IKEA kitchen

I think one of the biggest mistakes a person can make when remodeling their house is to skip over the IKEA kitchen design center.  The hardware and the functionality is the same (if not better) than many custom millwork products - and the price is much, much less.  It's a win-win (except for the custom millwork guy).

From what I've read, a custom kitchen of our size would have cost about $35,000-50,000.  We're paying less than ten.  And that includes soft close drawers, good quality hinges, pull-out shelves, etc.  All of these upgrades are standard at IKEA.  Sure, you don't have a ton of choices for cabinet fronts... maybe 10 or so, but the lack of choice is well worth the reduced cost.

We're going to go with the gray high gloss cabinets.  Something like this:

Someone told me that Europeans do not put any aesthetic value on cabinetry which is why IKEA cabinets are fairly simple, sleek, and detail-less, and I think it is brilliant.  There is nothing that dates a house more quickly than a bad set of cabinets, and maybe some bad tile or shag.  IKEA Kitchen gets it right.

On Black Friday, we braved the IKEA crowds.  It really wasn't too bad.  Maybe because we got to the store 2 hours prior to opening (thanks, Mom) to wait in "line" (we were first, very first)?  Eventually, we were able to spend an hour with an IKEA designer.  He printed a 7-page list of parts that we'd need and we went and pulled everything off the shelves... ha, no way... that would take hours, or days.  Instead, we paid $90 for IKEA to pull everything off the shelves for us AND to deliver and carry everything into our home (up the stairs).  This has got to be the best Black Friday deal I've ever found.  I would have paid quite a bit more for that service, but...shhh.

Yeah, our kitchen came in a lot of boxes (our contractor claims, "hundreds") but we saved (A LOT OF) money, and we got a quality, stylish (and timeless) kitchen with all the bells and whistles.

Can't wait to get it all put together!