thank you for your advice everyone

We have an Ikea kitchen, Sektion cabinets with Bodbyn doors, we love it and get tons of compliments.

Bodbyn! Don't let some of these people make you doubt the IKEA purchase. There's so many people very happy with their ikea kitchen.

We put an IKEA kitchen in our last house, and used the heck out of it. We have a family of six, plus a St. Bernard, and the kitchen still looked immaculate when we moved. We had Lidingo (which is Bodbyn now) and the finish was great.

The cabinets we replaced were builder-grade thermofoil from the mid-nineties, and they looked like crap. I've heard thermofoil has come a long way, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

If you're doing an IKEA kitchen, wait for a sale. One just ended in Sunday, but they usually happen 2-3 times a year. It's worth the wait.

And, yes, we loved our IKEA kitchen so much that we are putting another into our forever home. The boxes are sitting upstairs as I speak, waiting for our new floors to be installed. :)

There's foil and then there's foil. It's not the same as cheapo thermofoil.

If you do a google search, there's a YouTube video that tests the foils vs the painted cabinets for scratch resistance, etc.

It's called "not in love with veddinge"

thanks nosoccermom, i will check that video out!

thank you Gennifer B!

We are looking at the Voxtorp in walnut cabinets. If foil is so bad, why is it the most expensive door Ikea offers?

Several years ago we saw saw a display kitchen with foiled cabinets at a high end store. VERY EXPENSIVE cabinets. Is foil bad or not? How can a consumer determine if the qualilty will last?

I was trying to make that point. Some of the most expensive kitchens (Siematic) use foil and/or ABS thermoplastic.

The fact that some expensive kitchens use a particular product does not necessarily make it good quality or long lasting. Sometimes they will use a product just for a particular look and people accept it, I guess because they figure that if they can afford that high end, they can afford to replace X in a few years. They may just want it to look a certain way, rather than wanting it to hold up well so as to look the same in 20 years.

Maybe, but Siematic are top quality kitchens.

I don't think foil is bad but it's plastic. I don't know why they call it foil? Maybe it sounds better? but you need to know you are buying plastic. I just tore out thermofoil cabinets that the builder put in years ago. Garbage! For my reno I personally didn't want plastic for myself or resale. I get the technology is better but it's plastic and to my knowledge IKEA cabinets are not made with real wood either but rather MDF. Just saying know what your buying. I also have nothing against MDF in certain applications as an engineered wood is smooth and strong. I think it's a personal preference. Good luck!

I have no experience with Grimslöv or Bodbyn, so can't help you there. What I do know is that not all thermofoil is created equal.

The high gloss Voxtorp and Ringhult foil finishes are thick and hard. They are not at all comparable to other Ikea Thermofoil door styles.

Ringhult has been around for many years (known as "Abstrakt") during the time of the Akurum kitchen line. I've never seen or heard a bad review about them and they are Ikea's best selling door style at the Chicago Schaumburg store.

My Ringhult doors and old Abstrakt doors both have stickers that say made in Italy. The Ikea Schaumburg head of the kitchen department told me, that an Italian kitchen cabinet manufacturer ( I think he said "Snaidero"or "Scavolini") used to make the Abstrakt Akurum fronts and now makes the Ringhult fronts for Ikea.

Not sure if this is true for the Voxtorp.

Mawizz - What's wrong with a plastic coating to protect cabinet fronts? Beats many stains, paints and varnishes that often don't age well.

As to your plywood/MDF statements - Nonsense. Plywood also is engineerd wood, and is in no way more "real wood" than particleboard, fiberboard, furniture board or MDF.

Read Jakuvall's and live_wire_oak's old posts, they might bring much needed clarification to you on this topic.

My apologies to jakuvall and live_wire_oak for copy/pasting their enlightening posts below:

jakuvall wrote:

That's right, furniture board is NOT MDF. Very few manufactured cabinets use MDF, though sales people who don't know better will sometimes refer to furniture board as MDF. Until you look at it and know what you are looking at assume when a salesperson says the cabinet is MDF that it is in fact furniture board. (As tom indicates MDF is common in doors)

The term furniture board, long grain furniture board, when used by a cabinet mfg means a specific type of particle board, typically 45 lb density. As tom indicates there are lots of types of this stuff- engineered wood (plywood is an engineered wood BTW) and they are just fine.

My own kitchen, mid to upper end, is frameless boxes using furniture board. Mine is going on 10 yrs old, I've redone some as much as 28 yrs by the same mfg and the cabinets were sound as the day they were installed.

