It'll be fine. And the only birch that might possibly peek through would be an easy touch-up. You can get white strips at Home Depot intended to finish fronts of custom cut melamine shelves if you don't want to paint. But I bet there won't be a need.

Wait -- did you say mid-December? Crap ... I think I'm going to have to do what you did (mine are Adel white, delivered yesterday but without a sink cabinet because they were out of them). They didn't tell me about that when I ordered, they told me two weeks, but that was two weeks ago and I've not heard a thing. Ugh ...

We are considering using Ikea. How is their customer service?

I've found it to be very good - there was a tiny hiccup with my delivery, and they bent over backwards to put it right. And returning excess items was easy and friendly too.
Oh, we also called their helpline during assembly with one question, which they talked us through on the phone.

Thanks for the responses. Maybe the birch will look somewhat unique. I do actually like the birch interiors because it looks a little richer...like wood. Just not sure with the white. That's the thing about Ikea though, I can just return it if I change my mind and just wait till the proper cabinets come in. Not sure you could do that with custom Kitchens.
As far as customer service, they are not bad. I guess I was not the happiest client to deal with when they told me they are out of 90% of the white cabinets!

We're doing Lidi White as well. We had a few hiccups with lots of things out of stock, as well as stuff that their delivery service broke and/or damaged, and they were very accomodating and fast in making everything right. So we were very impressed with their customer service. They probably had less than a third of our order in stock, but it only took a week to come in -- but we are very close to the "distribution center" in King of Prussia.

And to the original question, yeah, I think the birch will look okay. You don't see the inside anyway, so who cares.

Ok, thanks for making me feel better !
Hey, we were very close to moving in the area of King of Prussia...Husband's transfer...well we didn't, for so many various reasons ( our 4 kids mainly ) eventhough my husband would have made alot more money : ) Oh well! We're in Toronto Ontario.

I guess my main concern is the birch being visible through the glass doors. It might look ok because I have a couple of baskets that I'm going to incorporate into the design in an open shelf with the same color tone as the birch. I will have to see how it looks.

Now, this might be a crazy idea -- DH vetoed me immediately when I suggested that I do this in our glass cabinets -- but what I wanted to do is wallpaper the walls inside of glass cabinets (not the glass shelves) using a pretty vintage type wallpaper. *I* think that would look really nice. Even if you did a paper with a white background and a really pale low key pattern, I don't know, I think it would add a lot of charm. But I'm going for vintage, traditional, charm -- might not work with modern.

Or you could use scrapbooking background paper and put it up with that poster gunk ... same pretty patterns as vintage-look wallpaper, but cheaper, and you can change it out whenever you want. I've done it before in other applications and as long as you are careful to line up the patterns, it looks great!

Or you could even do what I'm planning to do in our breakfast room -- there's a built in pantry in there with glass doors and I'm going to mount curtain rods top and bottom and stretch pretty vintage-y fabric panels between them. This look offers more coverage for all the ugly stuff inside the pantry and more visual interest as far as having fabric instead of just paper ... just some ideas.

Since all I'm missing is the deep sink base, I'm wondering now if this backorder situation is serendipity, and I should just take advantage of the excuse to do what I kind of wanted to do all along and build a platform for the farm sink out of MDF, paint it the same color as the cabinets, and incorporate a rod in the front for hanging a pretty vintage-look curtain to hide the pipes and stuff. I've been looking for a way to soften the kitchen (white cabs, grey marble-y counters and black floors) and this may be the ticket! Hmm ... I could always get the sink base later if it doesn't work, that's the beauty of IKEA! Now I'm pondering.

I ordered Adel cabinets through IKEA direct over two weeks ago and had the same problem with everything being out of stock in the white cabinets. I was told there was a quality control issue and they recalled all the white cabinets from the stores and are checking them. Apparently the doors are fine, it's just the boxes.

Anew, did Ikea tell you the cabinets would be available in mid-December? My Ikea rep doesn't know when they will be ready to ship and she's talked to her manager and others at the Kitchen dept; no one has given me any date when they might go out, so I'm curious how you got this info. Thanks,

Sarah

Yikes. I hope that quality control issue doesn't backdate to June.

We haven't installed them, yet, mind you; they are still in flatpacks in our garage. We had a little hiccup in our remodel and production (which is hubby and me) ground to a halt.

Double Yikes - I ordered a kitchen's worth of Lidi cabs two weeks ago, through Ikea Direct Canada.
They never said anything about being out of stock or quality control issues and the cabs are due to arrive tomorrow.

uh oh nail biting time...

