we were just there this weekend looking and considering. We want to put all of the money into the shell, and we have a really hard time justifying some of the high costs of "custom" or some of the brand name items. Some of their items are good quality. Their kitchens are backed by a good warranty and I have yet to hear anything bad about them. A neat thing is you can always change out the door styles later to either upgrade to a custom door or completely change the look of the kitchen (dark doors vs white doors for example). If you like their door options and can work with standard sizes (new kitchen, should be able to), then they are a good, cost effective way to do a kitchen. My wife mainly likes the interior organization they have. We plan for sure to use their closets in our master, but are undecided about the kitchen and bathrooms. You can put it in now and use it for a few years and always change it out later if need be. We have a couple ikea pieces now in our bedroom that have been inuse for a few years. They still look and function like the day we bought them. I helped a friend install a 2nd kitchen in his basement last year. He went with ikea there. I have never assembled things that went together so easily. Smooth, super tight and sturdy. They installed very easy as well. Blum makes their boxes and hinges. Super high quality and used by the top custom cabinet shops. If you can overcome the stigma of Ikea in your home, then you can dance all the way to the bank. Dress the cabinets up with quartz or granite, nice appliances and a backsplace...no one will ever know (unless they open the drawer and see the ikea tag on the side!)

Realize this discussion is a bit old but we are in the process of putting together an Ikea Pax wardrobe. We selected this mainly because we really liked the cool sliding doors with aluminum frames and pale green frosted glass. Fortunately our GC's crew assembled that for us--I would NOT have wanted to attempt it. Unfortunately we chose the white laminate cabinets which have the basic cheapo look of much of Ikea's lower end furniture. The "birch" (although also laminate) would have looked much nicer, especially when used with the birch innards but our architect talked us out of that as the "birch" I originally wanted would clash with the other wood details in the bedroom (!!!). The painful part is that the price would have been exactly the same. One other note: it's a bit of a pain putting together and installing the interior fittings (which we're doing ourselves) but I think it will be worth it once finished, and for the most part the cabinet is hidden when the doors are closed.

I don't go to Ikea unless I really have to; I find myself loading my cart , and spending 500$ at least each time I go. My new rule is that Mitch cannot step foot in Ikea, lol..... If I can't decide between 2 items, I buy both of them, they're so cheap; I don't like their scented candles though, not scented enough and don't burn well. I did outfit my new kitchen with neat stainless accessories, racks, hooks, etc...my designer knows the kitchen department by heart; I also bought all kinds of white plastic inserts and trays for the bathroom drawers. pesky, at first glance, I was reading that you had to drug your dh in order to bring him there...lol I now have an overload of things to give away and have plenty of recipients who want them.

For those in Canada, Ikea just began their kitchen sale running from March 7 - April 18. The sale is $100 Back in Ikea Gift Cards for every $1000 you spend on kitchen purchases. (includes appliances, counters, sinks). So as bad as 15% is in the USA, this is even worse! If you spent $4600 you would only get back $400 in Ikea Gift Cards which is less than 10%. I will acknowledge the fact that there isn't a "minimum purchase" hurdle to deal with though.