Tips for Remodeling A Kitchen with IKEA

At this time last year we were deep in renovation mode, getting our apartment ready for us to move in. If a year ever passed more quickly, I can’t remember it. Between the final months of my pregnancy and the last eight months of parenthood, I have rarely had a chance to sit down and write. That said, I intend to finish telling you about our renovation eventually. First, I want to share some tips for remodeling a kitchen with IKEA cabinetry.

This is our second IKEA kitchen, and I have learned a few things about how to get the best results (with the fewest trips to IKEA). Here’s my advice:

Go on a scouting mission
Even if you live far away from IKEA, I would highly suggest that you visit the IKEA kitchen showroom and look at their cabinetry in-person before making any decisions. Both times we have used IKEA cabinets, seeing the door fronts swayed our choices. Make this a quick-looking-only trip (don’t buy anything, so you won’t have to stand in line!), since you’ll definitely be back soon.

Comparison shop
We chose IKEA because it was literally half the price that a local cabinet vendor quoted us for the space. Many of the cabinets we wanted were considered custom elsewhere, but were available off-the-shelf at IKEA, meaning there was less lead time. However, friends of ours who used more common cabinet sizes found that IKEA was only slightly less expensive than cabinetry from a local kitchen design showroom, and I am sure it was less of a hassle.

Figure out how much additional space you need first
Your cabinetry and appliances will need a little extra room beyond their exact dimensions: Fridges need a few inches so the door can open properly, as do kitchen cabinets. When measuring your space, calculate these extra inches first, so you’ll be prepared to do your floorplan in IKEA’s planning software.

Use the IKEA kitchen planner
IKEA offers a kitchen-planning tool, which has greatly improved in the three years since I first tried it, but it’s still a bit of a hassle. Note that it works MUCH better on the Safari browser than Chrome. Also, SAVE OFTEN: I accidentally deleted my design several times. I recommended calculating your extra space first because IKEA has built in recommendations, which in some cases may be more cautious than you need to be (for example, IKEA felt the two sides of my galley kitchen were too close to one another, but there’s nothing I can do about that, so I had to ignore the program’s recommendation to place them further apart).

Get high
No, really, opt for the tallest wall cabinets. IKEA offers 40-inch tall cabinets that can be hung directly below the ceiling. This gives you the maximum amount of storage space, and eliminates that awkward gap between the tops of your cabinets and the ceiling. You’ll need a stepstool to reach those top shelves, but trust me, the extra storage is well worth it.

Order early
While IKEA kitchen cabinets are stocked in stores, it’s not a bad idea to order your kitchen several weeks to a month before you plan to install. There’s a good chance that a cabinet or a door you need may not be in stock in your local IKEA, which could cause delays. We had two cabinets that were not available at the Brooklyn location, and it would have been four weeks before the store had them in-stock again. Luckily, the New York City metro area has several IKEA stores, and we were able to find the cabinets at another store. If you live in an area with only one store, you’d be really frustrated to have a single cabinet hold up your entire renovation.

Make a plan for your countertops
IKEA has different countertop options in all its stores. If you’re lucky, you might be able to do them through IKEA and have one less vendor to deal with. In our case, it turned out our kitchen was too small to meet IKEA’s minimum for the quartz countertops. Then we found out that while the independent countertop installer could do the quarts we wanted it would be much more than the $89/square foot, we’d seen as the price at IKEA. Instead, we opted to use remainders from the warehouse that all matched, which saved us a significant amount of money. It all worked out, but we did have of a scramble figuring out the counters in a hurry. Plan ahead to avoid this. Also, the IKEA butcher block is tempting because it’s so cheap, but having used it once, I would never choose it again: Wood is just not a durable enough material for constant contact with liquids—and who has the time to reseal/re-oil every few months?

Think about the ends
If the ends of your cabinets are going to be exposed, you’ll probably want panels to cover the exposed cabinet ends.

Skip the hardware and the faucets
For me, most of IKEA’s cabinet hardware (pulls and knobs) leaves something to be desired style-wise. It’s super-easy to pick these up at a hardware or home improvements store where you’ll have greater selection. Likewise, I’ve never heard great things about IKEA faucets, so I would suggest looking elsewhere for your spout.

Avoid the white sinks
We bought one of IKEA’s very nice-looking white farmhouse-style DOMSJÖ sinks the first time we renovated a kitchen. Unfortunately, the sink’s finish chipped almost immediately while one of us was doing dishes. It could have been a fluke, but I cannot recommend them because of it. Their stainless sink for Kitchen #2, however, has been great.

