I picked up all my kitchen cabinets yesterday. A full kitchen's worth of flat-packs weighs a lot more than you would expect. My load was about 150 pieces and weight about 2500lbs.

In hindsight I should have got a real truck. My Pathfinder was overloaded so bad the rears kept bottoming out and the tires were squished nearly flat. I had called before to find out whether I needed a truck or not and they said most people just use a minivan - they are crazy. I ended up calling my bro-in-law to bring a truck to meet me halfway home and transfered half the load to his truck so that I didn't die. If I had blown a tire I would have died from all the flat-packs flying around the truck.

In any case, I will try to follow up with pics of my progress...

 

Good luck and congratulations on your kitchen updates!

According to autos.msn.com, your Pathfinder (4X4 I assume) weighs 4000lbs and has a maximum GVWR of 6000lbs. So with 2500lbs of cabinets and your weight you had the thing at LEAST 500lbs over its maximum rated capacity.

That as they say is a good way to get yourself killed.

I am glad you are ok, and I mean this as someone that truly cares, not as just some a$$hat on the internet... But DON'T DO SOMETHING THAT STUPID AGAIN!

That baby is adorable, make sure he knows you when he's older. (or she? Yellow can go either way.)

BTW: I'm the father of a tiny baby as well. He's 8 months old and is already walking along furniture.

I'm looking forward to seeing the pics of your kitchen upgrade.

CanopyFlyer

 

How much did you spend?

 

I don't envy having to both ASSEMBLE Ikea stuff and INSTALL cabinets at the same time......... Good luck and post some picks.

 

I've only bought one thing at Ikea (a set of Billy shelves for DVDs) and even that was a bitch to assemble. I can't imagine the kitchen. I hate fürni.

Def. post pics. Some of those Ikea kitchens look cool in the store but the flat cabinet look usually ends up not looking great in a real life setting. I'm curious to see how yours works out.

 

Yes sir. I will not sir...

I would have taken half the stuff back in the store and come back for it the next day, but the store closed as I was loading the truck. Typically I am not that stupid, just everything was against me. I am just glad my bro-in-law was able to help me halfway.

Oh, and it is a girl... I guess I need to find a better pic. It is time for an update anyway.

 

About $5k for a galley style kitchen.

 

If it wasnt the holidays I wouldnt do it. If I finish 2-3 cabinets on each day off they should be all assembled and ready for install in the new year. For the install I am having a few buddies over to demo and install in one day.

 

Those are good friends! It might be cool to take a picture every 30minutes from the same spot as you go through the demo and install. There are programs that will make a GIF flip book out of the series!

 

I hope you have a good drill and some allen bits. Just putting more than one shelf together with the suppied allen wrench will make my hands sore.

 

 

Update:

Mostly done with the assembly. It has been a little slow going with company over for the holidays, baby sleeping, etc. but it has gone pretty well. They go together a lot easier than I expected. I have 3 pieces to return/exchange that are wrong - not too bad 3 out of ~150. If all goes well I will have help for the demo and install next week.

I have some 'before' pics here, and a few pics of the assembled pieces in my basement. As you can see by the before pics we are in desperate need of some re-organization - the new cabinets will resolve a lot of that trouble.

Before



Assembled cabinets

 

Hey cool - they don't look half bad, and with the hardware they'll look like real cabinets
Are the cabinet sides plywood, or compressed/engineered wood?

 

They are compressed wood (chipboard) with a printed veneer. The only 'real' wood is the cupboard faces. They are pretty cheap, but the price matches

 

Those cabinets do look pretty good. Do they stand on legs or is there a toe-kick that goes with them? Are you changing the layout at all? Are you going to reuse the butherblock countertops?

Also, your cat looks like the devil

 

The cabinets come with legs to stand on that allow you to adjust level, etc. Then there is a toe-kick that attaches to the legs. If you have a nice finished floor you could go without a toe-kick and nice nickel plated legs or other.

