Remodelling A Small Kitchen…is Ikea A Good Place To Go For Design, Product And Installation?
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at
5:07 am
They seem to know so much about getting the maximum out of a very small area (we are in a very small condo, renovated, used to be the top floor of a home with 4 bedrooms and a bathroom. Now it has an office, kitchen and an living/dining room combo that used to be 2 bedrooms. The third floor attic is now the bedroom. Comments on Ikea for everything may help.
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Tagged with: Design • Good • Ikea • Installation • Kitchen...is • Place • Product • Remodelling • Small
I had a 6 x 7 foot kitchen, a typical New York apartment kitchen. I bought Ikea cabinets. I’m very happy with them.
The real challenge is fitting what you need into a small space.
I cook every day. But still, in order to have more in the kitchen I bought a 20 inch wide gas stove. I could not cook a big turkey but almost everything else fit.
The room was 84 inches long and 73 inches wide.
From the doorway to the back wall here’s what I put in the room:
Left side:
24 inch wide Bosch washing machine.
24 inch wide Spacemaker Dishwasher with a mandatory
double sink. (This is a GE product where the washer is 3/4 size only on the top rack to accommodate the sink. It’s hard to find even on the GE website but it does exist.
The sink is actually on top of the counter and the dw is right underneath.
24 inch Bosch clothes dryer.
Above this cabinet layout, I put in Akarum cabinets with aluminium frame, frosted glass doors from IKEA.
On the right side:
A 28inch wide refrigerator/freezer (typical apartment size)
A 15 inch cabinet with one drawer and a slide out thing for
trash behind the door underneath the drawer.
A 20 inch gas stove with oven.
A 21 inch cabinet with all drawers.
Above these I put in more Akarum cabinet with aluminium/frosted glass doors.
I had plenty of counterspace (granite) but I had to keep extra pans in a box in the hall closet because in the lower area I had very little storage. I wanted a washer and dryer more than storage.
Ikea’s cabinets look good and wear well.
They have wonderful inserts for drawers.
They also have a metallic rod you can put on a backplash to hang utensils nicely.
If you don’t need the W/D in the kitchen you would have many more cabinet options.
The only thing about IKEA that is a pain is the assembly of the cabinets. It’s not hard but you really need two people.
You could also try Home Depot as they are also very, very helpful if you go to the store on a not-busy weekend day.
Good luck. Small spaces are a challenge.
Do not go to either store without having EXACT measurements. Height of ceiling included. Also exact locations of gas (if used) pipe, outlets, plumbing lines.
Make a rough drawing with all elements (window?, door?)
and they will tell you what you can put in this room and where.
Another kitchen I did when I last moved was through Home Depot and they sent someone to my apartment to actually measure the room for me. I bought KraftMaid white cabinets below (solid doors) and white cabinets above with rippled glass above.
The thing about really small rooms is to keep it light. In this second kitchen I only put top cabinets on one side because I wanted to avoid the tunnel look. And for the top cabinets I used a combination of solid doors (for foodstuffs) and glass doors (for dishes, glasses). This kitchen is very narrow in one part but it is an L shape so
it’s not too cramped. The glass helps to keep the room looking somewhat spacious even though it really isn’t.
Everything that can be put away helps to keep the look uncluttered. So keep in mind trash receptacles so that the floor space has only floor and not trashcans.
Simple tiling or stone or solid core counters in neutral shades are also space-making.
Keep everything simple.
Ikea is a great place to go for modern inexpensive products but you should go to a professional designer if you reall y want the maximum use of your space.
In termsof installation, ikea does not do installations, they give you contact information for people willing to instal Ikea stuff.
No matter who you get to do the work you may want to read a bit of this small book. It is about the issue of lead-based paint and safety steps.
Page 15 and the last page will help you find a careful contractor and give you a check list to keep him online.http://www.mindspring.com/~wrltc/lswp.pd…
ps: you may reach me at niton@mindspring.com if you have other questions. There is no charge.
Go to your local HomeDepot and have them design it for you – you can always take the design and get your cabinets and whatknot elsewhere.