I ordered the painted cabinets from Scherr's. They are wearing beautifully. That's what I wanted. I have always assumed you could get stained if you specified the color. I'll admit I didn't inquire. Rather, I wanted a painted finish from the start and that is all I asked about.

I specified my paint color, SW Dover White. Because Scherr's uses a catalyzed paint finish, if you put the catalyzed finish door against my hand-painted trim, the light does reflect a little differently. Its minimal, but it is different.

All it takes is a phone call to Scherr's to find out if they can do what you want.

Oh and for the original question of cost/benefit, I think doing Ikea cabinets is a great $$ saver if you are planning on doing at least some of the work yourselves. At the very least you should assemble the cabinets. I would not pay anyone to assemble them. It is time consuming, but something anyone can do. Installing is a little more work and doable, but finding someone with Ikea experience can save you a lot of time. We did it ourselves, and it took much longer than I wanted because of the inconsistencies in our walls/ceiling/floor. And because we lacked experience.

I feel like my kitchen cabinets/drawers function better than any other kitchen I've ever seen/used. Some family members have very expensive homes and their drawers are not as nice as mine. Their kitchens look fancier, but ours functions better. We did use lots of Ikea organizers and drawer lights which make them feel even more special and custom.

@homechef, we had same experience with the paint. We used Extra white, and the paint I bought at Sherwin-Williams did not match our finish as well as I wanted. I actually ended up taking our sample door to Home Depot and got the trim paint color matched from the door.

I looked (yet agin) at Ikea and they don't make a pure white shaker door (for uppers). And while my husband said that he doesn't want to die on the shaker-door-hill (his preference), I decided just yesterday that I will concede to him on the shaker doors b/c it's more appropriate for our house than slab doors. I just don't want shaker drawer fronts (too busy). I also don't want to mix slab doors and Shaker doors since we're doing 2 colors.

I think it would make the most sense to get (upper and lower) Ikea boxes and (upper and lower) Scherr (or other) doors and fronts. We may still price out all-Shaker on the lowers (bjorket), just to see how much it would save, but if we do that then we'd have to find upper doors that "match" Ikea in terms of framing and such, and I would have to live with Shaker drawer fronts.

We will also price out getting everything from Scherr (or other).

Ugh.

I think I have to stop thinking about this for a little while. And then maybe actually visit Ikea (a half hour away).

And then maybe actually visit Ikea (a half hour away).

Yes. Go right when they open in the morning before it gets crowded.

BTW, people have painted ikea wood fronts before, but it's a big job because you have to deal with the existing surface. But in the old system they also only offered a true shaker in a wood finish and lots of of people painted those.

I don't know why they refuse to bring laxarby white to the US. It's soooooo stupid of them.

Yes go to Ikea and spend time in their kitchen area, checking out the styles and playing with their cabinet displays. It would be great if you can find an Ikea Sektion style that you like as-is. Then go to your local Lowes/Home Depot and spend time playing with their cabinet displays for comparison.

This is my upstairs hallway. All our interior doors are like this. I really do have to do Shaker cabs. I must banish the slab doors from my mind.

I don't agree when people say that ikea cost savings are eaten up if you don't install them yourself. I think my contractor (who is generally a very good contractor - not a cheap handyman) charges something like $1500 for the assembly and install. It's usually a day and half of his time. Once you add in the install costs to Ikea, there are other cabinet lines that are comparable in price. But I don't think those lines match ikea for quality or for "extras" (like soft close drawers, blum hardware, lighting options, pantry inserts, lower drawers, etc).

"But I don't think those lines match ikea for quality or for "extras" (like soft close drawers, blum hardware, lighting options, pantry inserts, lower drawers, etc)."

and you're saying that those are Ikea pluses, right? not the other lines?

yes, those are all pretty standard (or ridiculously inexpensive) in the Ikea line, but end up being major cost upgrades for most other lines.

Here is a picture of my Scherr's kitchen. Note that the doors are a raised panel design and the drawers are a slab design. You can also see the ends of the cabinet runs where door faces designed to be end pieces were installed. The wall cabinets also have light rails for the under cabinet lighting. I have flat toe kicks with a cutout in front of the sinks and range top.

