, plus a few employees) with no showroom. They make frameless cabinets (like Ikea) and sub out the doors and finishing. So Bob basically makes the boxes and assembles the cabinets including any organizers/inserts you want. He also helps you with the cabinet layout, and he is very good at this (he didn't need to be told that drawers are better than base cabinets with doors, always makes upper cabinets deeper than 12 inches if possible, etc). He uses only Blum drawer slides and hinges. After attempting to get decent designs/layouts from several kitchen stores and HD/Lowes, I totally 'clicked' with Bob. He was just as TKO about my kitchen as I was.

However, the cabinets cost more than Ikea, of course. We paid $14,825 for our cabinets including tax and delivery (this was May 2010). I think if he had installed, we could have saved some on taxes, but I'm not sure about that. I already had a GC and never got an installation quote from Bob. My cabinets are traditional: raised panel natural cherry, so I can't help with a modern style. I went and visited the door maker to discuss my door and finalize the design.

I would not hesitate to use him again or to recommend him. I had a lot of trouble finalizing my fridge wall, and Bob was so much help there. I ended up with some huge drawers there (the biggest is 48") and I LOVE them. He also helped out tremendously when I messed up on the filler requirements on the sides of the range - he made some larger filler pieces in one day so that the cabinet installation was not delayed.

Here is the nearly final version of our layout with the cabinets specified. There are some obvious errors on this plan that we fixed - I don't know why I don't have the final version in photobucket. If you click on it you should be able to get to my photobucket with elevations.

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And here is a pic of part of my kitchen - again click to get to the rest. The pics are not great. I never took 'final' pictures.

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Good luck! If you contact them, tell them Linda sent you.

Aloha, sorry but I don't have any recommendations since we haven't done our reno yet, but I'm very interested in the responses to your question.

Pudgybaby, your cabs are beautiful! Were you as pleased with your GC? If you were, would you mind sharing info on him/her? I think hiring the GC scares me more than anything else. Thanks for any help you can give.

Sorry to hijack, aloha. Hope it's ok.

flwrs: We were almost as pleased with our GC as our cabinet maker and I would use him again in a flash. Compared to some of the horror stories I read here, it was smooth sailing for us. But there were some issues, as I suppose every major remodel encounters, but they were smallish.

Our GC was Tim Floyd (Home office 303-425-7351 cell 303-881-4104). He has subs for electrical, plumbing, granite/counter tops, and flooring. The subs bid separately directly to you and you pay them, rather than Tim paying them. I liked this arrangement because I preferred to deal directly with them for questions, changes, etc. I loved his electrical and plumbing subs, counter tops was fine and went to great lengths to help me find my granite. I used my own flooring company and that caused some problems with scheduling - they insisted on doing things in a different order than Tim is used to (for example, IIRC, they insisted on a few days between texturing the walls and floor finishing due to the high moisture environment during texturing. They were also concerned about spills during texturing). Tim did not appreciate this and I ended up having to schedule their work myself. I wasn't that happy with them in the end, so if I was to do it over again, I would consider using Tim's flooring sub.

Tim insists on pulling permits even for small remodeling jobs. He says it's the rare job that doesn't require it. I interviewed 5 GCs, and 2 said we didn't need permits ("we never pull permits for a job like this") and one said we might be able to get away without permits. We clearly needed permits. We didn't change the layout a whole lot, but we raised the ceiling (and with 2 bathrooms above the kitchen there was a lot of pipe re-jiggering to do!) and of course there was a fair amount of electrical work required on our 1975 house.

As far as issues that came up with Tim, the biggest one was the OTR microwave. My DH and I took it out of the box, carefully measured the height at the sides, gave that measurement to the cabinet maker so that the MW sides would be even with the wall cabinets on either side. Then when Tim installed it, he put a piece of filler above the MW so it wasn't even. He had his reasons for doing it, but we went back and forth on removing the filler, and in the end he wouldn't do it. I gave in on that and I find the whole confrontation thing quite stressful, so I didn't feel good about it. Of course, I don't even notice it anymore.