There are a number of hi-end frameless brands that still have the good sense to offer it, though increasingly some have responded to misguided consumer blowback and switched to plywood on frameless cabinets.

live_wire_oak wrote:

Thanks, Jakuvall for posting your comments. I debated posting mine as well, but I'm going to because I think it helps people understand why most KD's choose furniture board for their own kitchens.

___________________________________________

So, if furniture board is perfectly fine for 99.9% of all situations for cabinetry, why do you see so much preference for plywood? I'm going to be direct: ignorance, prejudice, avarice, and snobbery.

Ignorant open minded people can be educated about the actual functional differences between the two. The main thing that you "hear" all the time is that particle board will fall apart if a single drop of water touches it. Totally not true. Any water event that damages particle board enough to cause it to swell will also adversely affect plywood construction. It's just that you cannot visually see the delamination of the layers of plywood and the subsequent loss of strength. It's not apparent to the naked eye like the swelling of particle board might be. Yet this point is brought up over and over, and it's moot. Water damages wood. Period. Both are wood products.

There are two distinct categories that plywood has advantages over furniture board. One is in resistance to deflection. A 48" shelf in plywood won't sag as much as one in particle board. But, no maker does a 48" shelf without some intermediary support, and most won't do beyond 36" without intermediary support, so in real world use, there is very little difference between quality furniture board and plywood. The second place that ply is "better" than FB is in weight. FB is actually has more wood in it than does ply, and is heavier. That's a big reason that cab makers and installers prefer ply. It's easier on them to work with because it's lighter. Doesn't make a whit of difference to you unless you are doing the install though.

And there is a prejudice against using particle board that may hearken back to people's experience with low quality products that they have had experience with. That 14 lb density crap that they made those "decorator" round tripod tables out of isn't even in the same ballpark as furniture board. The wood products industry developed the term "furniture board" to differentiate themselves from the lower quality products, and to try to distance themselves from the prejudice against engineered wood products. It's only when someone refuses to be educated that the prejudice is affecting their judgement.

Also, one reason that many cabinet makers and sellers will steer you towards plywood over particle board is that they are able to take advantage of ignorance and prejudice in order to get a higher ticket price from you. Using ply often will have a hefty upcharge well beyond what the actual material and labor cost difference actually costs. I'm lucky in that I deal with a maker than only charges 5% cost difference between the two, and we don't mark it up any more than that. Many places still get that 5% cost difference but charge the customer 20% or more. And some makers charge that much to the dealer as well. It's called "market economics". When someone perceives something to have a value beyond its cost, then the cost rises to meet that perceived value. In other words, the market will bear the upcharge for the most part. I'd rather a customer put that money into a functional or decorative feature, but since I only pass along that 5% difference rather than 25%, it's almost a non existent issue for me.

That leaves the wood snobbery bit. A lot of people intellectually understand that furniture board will give them a perfectly fine cabinet. They prefer to be able to bandy the term "solid wood" in conversation---even though cabinets haven't been built of actual "solid wood" since plywood was invented a century ago. It's NOT solid wood, any more than particle board is. It just rolls off the tongue of oily salespeople much better.

Well said! Thank you both, jakuvall and live_wire_ oak!

Pippa I didn't say there was anything wrong with a plastic coating to protect cabinet fronts. Where did I say that?

The point is to let people know that foil means plastic. I didn't know. As I said I'm sure through technology there have been improvements but just know what your buying. When we bought our home in Florida I had never heard or seen it and assumed it was used in areas with high humidity. I soon discovered all the issues with it yellowing, peeling, melting, permanent scratches even with all those issues I thought I could save the cabinets not a chance :( Four local kitchen cabinet companies from low to fine cabinetry stores came to my home and all nicely confirmed these were junk cabinets and that the MDF boxes especially the sink base was sagging so much just putting a new countertop on would be a waste of money. BTW that sink base was sagging so bad that my handyman couldn't even adjust the door to make it close. It just permanently hung open. As time went on another soon did the same so I just took the door off. Told friends I was going with the open shelving look ; ) The sagging was due to previous water damage that the MDF must have soaked up like a sponge? (I have pictures of all of these issues if anyone wants to see) So pippa for me and my experience I disagree they do not beat stained or painted cabinets and I am running as far away from these foil cabinets and MDF as I can.

As to your plywood/MDF statements - Nonsense.