As far as budgeting, we spent right at $18,000 on cabinets from Scherrs. This included, paint finish, delivery, trim, light rail, base boards, furniture ends and lots of organizers. We put them together ourselves. That was actually fun and we hired a carpenter do the install. Our independent kitchen designer, her day job is at a kitchen cabinet company, estimated that the equivalent cabinets would cost $45,000 without installation.

Here are two forum threads that cover my journey:

My Kitchen Renovation Using Scherr's RTA Cabinets

Kitchen Reveal Scherr's RTA Cabinets

We feel like we got a superior product and are still very happy about it.

Strip off the label, and Ikea cabinets are: Undelivered, unassembled, uninstalled, stock, MDF w/laminate Chinese-made cabinets from a (really) big-box store for which you are responsible for measuring, design and ordering.

For any other brand GWers would be killing them for almost every one of those things - something to think about the power of pre-conceived notions (and the convictions of those who say that any of those deficencies should give you concerns from other brands).

freeoscar I read your comment with a great interest since I somehow never looked at it that way..maybe because of that pre-conceived notion? and how do you explain this notion appearing/existing/being so ..I don't know..powerful enough?

Strip off the label, and Ikea cabinets are: Undelivered, unassembled, uninstalled, stock, MDF w/laminate Chinese-made cabinets from a (really) big-box store for which you are responsible for measuring, design and ordering.

Yes, Ikea cabinets are most of these things. And that is why they are extremely affordable.

They also:

• have great quality hardware at an affordable price.
• are customize-able in many ways. The 5" multiplier for drawer sizes allows the buyer to set up each cabinet just how they want to fit their particular needs. The design of their cabinets is very clever in the ways the different parts are used in different ways.
• are hack-able in ways other cabinets are not. Since I had to assemble the cabinets I was able to figure out a way to modify and customize the cabinets that would have been much harder with pre-assembled cabinets. I made a 5.5" cabinet with very little effort to fit in a small spot, for example.
• allow for changing out the fronts in the future if you want a different look.
• allow you to use doors/drawer fronts from other vendors, giving you many possibilities for design choices and quality. (Scherr's, Semihandmade, and other vendors)

If I had any preconceived notions of Ikea cabinets it was probably more negative than positive. I assumed the cabinets would be like Ikea furniture, which I am not a big fan of in general. But I did a lot of research and ended up really happy with our decision to use them.

freeoscar - Nonsense!

Ikea cabinet boxes sold in the US are manufactured by Sauder Woodworking Co., Archbold, OH.

NOT in China.

The glossy Ringhult fronts are manufactured in Italy. Other fronts are made in various countries, but none, as far as I've ever seen are made in China.

Easy to ascertain, as each Ikea part is labeled as to where it has been manufactured.

I would not use ikea cabinets myself because of what they did to ikeafans, among other things (they're a good employer in other countries but in the US they've demonstrated they're as bad as the laws allow them to be), but I have to say there is little comparison between the quality of their cabinets with the blum hardware and the ikea-wannabe stuff that HD sells. Not in the same league at all. It isn't generic big-box equivalent junk.

I'm not at all saying that Ikea aren't good value for what they are - we've used them in the past. I'm saying that they are at the price point they are for a reason. If you can live with their limitations and find it a worthwhile investment of your skills and time, they are an excellent solution, and I agree that for the price point they offer probably the best value.

What I am saying is that as you adjust for each compromise the value proposition decreases significantly. 1) Pay for measurement, design and ordering 2) Pay for delivery to a convenient spot 3) Pay for assembly 4) Pay for installation 5) Make alterations "hacks" 6) Pay for custom doors. And at the end you still have melamine laminated MDF and a limited selection of cabinet sizes which force design compromises.

For our recent remodel we had assumed we'd use Ikea as in the past. But since it is (thankfully) bigger and nicer than what we've had in the past, once we added in the costs to get as close to what we wanted w/Ikea we found it was just barely more expensive and a ton less hassle to get custom built cabinets. But then we are lucky in that we are near to Pennsylvania Amish cabinetmakers and benefit from their excellent quality and pricing (especially on upgrades where they seem to charge just a small premium over their actual cost). And our local NYC area labor is expensive, so all of those Ikea-related things above are expensive. Obviously this differs depending on location.