I know that quite a few people have had great luck with edge-banding the cabinets with dark edge-banding tape for use with the darker Ikea doors when they didn't like how the sides showed between the cabinet doors. You might want to consider that with yours, except with white tape. If you do a search for "edge-banding" at ikeafans, there are a bunch of posts on this topic.

I think that the interiors will look neat with the white doors. It's just the edging that I'd be a little worried about. Do you have one of their diagonal wall corner cabinets? That's the one that usually ends up showing the most of the cabinet edges between the doors.

Thanks for the responses.
Ok, first of all, yes they did tell me that it would be mid december that the white cabs would be available. They told me that in two Ikea stores. Not sure if you can count on that as being set in stone though.
What a fantastic idea putting some kind of wall paper inside the glass door cabs. My house is almost 100 years old, so I think it would suit it great as I want a clean line design but a little vintage as well, if that's possible. I don't have a huge kitchen so I don't want it to fussy.
I am not using corner cabs, I don't know why, I just don't like them. Also I think it will close in the kitchen in my case. So I'm glad I won't have that problem with the birch peeking through in that respect. I will definitely use the idea of the white tape though if I need to.

Well maybe you nail biting people will have to get the interior birch like me : ) Maybe we'll set a new trend!

Dawn, I'm pretty sure Canadian IKEA and US IKEA are two totally separate things, because whenever I've followed a link to the Canadian IKEA website, the inventory and selection is totally different. Your cabinets are probably fine. I wouldn't worry about it unless something happens with your delivery.

Dawn,
Let me know if your cabinets arrive tomorrow!
I was told right on the spot about the inventory when I was ready to order, so I would think they would have been able to tell you that too when you were placing your order.
I also think that it was an issue that happened a day before I made the order, so you may have just missed it.

Maybe that's why the Canadians aren't getting any of the white cabinets, all the Americans are taking them! : )

Actually I also heard that is was a quality issue with the cabinets. Who Knows? I also heard it was a computer glitch.

Just to clarify, I am in the USA (my IKEA is Potomac Mills/Woodbridge, VA) and I was told when I ordered my cabinets that they were out of the sink base and would let me know by mail when they had more. At the time, they said it should be two weeks. That's obviously not the case now as I have heard nothing. I am not in Canada.

Why don't you try the college park store or the baltimore store... not that far of a drive if they have what you are looking for.

Anew,
The cabinets arrived this afternoon, but I had to leave for work right away, so never had a chance to do anything but stack them in the garage.
It looked like everything shipped though, (3 pallets @ 2,100 lbs) my poor aching back :)

With my luck I probably got the last of the problem inventory before it was all pulled off the shelves, lol.
I ordered at the end of October to catch the $100 gift card per $1000 spent sale.

Here's hoping that everyone gets their new cabinets quickly!

Dawn

Woodbridge is already an hour away from me -- CP and Baltimore are 2 hours and 3 hours, respectively. I have little kids who would have to go with me. It's a good thought, but definitely a last resort for me. I do have family up in that area, though, so maybe one of them would check it out for me if I asked realllllly nicely.

I was told the issue was that the melamine was cracking or peeling away from the substrate. Someone on IkeaFans mentioned said they had this exact problem, but they had already installed the cabinets so they just glued the piece back on. I don't think it's a structural issue and I know the doors aren't a problem, so it's probably not a huge deal (other than the fact that we're all still waiting on white cabs ;-) It does at least show that Ikea is trying to be on top of things and has some sort of quality control!

Sarah

Yay Dawn! That's great. You just missed it then.
Are you going to put the kitchen together yourself, or did you hire someone to do it?

I wanted to order for the $100 for every $1000, they extended it for me for 2 weeks because of some other crazy problem (long story) so I still get the deal, but not the cabinets I want! sheesh.

I hope everything works out for you Anew, please keep us posted!

Funny story about unloading the cabinets yesterday. The transport company driver shook his head and whistled when he saw all the boxes and asked who the poor guy was that had to assemble them. I laughed and said that "guy" was me. Don't think he believed me...
DH is a sweetie but he is NOT handy.

It's going to be awhile though, as we are still hanging drywall.

Dawn

Just to let you guys know, I'm the "guy" who assembled all ours. They were super easy. I also glued mine to give them extra oomph. The only thing I couldn't do myself was the tall 88" cabinets. But other than that, they really are easy. Plus I wanted to do them because I'm a perfectionist and knew no one would give the same TLC to the job as me!!

Diane

I think I want to try them myself as well. My husband wants to hire someone eventhough he is handy, he just doesn't feel like it. The thing is I know every square inch of that kitchen and how I want it done because I designed it. I'm not sure I would trust anyone to do it, I'm probably going to stand over his shoulder the whole time anyway. I have been pretty obsessed about the whole thing,why not be obsessed till the end?

Good Luck Dawn.