[jlstyle]

Originally Posted by xtac

Could you post a picture? I heard good things about porcelanosa too.
The alignment could be tricky since you have to design the thing yourself. Did you install it yourself?

I posted a photo, did it not show up? Trying one more time.
Alignment can be tricky if walls are not so straight. My kitchen is 25' in length and walls were bent quite a bit, so it wasn't so easy to get things aligned up.
It took me and my brother two days to perfectly set up to less than 1/16" of tolerance but everything was so worth it in the end.

I've sourced all my bathroom fixtures and tiles from Porcelanosa and I love them. You can peek our powder room finished in Porcelanosa sink/fixture/tiles.

[xtac]

Originally Posted by Lups

The best instructor in kitchen renovations I've ever had is my mother-in-law.

Just a few of her fuck ups:

*She painted her kitchen cabins dark blue. Looked great, especially when i realized she had flashlights all over the kitchen so she could see in her pantry.

* she got a shiny white all over to replace it, installed extra lights over the shiny counter tops. She couldn't see a thing in there since light was always in her eyes.

* she spent a fortune on an oak kitchen that had zero space to cook in.

* she put all the dishes to upper cabins to her next one, and had a handy ladder to fetch them for a year until she gave up.

I don't put in upper cabinets at all. And all i have in mine are drawers, i have an excellent lighting and I refuse to do boring kitchens, plus of course: My mother-in-law is not allowed anywhere near the area I'm building or renovating.

I would love see this kitchen without the upper drawers. I also dislike them and mother in laws

[Lups]

Originally Posted by xtac

I would love see this kitchen without the upper drawers. I also dislike them and mother in laws

I'll try to find some pics (i seldom take any).

It demands more from the wall (as in color and texture of the tiles) and the lighting, but that's the best idea I've had since i did my first kitchen.

[Maestro]

I have done a number of projects with Ikea stuff, and over the years I done things like built-ins on the family room, and bar area in my theater room, and master closet. Right now I am putting a dressing counter and storage for the wife and we had some extra cabinet from a previous job a few years ago and was plan to reuse them with new cabinets. Found out Ikea cost reduced their cabinet yet again. The cabinets which I have are 3 or 4 year old and are 24 deep and 30 high. The new cabinet which is advertised as 24 deep and 30 high is actually 23 1/2 deep and 29 1/2 high, they shaved off 1/2 inch all the way around The raise the size of the kick plate from 4 inches to 4 1/2. Also the back panel which use to sit flush with the back now sits in 1/2 so instead of being a full 24" in deep it is only 23" deep.

Next are the drawer design, they are no longer box shape, the sides are slanted so you lose about an inch in storage space, they also changed the slides and they are bigger to get the smooth motion but you loose another 1 in width for this feature. for a 18" wide cabinet the actually usable draw space is about 14 inches. Also if you get the soft close feature the draw does not go all the way to the back of the box, you loose another 3 inch in length, so the 24 inch deep cabinet gives you about 20 inch of draw space. The drawers comes all the way out, but actually it is the 3 inches they cut off which makes it look like it is coming all the way out.

I am not saying they are bad, but you are going to spend about $200 to $300 per cabinet location with Ikea depending on your configuration, and the drawer solution waste lots of space for the costs. I do not like how they shrunk up cabinet sizes so they save on materials and their selling price has gone up over the years and I have been buying from Ikea for over 10 yrs. The quality of the material continues to decline.

If you value the drawer space and want nice sold drawers there are cost effective solutions out there other than Ikea especially if you like real wood look to the fronts of your cabinets.

Someone pointed out that you have to do your own design with Ikea and that is true the people at the store are little to no help. instead of spending the entire day at the store, they have an online design tool, take a little time to get use to it but it works well and show you exactly what you get. I found this out this weekend after doing my deign online, I printed off the list of materials and took it to the store the person pulled the number of the list and it pull up my entire design in the store so if we need to make changes they could do that. In the past you use to pull your own material now they no longer let you do that, they pull everything for you and you just need to load your vehicle. That was a nice feature they now did for customers. You can also order it ahead of time online and they will have it ready for pickup.