IKEA kitchen with custom doors

[lettie9]

I've been harassing everyone on this board about designing my new kitchen - I'm after a white shaker style with solid wood doors and stone top.

A few posters suggested I get an IKEA kitchen and custom doors. I'm opening up to this idea! I've looked at Naked Doors, Foxstow and Superfronts - but can anyone help me decide? How do they differ on cost roughly, and who would you recommend? I'm veering towards ND, mostly because their website seems the simplest and I've read good reviews.

I've also read that IKEA kitchens can be problematic because they're deeper than normal, and you can only get an IKEA dishwasher? So is it actually worthwhile doing this (is this cheaper or will look nicer), or shall I get just a (for example) Wren kitchen?

If you want solid wood doors and quartz tops, Benchmarx or Howdens might be a good choice.

They are not deeper, they just don't have a space for pipes at the back so you need to run pipes at plinth level. Cabinets are excellent quality as are the hinges which are made by Blum. Take a look at Plykea for fronts

Is it cheaper to use IKEA plus custom doors vs. day Howden's? Or better quality?

We did this and have a Bosch integrated dishwasher.

Our carpenter made the doors but what made kitchen look much better is that we spent a bit more on really nice handles. Hth

IKEA plus custom doors is expensive but looks awesome. Howdens is cheap

Can I ask where you found really nice handles, please Clarrie?

We found a local ironmongery supplier. We did not have an enormous kitchen so although we paid a bit more it was not extortionate, and we did not have to pay for postage or delivery.

we have ikea carcasses plus custom doors from foxstow shaker doors. We were doing total kitchen revamp so lack of service gap wasn't a problem as we changed things before hand.

the overall kitchen wasn't cheaper than a "similar" one from wickes/howdens etc BUT we got tons more internal storage - loads, and I mean loads of internal drawers - and the dimensions worked well for us. eg high cabinets on tall units fully filled our 2.4m walls leaving no gap at the ceiling (which is what i wanted). Also, we put a new door in and could leave a 40cm width for their tall cabinets which have so much more space than other makes 30 cm units - especially as the service gap is small so you have nearly 40cm of storage - and we utilised drawers in the bottom half of the tall cabinets which are so much more useful than shelves (didn't have space for 60cm full size units). Likewise we have a peninsula which is 60+40 (again with drawers) which left just enough space for a dining space in the rest of the room. When you have limited space, drawers are much more useful than cabinets to access the cabinets.

We have a normal dishwasher integrated behind the doors - we dropped the dishwasher a bit lower to make the door open properly. youtube has lots of solutions on this.

you have to look a bit harder for kitchen fitters -one we spoke didn't say no but his price reflected (I'd rather not do this) attitude. fair enough.

So look at your kitchen dimensions and see if the ikea sizes give you the optimum kitchen layout and internal storage - if not, its easier with a straightforward kitchen manufacturer.

We are doing this and going with Custom Fronts. We’ve ordered a non-IKEA dishwasher. It hasn’t been installed yet but happy to update when it has been.

Thanks all.

@SallyLockheart what do you mean if the dimensions of the room work well with IKEA?

Do builders charge more for fitting an IKEA kitchen with custom fronts rather than say wren?

Before you have anything to do with IKEA kitchens,please read the reviews.
I didn't,and had a lovely kitchen from them,even used their fitters because I though that there'd be less chance of problems. Big mistake.
It's over a year,and my kitchen still isn't finished. They sent incorrect items and we had to take them back and get a refund/ correct items,a 100+ mile trip.They sent bits that were nothing to do with my order and tried to insist that I'd been in-store and ordered them. We have a faulty worktop that I was assured would be re ordered and replaced in 6 weeks. That turned into 6 months to actually deliver it,then another 6 months before anyone arrived to fit it. Lo and behold that one is faulty too.
No one ever rings you back,no one apologises, they apparently have no complaints department or head of customer services to escalate complaints to.Basically,they don't care,you have to do all the running yourself.
The kitchen itself is nice,but I would never use them again. The stress,loss of income having taken time off for fitters who don't turn up,or turn up but can't do the job because parts are missing or faulty,isn't worth it.

One of my wish lists items was no gap between tip of kitchen and the ceiling. So we had 2m tall cabinets plus 40cm top boxes and absolutely no gap between cabinets and ceiling. DIY kitchens cabinets are 215 cm or 191 cm ?? and top boxes are either 25.5, 36 or 45 so I had options of small gap or having to put fillers in. When we moved the kitchen door, we had the option to shift it by max 8 cm which meant we just had space for 40cm depth. DIY kitchens have 30 depth and 60 depths tall units. The storage difference between IKEA 40 cm and diy kitchens 30 cm was huge and made it worthwhile to me to do the IKEA route. I had got rid of my utility room to get a bigger kitchen so wanted lots of storage for that stuff you store elsewhere.
We built up all the carcasses for the fitter. Saved money for us and hassle for the fitter.
Not all kitchen fitters like installing IKEA kitchens because the service gap is smaller and needs to be worked around.

