Ikea.

Ikea will get you the best buy for your (brother's) dollar, and you can even do all drawers on the bottom with nice slides. Check out the site, we had them shipped to us, it was worth not having to schlepp 2 hours to the store and cart them back.

He won't do IKEA....

Ikea. 6k will buy you cabinets with a lot of nice drawers ;)

If you need to walk in and order cabinets same day you may not have any options other than ikea and HD/lowes because most cabinet dealers will want to measure, work up a design and quote, etc.

If you go with ikea you may buy yourself a few days to decide exactly what you want because there is no lead time.

Price out Barker online and see if they meet your price needs. We used them and they are very nice cabs and you can order extremely specific sizes. Hope this helps! Also, good reviews across the board.

Since you don't have time to do a lengthy search, here is a thread on Barker cabs. Please read.

SW, that's a great graphic.

Love the graphic too! So a little more background might be helpful. Originally he was going to have me get 2k cabinets from our local chinatown. I went and saw them yesterday and told him they were awful and if I could get the Bellmont 1600 that we were quoted 6k for. He said yes but wanted me to make an appointment right away to order them. That's when I started to panic because I have not had a lot of time to go to stores or research. So I know this is not the ideal situation, but I'm trying to do my best with it. I can get a few more days, but not much more. So maybe i should rephrase my question. Are the mixed reviews for the Bellmont 1600 accurate? Are there other brands of cabinets in the same price range that are better buys? Any gems at the big box stores other than ikea or does bellmont beat anything there? Thanks for all the help, very much appreciated!

What's the rush?

AnnKH Contractor wants to start in November, which already may not be possible with ordering cabinets vs getting the cheap ready made cabinets. This is why i want to order so quickly, worried if I don't my brother will change his mind and just get the cheap cabinets. I love the look of the Bellmont, can order them by Monday for sure, just don't want to spend that much money if there is something better out there!

Ikea really seems to punch all the buttons here. Cheap but good quality and immediately available. Can you convince him that IKEA is the way to meet his timeline? I think if IKEA is out of the question, any of the big box low cost lines will be about the same mediocre quality.

I also think you should post your layout here ASAP if you want any feedback on it. People here are very good at layout.

so is everyone saying ikea is better than bellmont 1600??

So you rent this place? I know you want your brother to get a good deal and for yourself to have a nice kitchen but if you're not staying there more than 3-5 years, don't stress about it, if he wants to get the cheap ones since they'll last while you're there.

Barker has a 7 week lead time right now (add 2 weeks for painted/finished and another week for shipping).

If you want good cabinets at a decent price then you need more time. Also, who is doing the layout? or are you keeping the exact same one? You can have excellent cabinets with a bad layout and get a less than optimal kitchen for your money. If you get the more expensive ones than you may as well check if the layout is good/efficient.

From personal experience of living in a rental while it was being redone: Landlord (not a relative though) gave me a budget and I picked 2-3 options of everything and showed to him and he made the final decision. I priced out both Ikea and Merrilat just above builder grade (whatever his GC worked with). went with the Merrilat since they were perfectly fine for a rental and much less work for me to deal with.

Yes, its a rental but chances are we are going to be here for a long, long time. He wants cabinets that will last 20 years. Attaching the layout I was given by the contractor. We are planning on keeping things basically the same, but are getting rid of a row of cabinets above the sinks. We are also adding a low cabinet in the top right of the pic that is empty space right now, plus an extra cabinet in the bottom left corner of the picture to make up for taking out those other cabinets. If we need to push out construction to get better cabinets that is an option but again I need to order quick. There is just no way he will do ikea, just will not happen. I'm worried about issues listed in the barker thread, and I don't know if he wants RTA cabinets. At the moment the Bellmont still seems the best bet, but would still love more input

I don't know how well that pic uploaded but the fridge is in the top left corner, sink is bottom middle with dishwasher next to it and oven is left middle. I was under the impression if we start moving appliances we will make a lot more work

Can you switch the sink & the stove, and put the dishwasher between the sink & the fridge?

Is your brother willing to make any modifications other removing upper cabinets?

It certainly does not follow good kitchen workflow/design...

.

In a nutshell and to quote Marcolo, workflow is:

Ice.Water.Stone.Fire

Which translates to:

Refrigerator --> Sink in Prep Zone --> Prep Zone counter space --> Range/Stove in Cooking Zone

After that, the next step in the workflow is either to the table to serve food or to the Cleanup Zone for the dirty prep & cooking dishes (with sink and DW).

The Prep Zone should not have the DW in the middle of it!

.

.

Regarding IKEA - the last time Consumer Reports rated cabinet brands, IKEA came out on top for basic cabinets. IKEA offers - standard - many options that are upgrades in most other basic cabinet lines (if they're even offered at all!) On top of that, they're less expensive than most builder-grade cabinets (which are usually of even lower quality than "basic") and basic cabinets. For example, you get these standard:

• Blum hardware
• Soft-close drawers (love soft-close!)