Know your whites
IKEA's white cabinet doors are not actually white—they're a significantly off-white. Looking at them in the showroom, this can be hard to see, but in daylight, it's quite obvious. This isn't a big deal, but it might influence your decisions about other materials in your kitchen, like say backsplash tile or wall paint.

Buy extra shelves
If you do opt for the 40-inch tall wall cabinets, remember to order some extra interior shelves! You’ll have more space, so you may need more shelves. I had to go back to IKEA, which took 3 hours out of a day to get $15 worth of shelves—don’t make the same mistake!

Listen to the sales associates
IKEA seems to place their best sales associates in kitchens, and if you get a good one, their advice can be invaluable. Yes, waiting is a pain; yes, you may not always get a good sales person, but for the most part, I have found that the sales associates know what they're talking about. If they suggest you might need something, you probably do. They're not trying to up-sell you, they're trying to help.

*All photos are from IKEA; photos of our kitchen coming some day!

Tiny Kitchen Before and After

Speaking of kitchens, I was mightily impressed by this kitchen makeover that appeared on the One Kings Lane blog. A collaboration between two One Kings Lane employees, Danielle and Megan (both of who I happen to know!), this clever and attractive design makes the most of a teeny-tiny space. I should also note Danielle's kitchen has the exact layout of our kitchen, so it's a space that feels very familiar to me.

The coat of white paint really freshens up the space. Danielle also added white beadboard to the from of the island and a white subway tile backsplash, which she tiled herself.

Hanging cutting boards on the wall makes use of vertical space and adds a decorative accent to the room. A basket on top of the fridge can store pantry staples like onions and garlic.

Megan's genius white rack-and-board shelving (made from 4 small wine racks and a 1″ x 12″, cut to length) above the cabinets really maximizes the vertical space in the kitchen. I love how the semi-custom shelving makes it feel okay to put things on top of the cabinets. I've been using that space for years, but this looks so intentional and stylish.

The feather pendant lamps are gorgeous (and genius!), but I'm not sure they'd be my first choice for the kitchen. That said, I can imagine making one for a table lamp for a quiet corner. The step-by-step instructions are on Design*Sponge, if you feel inspired to try it yourself.

Photos by Manuel Rodriguez for One Kings Lane.

Mirror Backsplash in the Kitchen

Here's a small space solution that intrigues me: A mirror backsplash in the kitchen. I remember seeing photographs of designer Thomas O'Brien's New York City galley kitchen (above) years ago, and thinking that it was an interesting idea. The mirror reflects light into the room and gives a feeling of openess to the normally cramped-feeling space between the counter and the upper cabinets. Plus, glass is an easy material to clean (hello, Windex). On the negative side, the mirror could create visual clutter, if you keep a lot of things on your countertops.

It's hard to tell from these photos because they have been professionally lit and retouched, but I think they have me convinced that a mirror backsplash is a great idea for a small kitchen--or a big one for that matter! The mirror really does open up the space.

Thomas O'Brien must have decided a mirror backsplash was a wise choice because he repeated the mirrored look in this kitchen that appeared in Domino.

And another more recent interior by O'Brien, the kitchen design for the apartments at Greenwich Lane.

ASH NYC's Ari Heckman employed the same technique in his small West Village one bedroom, which was featured in Lonny. 

Not only space-enhancing, mirrors can give a kitchen a kick of glamor. Case in point: Mirrors line the walls in designer Stephanie Stokes's chic 48-square-foot kitchen in New York City, seen in House Beautiful. 

A mirror backsplash keeps the look clean in this white-on-white kitchen from Better Homes & Gardens. I like how the mirror does not continue behind the stovetop here.

What do you think? Does anyone have experience with a mirror backsplash? Is it practical? Better than tile? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A Perfect Nantucket Kitchen

Thanks to a little blog called A Simple Life Afloat, I came across this image from while researching an article about houseboats (though this is not a houseboat). Look at that blue floor! And the vaulted, raw timbered ceiling! And the lovely butcher block counters! And the simple open shelving! And the nautical and patriotic details! Me, oh my, I like this kitchen.

Schoolhouse Chic from The New York Times

This post on Remodelista yesterday reminded me about this great house that was featured in The New York Times earlier this year. Remodelista shows how to get the look of the classic bathroom in the home of designers Russell Groves and Neal Beckstedt (partners in the NY firm S. Russell Groves). For a full slides how tour of the rest of the East Hampton house, check out the gallery on nytimes.com.

I love the contrast of the crisp black and white with the more rustic elements like the old wooden crates and the driftwood lamp. The stainless steel kitchen cabinets have me thinking I might want to reconsider my own plans for white cabinetry. Here are some of my favorite images from the interiors:

Words of Wisdom From Julia

This one's just for fun: I clipped a few Julia Child quotes out of an article Food & Wine magazine this summer. Here they are along with a few others. Julia was a fount of wisdom both inside the kitchen and out.

