IKEA Kitchen Cabinet Construction
Let’s start with the construction of IKEA cabinets. The construction of an IKEA cabinet frame (AKURUM) is a particle board with a white or beech-colored plastic laminate. Overall, this is pretty low quality but to be honest, not that far off from a more expensive Kraft Maid cabinet. Most production line cabinets today have particle board substrates covered by either melamine, laminate, or wood veneer. Only custom cabinet makers will use solid plywood for the frames and that will cost you big dollars. At SemBro, we actually prefer the particle board cabinets because they are more stable (plywood can sometimes warp over time) and they make them from wood chips, which is more eco-friendly. But that being said, you hardly ever see the cabinet frame, especially if you have drawer units, so it’s not much of a priority to me personally.
The other variable is that you assemble the frames yourself using locking cams. For this reason, we can verify the soundness of the connections and even add glue to the joints if we need to. We would say though that the final quality of the unit depends a lot on the assembler so if you are careful then you will end up with a good-quality cabinet. If you are the kind of person who doesn’t use up all the nails when you install the back then IKEA may not be for you.
Door / Drawer Styles on IKEA Kitchen Cabinets
The next category we will go over is the door/drawer styles. The door (or drawer) style is the part of the cabinet that you actually see and in that area, which we believe is where IKEA brings the good stuff. Unlike the frames, many of the doors and drawers are solid with good-quality wood veneer. The painted finishes tend to vary slightly, (particularly in the Ramsjo line) but overall they have a good variety and hit many different price points from dirt-cheap laminates to better-priced Oak. They even have glass doors and lacquered-style colors.
Overall the variety and quality are impressive at this price point but you need to be very careful about discontinued lines. If you think you may want to add a cabinet in the future, be prepared for the possibility that they may stop making that line and you won’t be able to get it. This has happened to me twice. First with the Oak Tidaholm line (below) and then with the medium brown Nexus style. Tidaholm Line (discontinued)
Hardware on IKEA Kitchen Cabinets
IKEA has made great strides with its hardware in the past. And by hardware, we do not mean the knobs and pulls but the interior drawer glides, hinges, dampers, and legs. The drawer and door dampers prevent the slamming of parts and provide a nice easy glide upon shutting. The hinges are of the same or better quality than you would find in a comparable special-order cabinet. They are all pretty easy to install, except for the door dampers, which we always have trouble snapping in.
Note to IKEA: Work on easier-to-install door dampers. They have also added decorative legs so your cabinets can sit off the ground, which we like. They come in three different heights so you can even use shorter cabinets to get different effects. If you choose to go with the standard black plastic legs, they offer matching toe kicks that snap right on.
Overall, IKEA gets high marks on the internal hardware, especially when you compare it to the junk they were using a few years back. As for knobs and pulls, we find that their own line is far better priced than anything you can buy at the big box stores, especially the modern bar pulls.
