IKEA Kitchens

People seem to have mixed preconceptions about IKEA kitchens.  For some, those might involve ideas about quality, a cookie-cutter aesthetic, lack of ability to customize, any number of things.  Other people might already love the look and feel of these kitchens.

Some people may have encountered an IKEA kitchen that wasn’t well executed at some stage in the past and formed an poor opinion of them that they’re sticking to come hell or high water.  Fair enough, we can all appreciate that.

At Meaford Home Improvements, we love IKEA kitchens.  Well, OK, allow us to be a little bit more specific:

Here at Meaford Home Improvements, we love the Ikea CABINET system.

We can (and prefer to) source the cabinet knobs and handles from the far vaster selection available in the rest of the world.  (Fun Fact:  Ikea cabinets don’t need to have Ikea knobs and handles installed on them.  Sourcing knobs and handles from someplace other than Ikea’s limited selection can quickly distinguish your kitchen.  So all of a sudden, it already doesn’t look like a standard show-room floor Ikea kitchen.  Bonus points for finding great original handles at bargain prices (way less than Ikea handle prices, which can add up fast) … shhhh tho, that’ll be our little secret).

We like the vast selection of countertop materials available from specialized countertop suppliers.

We like tiles for floors and backsplashes from tile suppliers with great selections.

We like sinks and faucets and appliances from wherever we can find the best fit for your kitchen.

We love reclaimed barnboard and other original finishes to really personalize your kitchen and make it a true original.

We don’t want our kitchens to look like something from the IKEA catalogue or showroom floor.  Those all have the same generic look, utilizing the same appliances, knobs and handles, accessories, all that, all from the IKEA selection.  We like to mix all that other stuff up to make your kitchen a true original.

But we do love the IKEA cabinet system.  It offers great quality cabinets, installed with a superior construction ‘system.’  Cabinet quality is equal to or better than a lot of ‘custom’ kitchen cabinets.  Built-in appliance cabinets?  No problem.  The Blum branded soft-closing hardware is the same as or better than what comes with most custom kitchens.  Between-cabinet spacing strips can give a more luxurious custom-style look.  Pricing is generally much better as well – allowing you to save a few bucks overall, or put some of that money towards upgrading counters for example.

There are also a lot of premium upgrades that can be incorporated in the IKEA cabinet system.  We’re talking auto-on lights in drawers.  Glass sides on drawers.  Little plugs for all those unused shelf pin holes to make them functionally almost invisible.  Valances.  A variety of under-cabinet and in-cabinet lighting systems.  Glass shelves in cabinets with glass doors.  Great bamboo knife, utensil and cutlery organizers. Corner carousels and pull-out shelving racks.  Pull out drawers inside pantry cabinets.  All sorts of organization systems and bins for garbage and recycling, compost, all of that.  Lots of really neat stuff.

One day soon we’ll get some pictures of these details up with further explanations of all of this posted on this here website.

Here’s a handy link to the IKEA Canada Kitchen Page if you want to browse that.  Imagine the clean, well-equipped, top quality cabinets without all the rest of the generic Ikea look.

IKEA also provides a pretty handy kitchen planner program that can be a bit finicky, but we’ve gotten pretty good with here.  We’re happy to come by to look at your potential new kitchen and design some options in the Ikea planner.  It can produce some nice 3D images of your potential new kitchen, so it’s pretty good for visualizing your new kitchen before you make any decisions.

If you want to discuss IKEA kitchen ideas with us, we’re here for you.