I didn't answer originally because we're still waiting for our doors to arrive from Scherr's....so I have nothing concrete to tell you about, plus I wasn't totally sure what your question was. :) Anyway, we're doing Shaker style door covers that they are painting. I can tell you that the painting is what is costing us quite a bit more - if you are using one of these companies, I'd be more likely to look at the wood doors if saving money is of prime concern. That said, I was set on a white color, but not their Extra White default color. I paid extra for custom, and I paid extra for them to paint it. I could have ordered them not painted, or painted with two coats of primer. However, I read too many stories about DIY paint eventually coming off and my family is not easy on cabinets. The extra investment is worth it to save me from yelling at them every time they touch the cabinets. What I loved about the company was that I could send them my design straight from Ikea and they set up the order - they are used to working with Ikea base cabs and were easy to deal with. One thing we didn't do is get end panels, fridge panels or the back of the peninsula panels so there are definitely some things we're doing ourselves - those bigger pieces like the fridge and peninsula panels made the shipping and cost per SF REALLY go up. I hope we're doing the right thing but as the guy at Scherr's said to me, if it doesn't work we can always order them after the fact. Again, they aren't coming for a few more weeks so I can't comment outside of the decision/ordering process. In the end, I'm not sure the cost will be *that* much cheaper than ordering from Lowe's, especially when you add in our time, but we'll save a couple of thousand.

Thanks for all the feedback on Ikea! I think the Ikea birch is definitely a bit softer than either the oak options or the AW prospects, which were maple and cherry. So I'm ruling out any of the birch doors including the Adel medium brown which seems to be the most popular one. I'm sure they do fine, but I'm still very nervous about using Ikea for a kitchen, and I don't want anything that I am likely to have second thoughts about. Our galley is effectively a corridor - it gets a lot of traffic and every single guest has to cross the kitchen to get to our living and dining rooms. I don't want to cringe everytime my 2yo rides a car through the room because I'm worried about door dings. I've actually just returned from my local store and picked up a sample of the Tidaholm (light oak) door, which I actually like a lot better than I'd expected to - in my small galley it has the feel of almost whitewash, less yellowish than in photos I'd seen. So now it's the dark Liljestad vs. the light Tidaholm.... I had just talked myself into the Liljestad based on a few of hte really nice kitchens on the finished kitchen blog. I know that lighter wood is probably preferable for a small room though. Hmmm, maybe I'll post a second appeal for advice once I get the layout from the designer who works for the installation company.

Understand that if you only had Blum to look at, you would be farther ahead. Blum is the source of all things Ikea-ey in terms of Ikea's kitchen base cabinets, the Blum drawers that Ikea sells, and the drawer heights that ARE available to you when you merely install the raw un-doored drawer that you get when you buy an Ikea (Blum) drawer. Drawer fronts are a different animal. The 3 sizes of Ikea drawers are not Blum-determined, Blum-decided, Blum-dictated. They are not Blum-ey. They are an ikea internal marketing committee decision. They are a bad choice for YOU but they are a good choice for the ikea marketing person who has to justify to the rest of ikea what to manufacture ship stock track and promote. If you were "ikea" you would sell a reduced set like this too. Do not buy these sizes. Unless they suit you. Looking in Blum brochures and catalogs you may begin to see images of these OTHER size options you have. Call Blum. See Blum web site. Act as if Blum were the only source. Then, use Ikea as a dumb hardware store that gives dumb advice but has the item you'll buy. In an ikea store, look underneath to see the overhang created when the three ikea standard size drawer fronts get clipped onto the Blum drawer. Then, look at the exact opposite: the aluminum internal drawer front (another ikea option). unixisgoodforyou, it's fine to limit yourself to the 32mm spacing of the predrilled holes on thecabinet side. This spacing corresponds to the spacing that Blum drawers use. ((Again, consult Blum not ikea)). If you wanted to put a batch of the shallowest-possible drawers inside one cabinet, the middle ones would be about 3.5" in height. Call Blum and ask about this; it's not an Ikea question. Whether or not this will mean that your highest one will be 3.5"h or 3.75" or whatever will depend on details that you will see when you purchase a single "rraw" drawer and play with it. Also, it might depend on your countertop, or on the wood bracing inside the cabinet (which I removed, in my case, because the flat steel countertop frame is my cross-bracing). Only Blum is Blum. No ikea employee is ever going to know as much as a Blum employee. Do not think about Ikea. Pretend Ikea does not exist; plan everything as though Blum were the only thing. At the last minute go buy the drawers at Ikea. End of story. Here is an example of an ikea hardware search: rationell+deep = Blum drawers and ikea drawer front (if you want a "front" of that height. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=rationell%2Bdeep In the ikea search engine, i used keywords : rationell+deep Here is the SHALLOW internal drawer front. It goes onto any M height Blum drawer (of the Tandembox type) which you might purchase from any other source of M height Tandembox by Blum. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40132391 Tandembox is roughly from pages 200 to 350 of the Blum bible. Tandembox drawers come in heights N, M, B, K, etc. It is more efficient to buy one Ikea drawer instead of reading catalogs. There do exist some differences between some of the Blum Tandembox products and the Ikea version of Blum Tandembox. It might be good to know these differences. But it is not important yet. Now you are at the stage where you are planning height(s). There are no differences in terms of drawer heights or slider mechanisms. In the unadorned "raw" drawer. A "raw" drawer purchased at Ikea is a kit containing many Blum parts and no other parts from any other company. Onto a drawer you can attach ANY size drawer front, made by anyone.It could overhang or it could be sized "just right". When you buy the drawer at Ikea, it comes with the attaching clips that will hold a drawer front onto it. It's a kit. When you order Blum parts from any supplier of Blum parts, you can order these clips separately. There are millions of these clips available for free in the "As-Is" section of Ikea because the clips are unnecessary when you attach the internal drawer front. Here is a link that might be useful: SHALLOW internal drawer front that goes onto a Blum M

I don’t mind to have the glass door without the grill. Should I cut out a solid bodbyn door? Or one with glass?(I’m affraid the trim is glued to the glass. If I use a solid door, in which place should I make the cut? Same as how they sell the glass ones?