Ditto what Patricia Colwell Consulting and cailgirl123 said above.
artistsharonva - the classification of the Ringhult and other high gloss finishes as "class 2" is really misleading.
Ikea's high gloss finishes such as the Ringhult, while technically thermafoil, are worlds apart from typical thermafoil fronts. The finish is thicker, and very hard and is really really difficult to damage.
The Ringhult is Ikea's best selling door line, despite this, good luck trying to find one bad review on the web. And it's not as if this finish hadn't been around for a long time. With the older Akurum line, the Ringhult was called Abstrakt and had been sold for about 20 years. We have the white Abstrakt in an upscale condo in the city that has been rented out for more than 15 years, yet that kitchen looks like it did when new, only the stone countertops have some discoloration and a chip or two.
We also have had the Ikea Godmorgon vanity in the same high gloss finish in our kid's bathroom for about 10 years, it also looks like new. Not a scratch, and most certainly no delamination.
Easiest finish to clean. Also, good to know, white glossy finishes do not look busy, fingerprints don't show other than from very specific angles.
Also, according to the kitchen staff at Ikea Schaumburg, should the finish have scratches or been dulled by agressive cleaners, turtle wax or plastic polishing compound will restore the shine just as it does on cars.
And, we just put in an Ikea white Ringhult kitchen in our house last spring. I still love this finish as much as when we put it into the rental apartment years ago. The look just can't be beat for modern spaces.
About 12 years ago we added 3 Akurum Nexus birch pullout pantries to our kitchen as a stop gap measure until we finally remodeled and expanded our kitchen this spring.
We took them out and re-used them in the mud room and a walk in closet. One door has some tiny dings, and the doors have darkened a bit over the years. Otherwise they're in beautiful condition. As birch is a somewhat soft wood, the sides had a 1/8" hard beech wood edge that has really helped to protect the edges from inevitable dings.
I wish Ikea would bring back the Akurum Nexus fronts for the Sektion. they were beautiful.
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Stacked cabinets
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