What statements did I make that are nonsense? Are you sure you read what I wrote or are you reading into what I wrote? I am not opposed to engineered wood as I said in certain applications it is strong and smooth. Yes plywood is engineered wood. Great. So is my quartz. I have no problem with engineered anything. Again from MY experience of having to now rip out all of my kitchen cabinets because they are sagging and pay a sh!tload of $ to do so I prefer plywood. Personal preference. I know it's debatable as to which is preferred MDF or plywood but I prefer plywood. Again based on MY experience. Yes I said "real wood" correction solid wood...plywood is made with solid wood MDF is not. My cabinet guy only uses plywood construction with no up charge I'm paying less than a mid grade all ply at a big box store. The article had some great information but I would be careful not to stereotype people who prefer to go with plywood as ignorant snobs. Really?! I'm sure no one is going to know if I have one or the other. My advice...Just do your own research and get the quality you want and deserve.

IKEA cabinets are amazing quality for the price. We have the painted type (laxarby) and the fronts are indeed "real wood". The cabinets are yes a wood composite which is actually less prone to warping and more environmentally friendly than plywood.

ikea has a 25 year warranty - few other kitchens have anything like this especially in the price range.

go for the higher grade hardware with full pull out - it's made by Blum and is so smooth and sturdy and full drawer pull out is amazing.

Mawizz - you stated: "to my knowledge IKEA cabinets are not made with real wood either but rather MDF." Sorry, but that statement IS nonsense.

As I stated above: plywood is in no way more "real wood" than particleboard, fiberboard, furniture board or MDF. And no, plywood is NOT solid wood, even though many cabinet dealers use the term, misleading their customers. In fact you wouldn't want solid wood cabinets, especially in a humid climate such as Florida.

Both plywood and particleboard if unprotected, will suffer from immersion into water or extended very high humidity. Plywood swells and delaminates and PB swells up, both loose strength when that occurs. Solid wood is not exempt either, it will bow and bend.

Thing is, not all particleboard cabs are created equal, nor are all plywood cabs of equal quality. As for Ikea, the particleboard is covered by melamine, protecting it from contact with water.

I should know, we had a leaking sink drain in our master bath vanity (Akurum cab), which we didn't discover for quite a while. Water sat on the shelf below and had dripped down onto the bottom shelf. Yet, we had no damage to the cabinet or the melamine covered shelves, no swelling of the particleboard, nor any sign that any water ever penetrated behind the melamine.

Also, Ikea cabinets don't sit on the floor, but rest on 4" legs that separate the cab bottoms from the floor. A flooded floor is unlikely to damage Ikea cabs.

You keep saying "but you need to know you are buying" and "know what you buy", but it's obvious you have very little knowledge of cabinet construction, and no experience with Ikea cabinetry.

Also, the OP posed questions about different door styles, not cabinet box construction, yet you tell your sad but totally irrelevant story of badly installed, sagging "foil" covered "garbage" cabinetry. Projecting your bad experience with cheap Chinese crap cabinets onto Ikea boxes. Doing this, you're comparing apples to oranges and provide no helpful advice to the OP or anyone else.

Our architect is a boujee midtown Manhattan pro, (thankfully a friend), when I whined and complained that I didn't want a "cheap and crappy Ikea kitchen" in the drawings, he schooled me right then and there!

Thank God, because now I love my Ikea kitchen.

He gave me a big explanation about absorption and expansion.

We just got back from our local IKEA where we were shopping for replacement cabinets for a rental property. I liked the off white shaker style, just wish it was a brighter white. I think that we can redo the kitchen for under $7,000 including paid installation. The kitchen is your standard 10' x 10' Do you agree? I'm willing to wait for the next 20% sale.

We have our sink and faucet already and they are not IKEA. We are planning on a quartz countertop, again not IKEA.

We installed Ikea cabinets with foil doors in my daycare space about ten years ago. The cabinets have held up very well but the doors, not so much. Many of them are chipped on the corners or cracked. We are redoing our main kitchen with Ikea and out of what they offer, Grimslov is my best pick but I'm too scared of how they will hold up so we are painting the Bjorket doors. They are discontinuing them and they are deeply discounted. If Laxarby came in white, I would definitely have gone with that.

Cheryl, do you remember what style doors they were?

I'm sorry I don't, but if I remember correctly there were the next to the cheapest doors. I imagine they've gotten better in the last decade but it still makes me nervous. Here are some pics and you can see how the finish is wavy along the bottom edge of some of the doors. The door with the damage on top is from the sink cabinet so I'm sure water had something to do with that.