Can you share the PA cabinetmakers you used? Did they also do install?

Wow - lots of stuff to think about.

Freeoscar, this is good stuff to consider. Ikea is still definitely in the running for me, but I do plan to factor all that in. I don't want this to be a super complicated process, with little costs that add up. It reminds me of when my dog got sick (and eventually died). We didn't want to pay $3500 for a surgical liver biopsy, so we did everything else we could. When all was said and done, we had spent more than that on a blood test here, a medication there, multiple office visits, medical boarding while we were out of town, etc. If only we had had a crystal ball.

If you don't plan to DIY the majority of your kitchen, IKEA probably won't net you significant savings. Depending on your location you may even be able to get locally made custom cabinets for what you would spend on IKEA with contractor assembly and install.

If you are DIYing, you will save money, be purchasing a product which has added significant economic growth to Ohio, is made to fairly stringent manufacturing and environmental standards, and can be readily customized by using one of the many companies who manufacture cabinet doors specifically for IKEA cabinets.

I was unable to use IKEA cabinets for a recent renovation in a rental property (Diamond from Lowes) due to timing. I am content with the Diamond cabinets, mostly because I don't live there. Because we DIY'd the install we were able to address some construction issues and were meticulous about leveling, etc. I ordered based on the layout I developed using the IKEA planner. The Diamond cabinets were slightly more expensive, but came assembled. They are not comparable in quality, however, with inferior finishes and hardware.

I hope this is helpful. I've included a photo of the Diamond cabinets in my IKEA layout.

I think (but am not sure) that my husband and I would be up for assembling the cabinets, but not installing them. Maybe our 13yo too. I actually like putting stuff together, and since it's a small space it would take less time than some of you. Idk. Our ndn is a KD/cabinet guy, and I wish I could ask him some questions, but he is mad b/c he designed a plan for us that would have us take out a wall and we (very kindly) indicated we didn't want to do that. I don't think we can even ask his advice now.

Let me understand. He's mad because you don't want to take out the wall in your house?

Tell him that April says hi and chamomile tea helps somewhat lol

Our ndn is a KD/cabinet guy

Even under ideal conditions, the odds of getting good info from someone like that where ikea is concerned are close to nil, unless he has personal experience installing them. He'd be much more likely to tell you that ikea cabinets always fall off the walls or something. (They do when people ignore the fact that you can't install them like most other cabinets and skip the rails.)

Lol April. Yep. I know he really liked the plan, was maybe even excited about seeing it happen, but it just would not work for us for several reasons. He said he'd do another plan for us but kept it vague, and when I followed up most recently, he just said no. I half jokingly said I'd crowdsource the plan and use Ikea cabs, and he wouldn't budge. Not that he owes us or anything. Maybe it's best this way. It's a tiny bit awkward but what if he'd done a second plan that we didn't like.

writersblock, you're right, he is not an Ikea fan. Oh well, not his house.

I'm finishing up an Ikea kitchen where I used Semihandmade doors. I opted for Semihandmade because they had a finish (reclaimed barnwood) that had me obsessed. I ended up doing the perimeter in Semihandmade's DIY shaker which was discounted at the time. The cost for my doors, drawer fronts, baseboards, and finish panels was approx. $6300 including tax (I'm in CA) and delivery. The cost for my Ikea cabinet boxes was about $3000. I paid my brother to assemble everything ($1300) and a painter to paint the perimeter cabinet drawer fronts and doors ($1250). My GC installed the cabinet boxes as part of his bid. He grumbled and complained the whole time. I have an old house and the walls are not exactly square. A lot of hacking had to be done to get the cabinets set up so that they would work with other features of the kitchen (i.e. countertops and backsplash, trim, etc). So total cost of going the Ikea route was approx. $11,850. BUT, I also got my Ceaserstone countertop from Ikea as I purchased during their sale and got giftcards which covered all the cabinet lighting, drawer lighting, automatic trash opener, cabinet inserts, and a bunch more of Ikea accessories. So, in the end, for $11,850, I got a semi-custom kitchen, with all the bells and whistles. This kitchen is tricked out and is so functional (or will be when it is finished). I love the Blum hardware and Ikea's pull-out lazy Susan. I'm not sure what the kitchen would have cost had I got a different route because once I saw Semihandmade's reclaimed barnwood, I never looked back.

