While it sounds like the Fagerland and the Liljestad lines, being solid wood, are the top quality at Ikea, I know that the colors of those two would be too dark for my friend. I am still confused then. Barrelhead - is your posting above of Ikea lines in order of quality? Are the flat panel doors (ie. Nexus, Perfekt and Rubrik) higher quality than the framed doors (like Adel, Askome, Tidaholm)? I am still confused after reading this thread. I've been on the Ikea website and still can't tell what I should look for to get the best quality doors at Ikea. I know Lisaslists says you can tell when you see them, but I am not so sure I will be able to. Amberly said the quality varies quite a bit, and I'll be able to tell when I look at the label. How will I be able to tell? What materials am I looking to find in the label? Or not find in the label? Or if you know of lines that are really the lower-levels, let me know. Thanks everyone.

The water v. cabinet issue has lots of people talk about it, but you kinda have to experience it to see the difference. Full disclosure - I have had some sizable leaks in two different brands of cabinets, including a valve break. Neither were ikea. I have ikea now. This was a monetary decision made after a lot of discussion. We modified all of the base cabinets by adding additional structural parts. I am prepared to ditch the sink cabinets if it becomes necessary and right on to kurtg that a sink base is the one place where the cost of actually doing any replacement completely overwhelms the value you can recover from the warranty. Some of the other things said above? Edge banding is for visual appearance, not a moisture barrier. Unless you are very fortunate, and the glue fills every millimeter of seam, it will not keep out water. YMMV on seams from an original manufacturer. Most cabinet plywood can beat up most particle board for moisture resistance. This is particularly true of ikea where one minute of water exposure to a cut edge is enough to cause deformation. The caulk idea expressed above is cute, but not really practical where pipes enter the bottom of the cabinet. Plus when almost every edge on the entire cabinet is a cut edge, its pretty difficult to make this work. So, how do I know it deforms? Because I tried it. A couple of those trials were yesterday on a cabinet part purchased within the last month. Dunk for a minute, wet sponge sitting on the surface and a decently long dunking of an end. I also tried other materials - like mdf, another companies particle board, hdf and two different types of cabinet plywood with differing cores. Ikea particle board was easily the worst at absorption and deformation. Hdf was easily the best at shape retention - no deformation even after 24 hours of immersion. In decending order of goodness: hdf, osb core cabinet plywood, mdf, home depot type veneer ply, other makers particle board and well behind that, ikea particle board. I will say that water sitting on just the coated surface - the really damp sponge test - took a long time to penetrate something over 10 hours. Water will penetrate all melamine coatings eventually. The problem isn't the coating - its what's inside of the coating. The particle board will tolerant no moisture. This isn't special to ikea. Other brands that use particle board cabinet bottoms (like one of the kinds I had) can also deform from standing water or continually being exposed to water or cleaning chemicals. The amount of time needed for deforming and the results depend on quality of the coating and the quality of the particle board. If you get a good long dunk, expect ikea to be destroyed. The low density fiberboard back is another weak spot. It has a very thin coating that is easily damaged. How easy? Piece of blue tape or slight bending or slide across a counter face down kinda easy. Will disintegrate on exposure to water. Intended as a dust back. It isn't structural - low density fiberboard has no structure. One of the famous weird things that gets said is the cabinet back will stop the cabinet from racking. It's laughable - the concept that this very soft stuff nailed into particle board - that can be pushed back out or bent by any small child - would be capable of structure. It's much more likely the racking will pull the nails out. Also from above, ikea base cabinets have two sides, a bottom and two puny cross pieces. The larger the cabinet, the weaker it is (even with the back attached). I very much doubt the bottom can be removed and the cabinet still has the same structure. They (being cabinet companies) used to sell, and some still do sell, a sink front that was framed - the actual sink cabinet was then built in place. But that was before big sinks and wide cabinets. Some of the large sinks and some of the countertop materials need some decent support up top. It can happen, but relying on just the two small mdf cross pieces with one fastener per end into a side piece held up only by cabinet connectors doesn't sound likely of being able to provide it. Mdf isn't known for its wonderful structural qualities either.

