Pre-built kitchen cabinets

March 23, 2005 9:15 AM

Following up on my question last week, I'm looking for recommendations for companies that sell pre-built kitchen cabinets, where we can choose from various types and sizes.

Personal experiences with certain companies would be great. This is for my brother's house in Portland, Oregon where they're looking into remodelling their kitchen. Thanks!

posted by jacobsee to home & garden (17 comments total)

I was surprised to find that the offerings at Menard's (which I associate with cut-rate products) were really nice. And IKEA's cabinets are pretty good, as long as you don't mind metal drawer interiors.

We ended up going with a custom cabinet maker here in Chicago, more because we decided on a more complex design than we originally planned.
posted by me3dia at 9:22 AM on March 23, 2005

my experience may be somwhat slanted by living in chile, but we had good experience with:
- getting someone to build cupboards and hanging premade doors. nothing fancy, just plastic coated chipboard with preformed doors.
- getting a couple of cupboards made to size from a local factory. this came out about the same price as buying flat-pack, but we had more control over the worktop (which we got tiled).
maybe this would have been better in the previous thread. but what i'm suggesting is a middle way - not fancy hand built, but "cheap hand built". as i said, maybe such things don't exist in the first world.
posted by andrew cooke at 9:27 AM on March 23, 2005

We just re-did our kitchen and used IKEA cabinets. The cost savings was tremendous. An equivalent number of cabinets purchased at Home Depot (Mills Pride brand) was going to cost us $12,000 (plus installation) and we were able to buy all the cabinets we needed at IKEA for $3000 and we were able to install them ourselves. I can't rave enough about them. The best part (for our 100 year old house) was that the base cabinets all sit on 4 independently level-able (by screwing them up or down) legs. That really helped in our kitchen with its 2 inch slope on the floor. The cabinets are also infinitely customizable, with lots of funky inserts and extra shelves which I love! Also, if you buy too many or just change your mind after you buy them, you can just return them to a regular IKEA store no questions asked! Love it!
posted by SheIsMighty at 9:48 AM on March 23, 2005

When I think of IKEA cabinets I think very modern looking. How do your cabinets fit in with an older home style-wise?
posted by jacobsee at 10:21 AM on March 23, 2005

We went with Castpointe/Woodharbor. They complemented our 70-year-old home nicely but ended up being pretty expensive.
posted by ChuqD at 11:32 AM on March 23, 2005

The cabinets we bought have really nice beadboard door fronts so they go with the style of the house, which is sort of late-Craftsman mission style. You can see a picture of the cabinets in mid-installation here. WARNING: The picture is HUGE so you can see detail. You can even see the black level-able legs. They sell a toe kick that covers them if you choose to install that.
posted by SheIsMighty at 11:52 AM on March 23, 2005

Gah. So it might be wise for me to ditch my deep and abiding prejudice against Ikea and go check out their stuff? Poop.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:14 PM on March 23, 2005

Gah. So it might be wise for me to ditch my deep and abiding prejudice against Ikea and go check out their stuff? Poop.

fff, I think something similar was mentioned in the earlier thread, but I remember a NYT article about interior decorators and how Ikea cabinets were a designers' "dirty secret" given their decent price/quality ratio and large number of modular add-ons. And they do have a fairly wide range of styles, not just the uber-modern stuff.
posted by jalexei at 12:23 PM on March 23, 2005

One thing to add to sheismighty's ravings about IKEA, being the other occupant of the house, is a lot of what your cabinets look like can change depending upon the hardware you install.

Many of IKEA's cabinets are kind of in the middle style-wise and can be made either more modern or less modern by your choice in drawer pulls and the like. I seem to remember them having a plainer style of cabinet that could look either super Danish Modern or lovely Arts & Crafts.

While we went the IKEA route, I'm sure this would apply to other cabinet brands as well.
posted by Moondoggie at 12:26 PM on March 23, 2005

Yes, five fresh fish, it's time to check them out. They're quite solid and sturdy, a full 3/4 inch thick and the drawers are the fully-extendable kind so you can reach ALL the way to the back of them. You can also get wire baskets instead of shelves in the base cabinets if you want so you can pull them out to reach stuff in the way back of those too. Another cool thing for a non-standard kitchen design like ours is that you can just screw legs onto wall cabinets and put those on the floor if you have a space that can't accept a full 24 inch deep base cabinet. You can also get the wall cabinets in both 30 inches high and 39 inches high which is great for an old house with high ceilings.

Maybe I should go work for IKEA?
posted by SheIsMighty at 12:28 PM on March 23, 2005

ChuqD, wow, nice looking kitchen
posted by jacobsee at 12:58 PM on March 23, 2005

SheIsMighty: Nice cabinets. Did you shop for those online or at the IKEA store? The IKEA website doesn't seem to have much of a selection...
posted by jacobsee at 1:13 PM on March 23, 2005

Jacobsee, we did the whole thing at the new New Haven, CT store about a week after it opened. You're right, IKEA online is useless. You can call and ask for a kitchen catalog though and they'll send you the design kit which is basically a grid with a whole bunch of little cutouts of each size cabinet so you can move them around easily. We went to the kitchen design workshop at the store and got that kit and a lot of helpful information including a demonstration on how truly easy the cabinets are to build. Once we decided on the design ourselves, we went into the store and they went over it with us and placed the order. The whole order placing visit took about an hour because the design consultant went over all of my choices with me to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Can't say enough good things about the cabinets and IKEA.
posted by SheIsMighty at 1:35 PM on March 23, 2005

There is lots of discussion and advice on all kitchen related design stuff on Apartment Therapy. This month was kitchen month with a kitchen competition; all the submissions discussed their decisions in remodeling. I know one kitchen used IKEA, others did not. Good luck!
posted by scazza at 1:53 PM on March 23, 2005

my brother just let me know that they will be travelling to seattle this weekend to check out the cabinet selection at IKEA. I'll report back next week. thanks for all the suggestions people
posted by jacobsee at 7:25 PM on March 24, 2005

Consumer Reports lists Ikea as #4, and at half the price of the top-three brands.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:34 PM on April 6, 2005

Also this.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:43 PM on April 6, 2005