Just two examples. Others can chime in if they want to add to the list...

You're getting push back b/c most of us don't want to see you or your brother end up burnt b/c of a desire to rush the job - especially if this is for the long-term.

I appreciate why people are giving pushback, I'm just not sure what I can do about it. I like the idea of the proper workflow but it would require us changing all the plumbing and putting the oven right next to the dining room table which makes me nervous with little kids. At this point I'm still not hearing any opinions about bellmont 1600. it comes in the exact style I want, so for the moment I'm just leaning towards getting those.

If you start a thread with Belmont 1600 in the title you might get the attention of people familiar with the brand.

I have Bellmont cabinets, and think they're a very good mid-level line, although mine are the 1900 series. My "boxes" are plywood (although I'll admit I'm not one who thinks they need to be, good quality MDF is fine for the boxes). We opted for the metal sided drawers, which I love, they have melamine bottoms which is so easy to clean (same for the insides of the cabinets). I don't think the drawer hardware they use is as good as the hardware IKEA uses (I believe Bellmont uses Salice, whereas IKEA uses Blum). My kitchen has been in use nearly 2 years and it's been very functional, and very nice looking. I tried to attach a picture but it didn't work. If you email me at sf7307 at gmail, I can send you some pictures.

I think it's strange to refuse IKEA at that price point. In case this helps his opinion, here's the IKEA 25 year warranty info http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/pdf/warranty_2015/SEKTION_warranty_A5.pdf

Refusing to consider Ikea is very odd with that budget. Especially if he wants a durable kitchen. He can't think it's low quality if he was willing to buy super cheap Chinese cabinets...

Ikea is quite popular for rental kitchens around here, and for good reason. When I stopped by ikea with some questions before finalizing my design, there was a landlord buying new cabinets for 2 of her properties. (This was during the kitchen sale) Nice kitchens, lots of drawers and glass uppers. I chatted with her a bit, and she mentioned her contractor strongly preferred them to other budget options.

I don't understand. It's his house, he's the landlord and he has agreed to the line of cabinetry you suggested. It's nice to involve you but he is responsible for getting it done. You choose a style if he wants you to and he goes in and does the ordering. How is a tenant supposed to order cabinets for a rental? He has to put his name on the contract since he is the responsible party for the property.

I cannot imagine telling my tenants they have to do all the legwork in upgrading MY property.

Maybe it's the family relationship, watchmelol. Sometimes we ask/get asked to do something atypical. This particular deadline stuff and no-IKEA sure is a lot of pressure.

This was my first post on this forum and I'm really not sure I ever would again. I am shocked by how rude some of these comments are. I still can't figure out what is so difficult about my question. My brother is being awesome and remodeling a kitchen he doesn't have to, letting us design the whole thing and triples his cabinet budget when asked. All he asks for in return is that I order them quickly. I just wanted to see what other options besides the Belmont was available in that price point, besides IKEA. I get it, people like IKEA, it's not an option, I've said that, so stop arguing the point. In 20 plus responses I see 2 that actually address my question.

Fishcow's recommendation up thread (9hours ago) to start a new thread with Bellmont 1600 in the subject line is great advice. This thread's title rallied the urgent kitchen troops. It sounds like you only want to draw out the Bellmont 1600 experiencers. You should give a new thread a try before giving up on gardenweb. Good luck!

It might be helpful if you posted the Belmont 1600 style you are looking at. You've given us very little to go on except for the fact that Ikea is out and Belmont 1600 is a possible in. There are 39 possible doors pictured at the Belmont 1600 site. You are asking for advice without telling us whether to compare apples or oranges.

If you know the color and type then that would narrow things but we are not mind readers.

Curious why he won't do Ikea. I will tell you that our builder was using Bellmont but has stopped using them. He said, "too many problems."

I'm building a very expensive home now and will be using Ikea for my studio and hall cabinets. Nothing better for the price.

CPArtist - you might want to post on EllsBell's other thread about your builder's opinion. S/he has only gotten positive reviews there and I doubt s/he will be checking this thread since s/he isn't interested in any other IKEA comments and said to come here to post if we wanted to say anything more about IKEA. I got the impression this is now a "throw away" thread from his/her point of view.

Thread: Bellmont 1600 cabinets and other options in price range (NOT IKEA)

I'm thinking this is sadly one we won't be able to help much.

Doesn't want to change the layout at all and landlord was going to use Chinese cabinets but won't use Ikea? I think it is more likely that OP doesn't want to use Ikea for some reason. :(

Some horses, you can lead to water but will never drink. Put their heads under, and they dig in their heels and drown rather than drink.