Molding is always a key to achieving a more custom look. Multiple piece stacked crown as well as light rail molding. Even modern kitchens with slab doors can look more custom if you choose the appropriate finishing touch. All cabinets look better with proper lighting. Under cabinet lighting as well as the proper amount of recessed lighting, semi-flush lighting and pendants. That will show off your cabinets to their best, no matter what brand they are. Proper installation. A good installer can take 5K worth of cabinets and make them look like 50K worth, and a hack installer can butcher 50K worth of cabinets to look like cheap crap with a poor install. Not saying that this is beyond the realm of a DIYer if they have good finish carpentry skills, but yes, it IS beyond 95% of most DIYers. Having the proper "surroundings". Putting in a gorgeous new kitchen in a home that doesn't match it stylistically or with the same level of detail just makes it look wrong. If you live in a center hall Colonial and want Tuscan Old world cabinets with gazillions of grape corbels and onlays, it will only look transplanted from Mars, not an integral part of the home itself. Also, if the rest of the house is standard 8' ceilings, with minimal builder grade moldings and popcorn ceilings, unless the kitchen is the start of redoing the whole house to a higher level, you don't want to be putting in super premium cherry cabinets with elaborate stacked moldings and an exotic granite and a pro style range. It's not appropriate to the level of the rest of the home. It works vice versa too. If you live in an expensive neighborhood of custom homes where SubZero's and Wolf's are everywhere, putting in a Maytag range and off the shelf cabinets from Home Depot won't cut it either. The most successful kitchen remodels give you a "wow" without a "WOW!" factor. Bad quality materials and installation are more apparent than are good quality materials used in a more subtle manner appropriate to the home. You want the room to look current, without being a slave to current fashion, as that will quickly date it.

It sounds like you are not fully informed about some of the issues with construction in your area. Exterior - definitely a big one. The arched windows, the round column, the frilly embellishments, the classic rough stucco - we're not big fans of. Lyfia, agree these could be updated. You might check with your local zoning folks first. The neighborhood I moved from last year specifically disallowed the type of architecture you want to change to. The neighborhood was known as a "bungalow" area. You could build anything you wanted to behind an early 20th century bungalow facade that met certain criteria. They sell for $200 to $500 per square ft, so they are out of reach to many people. Still people buy them as blower uppers. People do not come to that neighborhood expecting to find an eclectic array of houses. Thus the housing value for the neighborhood would be expected to decline if you started building odd looking homes. If your neighborhood does not have any architectural design restrictions, others in the neighborhood would forever point at your modern house as, "that house," and not in a friendly way. foundation - cheaper pier and beam type - floors creaking, some sagging. We wish this was a sturdier more modern basement type foundation. Pier and beam can be cheap, but some of the most expensive homes in the world are built on pier and beam. Pier and beam might be the only possible foundation depending on earthquake prevalence. If your floors creak and sag, that's a remodeling issue, not a rebuilding issue. What is modern about basements? I could probably count on two hands the number of basement houses in California. Something about earthquakes makes them impractical. truss roof - low 8 feet ceilings throughout the house. We cry a little every time we experience nice high ceilings. Truss roofs can be built above any room height. I think the room height is more of a problem for you than the structural design. Square footage - small for the family. We'd love a bigger 2n'd story - not just a room on top of the garage. Small rooms and bathrooms. 4 bedrooms, 3 baths in 1590 sq feet. We could do with a better floor plan. Unbelievable!!! I thought 3-2 in 1800 square feet was cramped. Pitched roof - we've grown up in flat roofed houses with roofs that we could walk out on to. We'd love to have that again - and a partial terrace would be phenomenal. Just curious what part of the world you grew up in? You're not originally from California, are you? Dated interiors - floors, floor boards, moldings, tile floors - this I feel would be an easy change Sure. This is last one is all remodeling, but you have other issues. If you are absolutely in love with this location, I would suggest looking for a more run down house in the neighborhood, buy that, and redo. You have a serious multiplier effect going on. If you buy a 1500 square foot house at $300 psf, and remodel/rebuild it to 3000, square feet, you likely still have something in the range of $300 psf in value. That's what is going on in the bungalow neighborhood I mentioned above. Most of the psf cost goes into kitchens and baths, so adding larger bedrooms and family rooms is relatively low cost.