"Life itself is the proper binge."
"I was 32 when I started cooking. Up until then, I just ate."
"If you're afraid of butter, use cream."
"The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook."
"Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need."
"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it."
"If cooking is evanescent, well, so is the ballet."

Small Kitchens

Mark Bittman had a great column in The New York Times last week about small kitchens. Apparently, when Bittman posted a photo of his kitchen (above) to his blog, dozens and dozens of people wrote in astonished that he has such a tiny kitchen. Of course, New Yorkers weren’t at all surprised.

What I liked best about the piece though was Bittman’s assertion that a good cook can cook anywhere. Having spent a few years as a catering chef, I agree: a decent cook can prepare a nice meal just about anywhere. I’ve cooked in the fanciest Greenwich kitchens that have all the latest appliances, but not a single spatula or a paring knife. I’ve also cooked on propane ring burners just about everywhere: in a back yard, on the deck of a boat, in a parking lot, you name it, I may have cooked there. Here's a quote from the article that sums up Bittman's point:

To pretend otherwise — to spend tens of thousands of dollars or more on a kitchen before learning how to cook, as is sadly common — is to fall into the same kind of silly consumerism that leads people to believe that an expensive gym membership will get them into shape or the right bed will improve their sex life. As runners run and writers write, cooks cook, under pretty much any circumstance.

My own small kitchen is below. It makes Mark Bittman's look like a palace, but it's always been enough for me. (That said, I've never cooked a sit down dinner for more than 10.)

Recipe: Red Lentil Soup

Last winter The New York Times ran a recipe for red lentil soup in the 'A Good Appetite' column. When I was trying to come up with an easy dinner menu for friends on a weekday night, I took a look in my kitchen cabinets to see what I had on hand. I saw the red lentils I'd bought after reading about the red lentil soup and decided it was high time I tried the recipe.

The soup turned out so well I wish I'd made it sooner! I made the recipe exactly as written, but increased the quantities by a half. I also skipped that last step of pureeing half the soup, which seemed a little fussy for lentil soup. I served it with white rice and a green salad with cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. I also made a yogurt sauce with Fage yogurt, sour cream and chopped cilantro, which we dolloped into the soup. Above are the few remaining lentils, but I plan to buy more when I head to Fairway later today.

The Kitchen: Before and After!

Okay, the kitchen is almost done. I still haven't painted the counter, but that can wait until this weekend (or maybe even next). To remind you, here's a shot of the kitchen 'before.'


And here, after a weekend of grueling labor is the kitchen 'after.'


Doesn't it look great? I am genuinely please with the results, even if the blue didn't work out exactly as planned: The contrast between the white exteriors and blue interiors is really, really subtle, but, oh well. And here's a snap of my cookbooks and various bits of dishware on their new bookshelf. So, that's the makeover for now, I'll shoot the final results when everything is in its place and ready.

Kitchen Makeover: Part 4

I am in the home stretch with this kitchen project. Yesterday I returned from a lovely visit with my family and put on another coat of paint. (Up to three on the cabinet bases now, two on the cabinet door fronts and only one on the backs of the doors. Whew.) I think this might be the end. We’ll see. I also brought back an old bookcase from my parents’ basement (originally pulled off the street on Tiemann Place in 2002) to go on the wall opposite the fridge and sink. It is also in the process of being transformed by white paint; in fact, if you’d peered in my living room windows this morning you would have caught sight of me madly applying a second coat of paint to the bookcase in my pajamas, hoping to have it dry and ready for cookbooks by the time I return home tonight.

I did not get around to painting the counter this weekend. Yes, I am going to try to paint the laminate counter. I’m not sure if it will be a success, but I’m going to give it a go. Worst case scenario: I make a mess of it and tear the whole counter out. However, I plan to wait until this weekend to do the counter painting, since I really do enjoy having the use of my kitchen. Hopefully in a week, I will have glamorous shots of my completely made over kitchen to share with you.

Kitchen Makeover: Part 3

Another solid 4 hours of painting and there's still more to go. Egads, this is a bigger project than I thought, even though I have done a kitchen cabinet painting project before. Maybe it's like childbirth: the body forgets how painful it is so you can do it again later. I am off to my folks' place for the night. My paint can sit and harden and await my return for another coat.

