Originally Posted by
Dirty Doogie
Daren,
Generally Ikea kitchens are much cheaper than a local kitchen company becuase you do the assembly and installation yourself. It is possible to achieve a high end modern look for about the price of a melamine finish from a kitchen company.
The very latest glass front drawers and doors have to be seen to be believed - Ikea's price for 600 wide 3 drawer unit with glass fronts (in black or white) - $600 - local high end kitchen outfit price here on sunshine coast - $1400 (but you can have any color you like)
The cabinetry needs to have the cut ends sealed with polyurethane during assembly becuase the whiteboard is not moisture resistant except for top battens on sink units.
The hardware fittings are all top range - BLUM - they work smoothly for years and years in my experience. Hinges, drawer fronts are all adjustable.
Fixing wall cabinets isnt hard. It is best to plan for wall cabinetry if you have a timber frame house - you'll need nogging in the wall running at the height of the top edge of your wall cabinets ie the top edge of the nogging is level with the top edge of the cabinet. The cabinets are held to the wall with special L brackets (supplied) usually fixed in the upper back corners of the cabinet. If you have brick or block walls then you just fix with a dynabolt.
Alternately you can run a batten across the wall top and bottom and fix brackets into the top batten.
A few strange looking screws come with the L brackets - these must be used to fix the L bracket to the cabinetry - no other design of screw will do because the whiteboard has an engineered core which is very strong and the design of the fixing screw is important.
Benchtops - well - in the past benchtop has only been available in set lengths and widths - meaning if you needed a L corner it got a bit dodgy. You would have to butt join the top and use a cover piece to hide the join. The LOgan Ikea near Brisbane (being the biggest in Australia) now offers custom made benchtop in laminate or epoxy stone. I dont know how the prices compare or what the range is like.
I've made about 14 kitchens over the years and have found the Ikea jobs to be excellent value and generally very durable - but the bit I like most is that if you get sick of your choice of doors/drawers you can always change them - both the style and the layout ie turning a drawer unit into a pull out unit or a cupboard.
Hope that makes things a bit clearer.