A final note: During the kitchen remodel process, I did tons of returns and exchanges. Ikea never batted an eyelash. My brother misplaced some of the hardware (the white finish caps for the drawers) and Ikea supplied me with replacements at no charge and with no hassle. Ikea was fabulous to work with.

For what it's worth, we used Bjorket doors in our Ikea kitchen. They are painted BM Satin Impervo Simply White...by me, by hand. That is the look I wanted. Two years down the road, they are going strong. No chips, no sign of wear, even on the dishwasher panel, which the hubs sometimes leaves a little bit wet in the top control area. At the time, it was a bit of a pain, but once I got the process down, it wasn't terrible. Hopefully this is useful info for you.

lemonlime, so do you get basic white boxes and just paint the doors yourself? Bc the boxes don't really show? I don't think I would mind painting just the upper doors. I'm still attached to white uppers and birch lowers.

They are painted BM Satin Impervo Simply White...by me, by hand.

I'd be really interested in some more details about exactly how you did this.

Me too. I read that it is possible to paint them but they have to be prepped first. If we did that, we wouldn't have the hassle of trying to find upper doors that match the bjorket lowers. I'd rather have matching doors, half of which I painted by hand, than unmatching lower and upper doors that I didn't have to paint.

*matching in terms of measurements, etc, not color.

@nosoccermom - I used these folks: http://www.weaverscustomwoodworking.com/

we live in NJ about 20 miles west of NYC and he came out twice - once to measure and then again for install. Ours was a gut reno/addition so we worked off of floor plans for the preliminary design and then finalized once he had seen the space and had full measurements. We've only had them for 6 months now and everything is holding up nicely. We had a lot of upgrades (walnut, inset, paneled island, taller and deeper uppers and a deep, tall pantry) which made semi-custom very expensive and difficult or impossible with stock cabinets. Installation went without a hitch - all of his appliance cutouts were perfect and the cabinets fit the space like, well, they were made for it!

Yes, white boxes. We made our own side panels, having done this with our first Ikea kitchen, which was Lidingo white. Nice, but I really wanted painted wood this time. For better or worse, we live 15 minutes from an Ikea so it was a low risk proposition to go purchase a sample door. An interesting point -- I would not have purchased the Bjorket doors to use as-is because the factory finish is really poor. They were rough and almost splintery in spots, in no way would I have been pleased with them out-of-the-box.

The prep for doors was sand lightly with 320 grit, then an extra fine sponge sand, then wipe with damp rag and let dry. I used Stix primer. Smelly but it seems to have done the job. Then three thin coats of paint. Like I mentioned, I really wanted the hand painted by brush look rather than the "dipped, candy-coated" look. I was careful; there are no drips and no obvious brush marks. I am pleased with the results.

Forgot to mention that I also liked the beaded shaker door look, so I added trim to get this effect. That involved more fiddly work with the miter saw and sanding and gluing of trim. This probably slowed the process down more than anything, but I'm pleased with the outcome.

We have not been able to round up the finish carpenter to add the top and side trim on the fridge wall, so please overlook that. Here are a few pics. I'm a little reluctant to post pics of my non-fancy, non-finished, no back splash (yet) kitchen, but here are a couple.

Lemonlime, it looks great! Our kitchen won't be big or fancy either, I just want workable and orderly. I mean, I'll add in some fun touches, but we're not going for "wow."

I am very distressed to hear about the bjorket. I was hoping to use that for our lowers. Do you think there's any chance you got a bad "batch?"

Thank you, stillpitpat. It is a vast improvement over the original 1960 kitchen. Workable and orderly are fine goals as far as I'm concerned! I enjoy every moment spent in it versus the old layout, which gave us kitchen rage.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause distress. It's quite possible they improved the finish quality. We had to purchase doors in several different batches as they came in stock because they were new, along with the whole move to Sektion cabinets. If I had to make a special trip, I would unpack the doors in the inspection area before leaving. Unless you plan to modify them, part of the appeal and DIY value is that the drawer fronts and doors should be ready to roll.