Kitchen Makeover: Part 2

I spent the whole day yesterday painting. Literally: The. Whole. Day. I finished up around midnight, and I am not even close to done! I’ve got the base cabinets primed and painted with the first coat of the high gloss. And I have primed both sides of all of the cabinets (I ended up giving the fronts of the cabinets two coats of primer in hopes that I would only have to do two coats of high gloss.) Unfortunately the high gloss paint requires drying “overnight” before re-coating, so I am a ways away from being finished, but I can already start to see how great the kitchen is going to look when I am done with this project. Here’s a snap of the kitchen mid-way through:

I have discovered that the Homestead Resort Sky Blue (7004-5) is well, white. Pretty much at least. I had hoped for a subtle pleasing contrast between the white and the blue, but what I have got is a barely discernable difference. Part of me just wants to do a second coat of all white paint and forget about the blue, but then another part of me feels like I ought to at least give it a second chance, since the color may deepen with a second layer and more time to dry. Ugh. Wishing I’d chosen something a little darker and less “subtle.” If the paint store weren’t such a damn hike, I would just get more paint. But in the interest of time (and my sanity) I plan to muscle through with the paint I do have.

I’m about to run out to the hardware store to get some smaller brushes to work on the cabinet door details. Hopefully I can get a good chunk of this done before I head up to my parents’ house for a visit this evening. Also, a word to the wise, your living room will look something like this:

…if you decide to undertake a project like this. And your lower back will likely hurt and you may even have the pleasure of waking up with a headache, if you choose to undertake painting in February when it is decidedly too cold to throw open the windows. Though I am thrilled that my kitchen will have a new look, this hasn’t been the fun long weekend most people have been enjoying.

The Kitchen: Makeover Part 1

Two of my upper cabinets were hanging rather precariously from the walls, so addressing this was the first step to reviving my kitchen cabinets. I took down the upper left cabinet first (it was practically falling off of the wall.) Once the cabinet was off I discovered some truly disgusting grime that had apparently been coming down from the air vent above the cabinet. Using a paint scraper and then my vacuum I removed as much of the gunk as I could. With the first cabinet off, it became clear I would definitely need to take down the second cabinet too. I did what minor repairs I could to each cabinet.
I am following the advise of This Old House almost to the letter for this paint job because I want it to last. However, I must admit that I have not followed their most basic advice. In the intro to cabinet painting, the wise editors at TOH write.

“Be aware that even the highest-quality paint job can't cure the evils of poor kitchen design or hide fundamental structural flaws in cabinets. Cheap cabinets grow especially frail with old age. Thin sides and backs, which are often veneered with vinyl paper, can peel or delaminate.”

I’d say my cabinets are of the cheapest variety available on the market, and the sides, backs and shelves of mine are in fact veneered with vinyl paper. I know it’s not a permanent fix, but like I have said before this is the band-aid fix until I can afford to do a major renovation. I’m hoping that a coat of Kilz and a careful paint job will make the paint stick to the vinyl paper for a year or two. We’ll see. I’m going to hang onto those upper cabinet doors for a while just in case the interiors end up looking battered after being used.

After making repairs, painting the walls and re-hanging the cabinets (which I managed to do by myself, thank you very much), I cleaned every surface of the cabinets. I used a heavy-duty cleaner called Mex, which was recommended by the woman at my hardware store. It required gloves and protective eyewear, but man, oh man, did it do a good job. You could see the dirt just lifting off the cabinets. The layer of greasy-film on the cabinet above the stove just melted off. Then I gave everything a rinse, let it dry and followed that with a light sanding. Now I am about to put on the primer coat

The Kitchen: Before

So, I am finally getting around to all this painting I have been talking about. Yesterday I did all the prep for the kitchen and got the kitchen walls painted. I also painted the bathroom — finally! Here’s a snap of the kitchen pre-paint, with the doors taken off of most of the upper cabinets. I’d originally said I was going to take down the cabinet about the stove, but I have found that I really need the storage space. So, for now, it’s going to stay. I may mount some shelves or hooks in the space between the cabinets eventually to make the most of the wall space.

I drove over to Lowe’s for paint, since the nearest paint store to my apartment is on Washington and Fulton, which is a little too far to walk. I figure if I’m going to drive, I might as well go somewhere with a parking lot. Because I was at Lowe’s I had to forgo my preference for Benjamin Moore paint for Valspar paint. I always wonder why Home Depot and Lowe’s sell the brands of paint they do: Behr at Home Depot and Valspar and Olympic at Lowe’s. Does anyone know?

In any case, I opted for Bistro White (70006-4) in semi-gloss for the walls, Anthem White (7006-24) in high gloss for the cabinet exteriors and trim, and Homestead Resort Sky Blue (7004-5) for the cabinet’s interiors. A lot of people would be horrified at my choice of semi-gloss for the walls, but I like how easily semi-gloss clean up. I also don’t mind the extra reflection of light that you get from a semi-gloss. (I used the same paint on the walls of the bathroom as well.) More pictures to come later this afternoon.