That should be covered under warranty as long as there was no leak or sink installation error.

Cherylbirth, have you ever tried to see if Ikea's 25 year warranty would cover these problems?

It's the old doors that they don't make anymore. I also no longer have the receipts.

They look like the old Veddinge to me, but that would be paint.

Larkspurproject... cost will depend on what cabinets you choose and interior fittings. I've got the Grimslov door and spent about $5k for 17 cabinets, including 9 drawers plus a couple interior drawers, cover panels, interior bins, and an integrated dishwasher. We then used the promotional gift card to get our quartz countertops through IKEA too.

They last two sales have been back to a direct percentage off, not a gift card. The one that ended Sunday was only 15% off, but the one a few months ago was 20%. Sometimes they require appliance purchases, too.

Just keep in mind that all IKEA kitchen sales are not the same. :)

So back to the original question of Crazycatfamily, of the quality of GRIMSLÖV (foil) or BODBYN (painted) cabinets, Is there any way to determine if a certain line won't end up like Cherylbirth's cabinets.

Buy better quality.

People have an inherent bias in things on which they expend personal effort. It's a well known psychological principle. Similar quality items will be rated differently if someone ''designs'' their own kitchen, or assembles and hangs the cabinets. They will rate their choice higher, because of the personal investiture of time.

A mid quality cabinet, with the KCMA seal, will have better construction specs, a better finish by far, use better quality Blum hardware, and have a Lifetime a warranty.

I am not saying that Ikea is poor quality. It is mediocre quality, with really poor sizing choices, that is rated much higher because of the bias of invested value. Heck, Merillat Classic has the same 25 year warranty, better construction for unskilled labor to deal with, many more sizing choices, and a much better finish, comes assembled, and is only about 20% more than Ikea.

A lot of things have changed in 13 years. One thing that hasn't is that Consumer Reports has their own biases. They will always rate the cheapest model better than a more expensive model. They also do not cross reference the same product being sold under different names. You see that with Kenmore washing machines being rated higher than the exact same model being sold as a Maytag or Whirlpool.

In this case, Kraftmaid is the exact same cabinet as Merillat. American Woodmark and Shenandoah are the same cabinets. Diamond and Thomasville are the same exact cabinets. Mills Pride doesn't exist, and the rest of the rated ones have other issues. So, right off the bat, there are huge problems with this list. Add in the fact that a $5 widget gets a better rating than a $10 widget, and the age of the list, and that is a completely irrelevant report.

ok thank you everyone for your assistance!

we ended up purchasing our kitchen yesterday, just over $5k with the 15% discount directly applied. ikea does a really cool thing with the sale, i made the appointment for the 14th of july back on the 7th of july. so even though my appointment was after the sale, because i made the call during the sale, i am eligible for the discount for 30 days after my appointment, so august 14th. we ended up just buying it then because we were super happy with everything.

my kitchen is 13 wide and 18 long. we did 2 tall pantry cabinets (24x24x90) side by side, 9 lowers (including sink base, corner cabinet for peninsula and trash pull out) and 6 uppers. we were going to do an island but thanks to this forum i realised it would be way too narrow so we just got the movable island that ikea sells - the stenstorp or something. the lady said it wasn't included in the sale, but then it was when we checked out, so whatever. oh, and we got laminate countertops from them as well. we figure we can replace them with something nicer down the line, but for now we just need our kitchen to be functional, which it isn't right now.

i know ikea isn't for everyone, but i do not personally know anyone who has had issues, and i know several people with ikea kitchens. okay, most of them are in australia, the only ones i know in america are online, but still. if it all falls apart and is the worst kitchen ever purchased, that's on me and i'll have learned my lesson. i got several quotes from different companies and nothing came close to ikea's pricing. i also actually liked ikea's cabinets more than anything else i looked at. sure, i liked ones i couldn't afford, but what's the point in that? ikea fits our budget and lifestyle right now.

again, thank you for everyone's help, i don't want anyone to think i'm not appreciative because i didn't do what they said, i really do appreciate it. this forum is insanely helpful!

oh, and i went with the grimslov. we just liked them more than the bodbyn.

Crazycatfamily. Congrats on progressing in your kitchen remodel!

crazycatfamily, I'm a HUGE fan of Ikea cabinets for the price point. My first kitchen back in the late 80's was Ikea and they held up great. (They were the melamine flat panel doors).

True story:

When we went to sell our house, a "fancy" older lady who was downsizing from her large house looked at our 2 bedroom/2 bath house. She loved our kitchen and was thrilled we put in such "upscale" cabinets.

