I just purchased the Ikea undercabinet LED lights. They are so inexpensive! So I was hoping they would work with my setup. This thread seems to say they won't work??!! OK, so my electrician wired my cabinets for direct wire UCLs with a switch. He installed a switch and there are wires hanging from various points underneath my cabinets. I purchased Ikea's UCL's. They come with a transformer (I'm assuming, it looks like a small brick) and they plug into the wall. As I said, they are VERY inexpensive, so I'm hoping they will work. What if my electrician turned those dangling wires into plugs that are hidden under my cabinets? Is that possible? And then I just plug in these Ikea lights? That way, if the Ikea lights fail, or I decide on something else, I could swap them out?? Or is that a crazy solution? Or will the cost of changing the wires into outlets (by my very expensive electrician) x-out the savings I'm getting from using Ikea LED UCLs? I don't do any electrical stuff myself, so don't tell me to DIY!! Please! I just need to save money and have light under my cabinets, and soon! Thanks, if anyone responds. I know this is an old thread!

1. Particle board is the norm in Europe - selecting plywood is generally seen as overkill. When my GC initially raised concerns for the sink cabinet I looked him in the eye and joked that he obviously didn't have faith in his plumber, because I trusted that I was going to be supplied with a non-leaking sink . . . he saw the point. (My Sister-in-law had US-made particle board cabinets in her kitchen, 30 years ago, and they're still fine, incidentally) 2. Ikea cabinets have a 25 year guarantee. They increased this from 15 years a long time ago, when they realised it really IS that good. 3. As someone said above, not all particle board is the same. I have particle board bookcases elsewhere, and in no way are they as good as my kitchen cabinets. 4. I echo the point about insisting your GC watches the video. Mine, who was initially doubtful about Ikea, did, and when it became clear that I had completely researched it, he was happy. In fact, if a question came up during installation, he'd ask me "what do the people at Ikeafans say?". 5. My Ikea cabinets cost $2600. The quote for custom cabinetry was $18,000. No contest . . . . 6. If I had an endless budget, I'd STILL do Ikea, because I'm so impressed by the whole system. 7. It's worth paying for the order to be delivered. You get 24 hours to check it all over and alert them to anything missing. 8. Use Ikeafans.com - it's an incredible resource of people like us, who have used Ikea cabinets and really understand the process.

The lower one doesn’t absolutely have to be cut down, but taking into account the feet to elevate it off of the garage floor, the cabinet facing the door wouldn’t be level with the threshold. It would only be 7” higher, but it would sure be a lot easier to get the vacuum and the rolling bin I already keep there inside a raised cabinet instead of dragging them down to the side of the stairs. A couple of times my kids have accidentally dropped the vacuum onto the concrete garage floor trying to lower it down next to the stairs. I actually wasn’t especially determined to cut down the lower one, I agree it would be easier to cut one, but now that I wrote my reasons here I really want to cut both! Maybe it would be better to cut the base cabinet from the bottom and the tall cabinet from the top? Right now I’m not planning to add a door to the tall cabinet. The other cabinets have doors and a couple of pullouts, but this one is really just like an endcap. I did it plan on two drawers for the base cabinet. I thought it would still work to use a 15 and 10 inch drawer front to equal 25”. The top drawer front would be an inch taller than the cut down base, but I assumed it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t obstruct anything since it will be turned the other way. The top drawer front would overlap the side panel. This is all assuming both cabinets are actually 24” square. I would like to hang it with the rail if I can replicate the correct holes on the side of the cabinet. But I don’t mind adding a mounting strip and hanging it traditionally.

@Terri Wilson We did a pretty large order of axstad too. $13,000 which was available over several months. Definitely delayed during a pandemic. I posted my old kitchen and was advised to check out the axstad and after going to several cabinet/ kitchen companies and seeing what we could get it, it was an easy decision. Getting an experienced installer to do the customizing we wanted has been a challenge as well, but we are in the thick of it right now. I think we will love it when it's done. We are also replacing a large upstairs cabinet, 2 built in hutches and a laundry room, several with base cabinets that needed to be cut to fit the proper depth. Good luck with your project.