@lemonlime, Wow! It is amazing that your doors started as Bjorket. What an amazing transformation. That is part of the appeal of Ikea – you can customize the kitchen (with some work) and make it truly unique.

@freeoscar Thanks. Will check this out.

@lemonlime. Wow, this looks super impressive. Just wondering: What's the deal with wood cracking underneath paint? Have you had that happen so far? Is that of potential concern?

Thanks, Lisa and nosoccermom. Agreed, Ikea kitchens offer a ton of flexibility.

We have had no cracking of paint or wood underneath, although when I was researching, it seems like sprayed on paint is prone to cracking at the joints. I would say that if it's going to crack, it would've. The oak floor goes through a lot of seasonal shrinking.

Lemonlime that looks fantastic. Wow also on the conversion to beaded. It looks so professional.

Thanks, beachem. The hardest part was patience.

Wow, that looks great, lemonlime! Thanks for the details.

So we went to Ikea yesterday and love the bjorket, which matches the existing wood in the house pretty well (and it doesn't have to be an exact match as no cabinets will be installed right next to the door). I don't remember if anyone already told me this, but the smallest drawer fronts are plain, so I wouldn't have to have *all* shaker drawers. Also found out it's being discontinued, which sucks. They said they have plenty right now, but who knows how long that's going to last. I'm frustrated because I can't imagine starting this until the fall at the very earliest, and now I feel pressured to make a decision on the cabinets. I think I have narrowed my options down to two, both of which would use Ikea boxes (which we would probably assemble ourselves):

1) buy bjorket doors and drawer fronts, having the uppers treated and painted white, and accepting that some of my drawers will be shaker; save money

or

2) buy shaker doors and plain drawer fronts from a cabinet company, having the uppers painted white and the lowers stained birch; spend more

*we bought a drawer front and it says it was, in fact, made in China

Oh, and I loved their pure white Cesarstone. I am going to try to check out Corian today, but gosh I loved that stone. Someone convince me that quartz would be a bad choice with kids, one of whom has delays and spills and drops things a lot.

With quartz spills and drops won't be a problem. It's placing hot pots and pans on it that is the biggest enemy.

What about dishes breaking? I read that on a post recently, and I had not thought of that before. If my son drops a plate on quartz, might the plate break? We have laminate right now and I don't think we've ever broken a dish right on the counter.

And I am used to not putting hot pans on the counter, so that doesn't really matter to me.

There's quartz and quartz. Both can break dishes, but quartz the natural stone is harder than the so-called quartzes like caesarstone, silestone, et al, which are chips of the real thing in resin. But either will be much harder than your laminate.

ETA Not surprised ikea is dropping Bjoriket. They dropped laxarby, too. Ikea US really does not want you to have shaker cabs, for some reason. They never have.

Why, Ikea, WHY????

We paid $5,736.38 for our Laxarby Ikea cabinets. The lowest cabinet quote was $10,666 for our layout. We did not DIY. The labor quote included any cabinet style we selected. There was no upcharge for Ikea cabinets. The GC also has Ikea cabinets in his home.

We were considering Ikea with semihandmade doors, but we ended up choosing some chinese cabinets instead, they were so much cheaper and with a more beautiful finish. We bought shaker style cabinets with a dark stain on walnut wood, it looks especially gorgeous because we did a second row of shorter wall cabinets above the normal row of extra tall cabinets everyone does. So our kitchen looks massive and has a beautiful grain and we were only able to afford this many cabinets because of how inexpensive they were, they assemble them for you for free too, you just need to install. Look around maybe your area or your state has a really good chinese vendor, they are all different with different products, it might be worthwhile for you.

Cheepchinesecrapola might look good for the first year, but give it time. Give it time. The hardware will start to bind, and the finish will start to flake and bubble. The ''plywood'' shelving with internal voids in it will start to sag worse than any particle board construction from a quality domestic manufacturer ever would. When that happens, and it releases that wet dog smell hidden inside the wood, just think of how much money you saved. And will have to spend again. Plus more funds.