We are renting an apartment in NY but briefly considered buying the unit. It's in an upscale building in an over 55 community. I told my DH if we bought it we should get rid of the crappy builder grade kitchen and put in Ikea cabinets.

We couldn't have afforded to redo the kitchen without using Ikea. And I'm very pleased with what we're getting - the price is less than half of what we were quoted for semi-custom cabinets and I think we are getting more bells and whistles.

Love my IKEA Grimslov kitchen. I think you'll be pleased!!

I should add that the price of the cabinets AND the counter are less than half of what we were quoted for just the cabinets.

We just visited IKEA to pick out door style for our new kitchen and I think we will be going with a foil finish this time, since the 1960s bungalow we are buying will be better suited by a more modern style than our current condo which we chose laxarby for.

So glad to read so many positive reviews. We already bought our cabinets during the 15% off sale and plan to install them mid August. So excited! We paid under $5k for a 10x10 kitchen basically an L shapes kitchen with a small island and piatra grey quartz countertops.

I just found this thread as I was googling for ikea kitchen door reviews. @crazycatfamily hopefully you are still active on this thread. Could you please share how your doors are holding up? I am also contemplating between bobdyn and grimslov as well. Thanks!

Did you do all white Grimslov or did you do the brown? (I'm assuming white but was checking b/c the Grimslov is what I've been tossing around getting but I'm having anxiety about all white cabs)

We went with the all white grimslov and we absolutely love them. We've had the kitchen for about 6 months now so obviously not a long time but the cabinets are fabulous.

They clean really easily but I do need to clean them a lot more than my last kitchen's cabinets! Sometimes we'll get something like pasta sauce on them and when I clean it off it looks like it leaves a kind of residue or stain but I keep cleaning and it goes away, so I guess you just have to be diligent about that. They show dirt really easily, like dirty hands definitely leave marks, but again I just clean them more often.

We don't have kids but we aren't gentle on our cabinets. I have 3 cats and they love to stretch up and let me know they are next to me while I'm cooking, and they destroyed our last kitchen cabinets-accidentally of course-just resting their claws on the top of the cabinets. We are trying to break them of this habit but they still do it occasionally and there is not a single tiny scratch on any of the cabinets.

Everything else about them, we love. We got the tall cabinets and love all the space. The slow closes are amazing. And I know putting it all together sounds daunting but we actually thought it was fairly easy. The cover panels were by far the biggest headache, and putting the metal rail on uneven walls. But the actual putting together of each box was easy if you've put together furniture before.

we got all 1 drawer + 1 door cabinets, (not all drawers like is popular), and the drawers were bigger than expected.. taller if that makes sense. So wasted space in the height of the drawer- not sure if that makes sense. So a few weeks later we installed ikeas drawers within a drawer and absolutely LOVE them.

Ikea was great about everything too, though I was on hold for like an hour 3 or 4 times due to missing items. That was fun. But they were always super nice and when we returned things we didn't need, no questions or anything.

lets see, I think that's about it! Any other questions I'd be happy to answer.

Thank you for the feedback! I have a 16 month old active toddler and a small dog so I am concerned about the all white but I think that’s what we need to brighten up and rejuvenate the whole space

crazycatfamily Wondering how you are liking your cabinets now and how they are holding up? Do you have any pics of your remodel?

Hi! well, I actually don't have that kitchen anymore! Got divorced and sold the house. But I absolutely *loved* the kitchen. Think we lived with the kitchen about a year and a half before selling the house. The buyers said they loved it but of course, no idea how they are liking it now.

If I ever buy a house again, I hope the kitchen is awful so I can demolish it and install an ikea kitchen again. I loved it so so much. Never had a single problem with anything. I've attached some photos, hope it helps!

crazycatfamily, Thank you so much!!! Beautiful!! I love your choices!! Can you tell me what backslash you used? Countertop? Wall paint color? They all work so well together!!! We plan on using a butcher block island, so your kitchen scheme is very close to mine!

awesome! i absolutely love my island - i took it with me lol.

the countertops were from ikea, laminate ekbacken in concrete effect

the paint was fossil grey by glidden and the backsplash is that sticker stuff which i don't totally recommend. it looked fine from afar, cleaned really well, but i didn't like the look of it up close, especially on the ends. we just weren't diy tile people so that's why we didn't do real tile. it was smart tiles Metro Carrera.

hope this helps :)

Thank you so much!! Yes, that was so very helpful!! :-)