Then there was the day he brought a guy with specifically to install the pulls and knobs. This was before the cabinet installation was totally complete. I had bought various sizes with lots of extra pulls because I wasn't sure what I was going to use. So I told him that he would have to wait a day to install them. If you look closely at the picture I posted, there is one crooked pull (left side of frigde, middle drawer, left pull). I didn't notice this until the kitchen work was complete. That's what I get for delaying the pull installation - his brother ended up doing it instead of the guy that he brought specifically for that work.

We weren't completely happy with the backsplash installation. The mesh backing shows through on some of the glass pieces. I had told him of this concern before he installed it, and he said that he's using the recommended white thinset (which he did). If my DH and I had done it, we would have cut the backing off of the glass pieces. Also, we had him replace some of the glass pieces with a different color and it doesn't seem random to us.

But, as I said, I would use him again. He was excellent at getting back to me promptly when I contacted him, and correcting the things that I pointed out (with the exceptions that I noted). His carpentry work is beautiful. The cabinet guy was really worried about that since they had never worked together before, but after they were installed he told me that Tim did a really beautiful job. And we have had some construction types over since then and they say the same. He took so many calls during the day that I was amazed that anything ever got done, but it did. Also, he wasn't great about telling me if anyone would be at the house (or who would be), and there were days when no one would be, but I think that's normal.

I got his name from the cabinet store that I almost ordered cabs from. That is how he usually works (he installs/GCs for several cabinet stores), and that is how he prefers it. I was an unusual case - when he originally bid, I was getting cabs from the store. He told me that I could give his name out but he wasn't sure that he would take non-cabinet store jobs. It depends on how busy he is.

He's in Longmont and I'm in the tech center, so sometimes he was late in the morning because of traffic (we tended to meet in the morning to discuss things). He would always call me to let me know if he was delayed.

He was really patient with me when I put a stop to the cabinet installation because I was concerned that an aisleway was too narrow. In the end he and the cabinet maker (and a friend that I called over in a panic!) convinced me that the aisle was ok.

I agree that the GC decision is a very difficult one. Hope your remodel goes smoothly!

Slab doors are not the cheapest doors to have done custom. They are difficult to do well, in both construction details, and in the aesthetics of matching up the veneer grains. You can get cheaper doors if you don't worry about matching the veneer across the whole installation, but that's really part of the whole point of doing custom. Look at Sochi's beautiful walnut cabinet to get an idea of what I mean here.

You will really have to search a long way to find any cabinet maker that won't be at least double what Ikea is, and Ikea is good quality. You will also have to work really hard to find someone who uses upgraded details like metal drawers and Blum hardware for that price. That's what all of the top Euro cabinets use, and have forever. Metal drawers are exactly what I said: and upgrade.

My suggestion to you if you are on a budget is to do Ikea and maybe do custom doors. Or, pick a couple of doors that you like that get you into your kitchen and save and do more customized doors later. I've really been hoping to see someone use their new olive green door in a design in real life. It's my favorite color, and it looks great with the white and dark woods that they do so well.

I have Ikea in Applad, which is a slab front style and reads modern. It has a softer look than their Abstrakt. The Abstrakt has a seam by the cabinet door edges which bothered me, but if you want a stronger modern look, the glossy front is nice.

We have a 36" deep drawer that holds our china. It is a lot of weight. We have approx 15 glass or ceramic dinner plates, at least 10 ceramic bowls, 2 sizes of dessert plates, etc... and it is holding up just fine. The other wide drawers hold all our pots and pans, glass mixing bowls, etc...but the heaviest is our china drawer.

They open and close like a dream. The exterior and interior wipe clean easily. We did not use any liners or dividers and it all works fine.

The cost to buy and professionally assemble and install was approx half the cost of buying the cabs alone at the cheapest other option. Getting Ikea was one of the few decisions we would not second guess knowing what we know now.
If you have any questions about Ikea kitchen cabs, try the Ikea fans website.

Pudgybaby, thanks so much for taking the time to give me such detailed info on your GC. We won't be reno'ing for at least a couple of years but this gives me an excellent starting point. I really want to do custom cabs because I'm pretty positive we should take our island out and make deeper perimeter cabs. I hope you see this since my posting is so late. :(