The butcherblock countertop is actually a uber-cheap laminate that is going to be replaced. We havent yet decided what we are going with. I would like real butcherblock - my wife disagrees.

Oh and the cat is the devil... A devil that doesnt care that you didnt get sleep until 4:30 - he will unrelentingly wake you up at 6:00am. Between a baby that wont sleep and a cat that wont sleep in...

OT: Oh hey!!! I hit 1000 posts and missed it. Woot!

 

nice cabs...

LOL @ your cat.

 

Looking good. Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

Whore....

 

I have the next 2 days off for demo and install... I hope to have pics by the weekend. If I dont have pics by the weekend I will probably be dead in a ditch somewhere because my wife killed me because the project isnt done.

 

can't wait to see the pics....

 

So today went pretty well. The cabinets are pretty much all installed. Just end panels, shelving and toe-kicks to go. I ended up doing the demo solo, then had assistance for the install.

Ordered the countertop today - we are going with a cheaper laminate as the home and kitchen style just doesnt make sense for a solid top. It isnt really an 'entertaining' kitchen. It just needs to be functional for food prep. It will take 2 weeks for the countertop to arrive so I will be reinstalling the old one for the interim. The required top is 2" longer than what is available in stock.

Here are the pics. You can see what the final color will be with the cover panels to the left of the picture on the opposite wall.

Given the mess the old cabinets made of the ceiling, I think I will end up installing a crown molding rather than repair.

Empty...


Cabinets in...

 

Hot stuff, man! That's pretty amazing progress for a DIY job!

 

Cabinets look real nice. I'm sure they'll look even better once everything is in place.

Are you planning on putting the crown moulding along the top of the cabinets? Also, what are you going to do with the floors?

And with post above. Great work and quick progress, especially for DIY.

 

Holy shit, that looks really nice! Great job on the DIY.

Oh, don't forget to CALL AIE*. Just thought I would remind you.

 

It took me a minute to figure that out.

 

looks awesome!

 

So progress wasn't as good today. The baby was home and that limits the amount of noise I can make. Anyway the doors and drawers are installed, a few cover panels need to get installed. The countertop will arrive on tuesday so I have reinstalled the old ugly one as a temporary sink setup. I will have pics on tuesday after the countertop goes in.

 

^^ Are you doing anything to the floors?

 

Sorry, it's an illness.


Were the drawer tracks hard to get on so all the drawers line up and are level? That seems to be the hardest thing for me when I assemble furniture. For me,one or two always end up just a LITTLE bit crooked... Then again, maybe my head isn't level....

 

No. Unfortunatly it isn't in the budget. Once the toe kicks are in you won't see any of the edges or anything. It may be a future project. Normally I would do the floors first of all, but the floors are in decent shape. Just ugly though.

 

Everything went together perfect. I was impressed with the quality control that they obviously have in place. For example they must have an awesome counting system - with all the little bits every piece was there, nothing missing, nothing extra. Nearly everything is predrilled so there isn't any guesswork.

I did screw up a couple of doors though when drilling for the knobs. I made a jig to get them all right and the same, but I didn't check my jig and a few knobs are off by 1/8. My wife says they look fine, but they bug the hell outta me.

The feature I love is the no slam dampers. The drawers close themselves the last 2inches slowly and smoothly

 

I know I read it a couple time that you would be installing toe kicks, but for some reason it didn't register. That easily takes care of my concern about people seeing the non-tiled areas. It's going to look great!! Alread looks very nice.

 

Sounds like a great product for DIY folks! Looks really nice, and you save a BUNDLE on the install.

 

Look good.

 

can we get a completed pic? I'm interested in the ikea cabinet for an upcoming project.

 

I wish I had a completed pic. My efforts have kinda stalled at the 90% complete stage. Between a busy schedule and a sick baby the whole DIY thing is a lot harder to do.

I still need to finish the toe kick, and there are 2 cover panels over the sink to complete. Plus crown moulding around the top.


You get the idea though...

 

Looks nice... I think the appliances need to go. Black or stainless.

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Black for less cleaning.