Older house and ever so slight difference in height meant the final 1/2 or 1 cm was crucial

Thanks Sally @SallyLockheart was it easy building the carcasses? As in, will someone who's built IKEA furniture but who is not a DIYer be able to do it?

Re fitter cost. It’s fitting IKEA kitchens can be the issue rather than custom fronts. We went with Foxstow as they pre drill the holes to attach the drawer fronts to the carcasses. Not sure naked doors do - they both did pre drilled standard doors

Sorry about your experience @TheFnozwhowasmirage I totally get it about IKEA's terrible (nonexistent!) customer service. I've had problems with them too. That's the risk with using them

Yes - no more difficult than any other IKEA furniture. Just need enough space. We picked up all the base units and internal storage personally - estate car!- over a couple of weeks. Had IKEA delivery for the tall units. Items normally in stock but in these COVID times I wouldn’t like to say. Our kitchen was done 2 years ago.

When we approached Ikea they actually advised us not to use them unless your Fitter was totally onboard and did the running around for us. 90% of the local ‘bespoke’ kitchen guys locally use Ikea / Howdens / Benchmarx carcases and other fittings (as well as other companies like Howdens and other companies). But they anticipate the lack of customer service for Ikea and keep them in in their warehouse, so all they need to then do is get / make the doors. That’s the kind of service you need. These guys can even make Howdens or other providers’ doors fit Ikea carcases if that’s what you want. For example you can get reclaimed Devol / Smallbones / Harvey Jones doors on Ikea carcases.

But as all carcases are the same and the Howdens ones come with a 25 year guarantee + excellent customer service when they’re new; if you have the money then pay for a fitter who does all of the above with Howdens carcasses.

@Ozanj what would be the advantage of Howden's over IKEA for the carcass, just customer service? IKEA also offer 25 years guarantee.

As one of the people banging on about Ikea + fancy doors on another thread, I won't repeat here what I said there (or will try not to at any rate!), but I think Ikea vs Howdens vs DIY etc is largely down to personal preference and what your builder/fitter will work with, if you're using one.

Mine is happy to install Ikea and used to the pipe work issue, supply methods etc. Last time I had an IKEA kitchen fitted the builder and I went to Wembley together to buy it, I paid, he collected.

FWIW, Naked doors have an option for Howdens door dimensions on their website as well as Ikea, but I like the flexibility and price transparency you get with Ikea (as for @SallyLockheart, for us the Ikea dimensions work really well in the space we have available).

I did a very rough price comparison on all the main suppliers of Ikea-sized doors, using a 60 x 80 cm plain slab door as a guide, then costed up with Naked and Custom Fronts (more legwork neither the former as you have to do it yourself, whereas Custom Fronts gave me a quote from my Ikea plan).

Am in the process of getting a price from Foxstow as well, which I expect to be a bit cheaper than Naked as the doors are MDF not wood.

Basic prices: (bearing in mind I did this a few months ago now so prices may have gone up)

Painted slab doors 60 x 80 cm:
Foxstow £84
Naked £93
Noremax £86
Husk £162
Supperfront £91

Custom Fronts, Plykea and All About the Door don't give prices for single doors online.

The choice for me comes down to:
Door style/ material (slab/shaker/other (eg tongue & groove)?
solid wood/ ply/ fenix/ MDF?
Painted or wood finish?
Can they supply (do I need?) custom units eg larder as well as doors?
Colours, own range/ colour match?
Samples available? If so at what cost?
Lead times/ supplying from UK or EU?

I've had a lovely play with the DIY kitchens planner, which is great and shows you your layout in F&B colours if that's your bag (it is mine), but I suspect I will stick with dollied-up Ikea for the internal storage even though it will end up more expensive (and also because what @floppybit said)

@Zinnia that's so comprehensive, thanks so much for sharing your intel. My favourite at the moment is Naked Doors, but I'm still waiting for their customer service team to reply to me on a couple of points. It's been a few days - maybe this doesn't bode well! I'll check out Custom Fronts now, as someone else recommended them recently. Did you manage to get samples cheaply from any of these?

Can anyone recommend an online shop for door knobs/pulls?

Also: handles vs. cups - cups look better but in my head they wouldn't be very practical. Any lived in experiences?

Check out Hafele for knobs and handles.

Going back to why I choose ikea plus custom fronts. I have a 25cm wide tall broom cupboard, 60 cm deep, which was created by the kitchen fitter cutting down a wider unit. Getting a door to fit that size was the issue. I store my large ironing board in there sideways, plus brooms etc - it sadly makes me very happy to have it tidied away. I also doubled checked about top boxes - IKEA might be the only ones who do 60cm deep top boxes and as I have them on top of tall 60cm deep units (fridge/freezer/oven stack) etc they are great for storage. All other manufacturers only do 30cm deep wall top boxes

@SallyLockheart is there a particular reason for choosing Custom fronts rather than say Naked Doors?