How to build a base for an IKEA kitchen ISLAND - will make a VIDEO too.

Chapter 1 - PLANNING is your BEST tool.

You already know the advantage of doing an IKEA's Sektion for the kitchen re-model - addition of a kitchen island. 

Island additions are an amazing opportunity to increase functionality and flow of your kitchen work - smoother and better. It also offers a great opportunity to make a nice design statement - IKEA offers wide range doors and you can get pretty creative with the island geometry with the availability of the large panels in matching finishes - you can now make large surfaces look professional!

AND! AND! 

I saw London Grey from Cesarstone in the showroom at IKEA Etobicoke! Yea....I got to say - Frosty Carrina and London Grey are my two favourite stones. These are 'premium stones' and if IKEA has them means that they can get you probably the best deal around - and you get an amazing discount [max 20%, with 3 appliances - kitchen event ON NOW].

Chapter 2 - HOW do I build my IKEA SEKTION ISLANDS

*EDIT: Here is the VIDEO LINK!

The advantages of my system are as follows:

A] Flexibility! of where you want to install - over any materials. ALWAYS check the floor if you are going to be drilling into it - cables? wiring? piping? YEA! IMPORTANT!

B] Simplicity! Once built, setting your cabinets is a breeze! And knowing that your levels are already established, you are able to focus your efforts elsewhere - like making things nice. Once the base is installed, the 'leveling portion' is done. Use a laser level on runs more than 4 feet. 

C] Creativity! - with my system you can focus your creative energy on interesting kitchen island geometry - open up any fancy Italian design magazine and using the structure you can copy those!

Win! Win! WIN! - that's all I say!

Chapter 3 - the Drawings

A] I am attaching 3 drawings - they are progressive - I hope that they are clear enough - BUT I will supplement with videos - today or tomorrow. 
Let's start with this - 2 boxes side by side. This is a fairly common combination - PLUS I am partial to the 15/15 split - I just think it looks the cleanest PLUS you save on hardware [hardware can get expensive - as much as a SEKTION box! - $50!]

[please note - I omitted the front piece for clarity]

B] The secret of this system is that - IT IS ALL MADE FROM THE SAME DIMENSION plywood piece. Use 3/4" construction grade ply - try picking a nice flat sheet, but don't sweat it if there is some kinks in it. The way the base is built - ORIENTATION of the pieces IS THE KEY - it is SELF SQUARING! 

C] Here is the detail section - so the top portion is actually 'floating' over 'fixed points' - there is a reason why it is done this way. First reason is that this is super easy to execute - build the base and level the four courners - THEN you further secure it to the subfloor. 

good advice + IKEA ISLAND on WHEELS! + personal stories

Chapter 2 - A Rolling IKEA kitchen island.

That's right - a rolling IKEA island. This is not full reveal yet, Chris asked that I don't publish any more images of the work until it is fully completed - I asked that once finished - if he could provide an image, he's a professional photographer.*  Chris has a beautiful space, tall, tall loft, giant windows, a gorgeous view of the city of Toronto. Loft spaces always have their own quirks - and his is no exception. He commissioned a craftsman to build him this really cool storage - he's got his library built into these heavy stone stairs - what a great, creative, original idea! Each stone step flips up, revealing storage.

He wanted the flexibility of tucking his kitchen island away from the center when he was entertaining. That's a smart solution! Why not? He got the cabinets himself last year - they are the vintage AKURUMs - I shed a single tear for the good old AKRURUMs - had a custom steel base fabricated and powder-coated in white. Did the box assembly himself, and wanted everything ready for the stone countertop /w waterfall on both sides - island wrapped in stone - nice!

Nothing, but to wait for the stone guys.....
It's gonna look gorgeous. 


[EDIT]

I Got the pics! I got the pics!

Here is the island. Beauty and Function!

* Hey! 'Life's like that!' - Avril Lavigne, my 'go-2-girl-4-quotes'. Talk about a small world! He's the photographer for Nienkamper - an amazing contract furniture company. When I was in design school - it's got to be like 10 years now.... -  I won the scholarship to work at Nienkamper - I was there when Karim Rashid designed and prototyped the Kloud Chair - yea, that thing started as a giant cube of pink foam that was carved down, filed, sanded until it became the Kloud Chair! At the end of my stay at Nienkamper - for the last 3 days there - I talked to Gus, the GM, and managed to convince him to let me transfer to the upholstery department.  I wanted to see how great, commercial upholstery gets done - it's an incredible skill-set. I met some incredible, talented people there. Under their careful guidance I stretched some webbing, and, I guess it is safe to admit now that I tried/tested all their high-end sofas that they had ready for shipping....Anyways, for the exciting part, during those last three days they were upholstering the first ever KLOUD CHAIR - like no. 001 - first one ever in design history. And...I....upholstered....the....base.....!!

Yea!

If you google 'KLOUD chair red' - you will see a picture of contract club chair. And if you look closely - barely noticable, barely visible, you will notice underneath, is a round, dome-shaped base. I did it! And Chris took pictures of my work for Nienkamper..... ;)


Chapter 3 - How to do a SEKTION well - why you should hire me to design and install your IKEA SEKTION kitchen. 

There is much to be learned from the recent sale of SEKTION at IKEA. The sale was massive. IKEA could not keep their new kitchen cabinetry stocked. To this day people are still behind on some items from the first ever IKEA Kitchen Event. It was so large that they let people pick up straight from the warehouse - bypass the distribution point. I have witnessed people exploding on IKEA managers because by the time they finished calling IKEA and actually went to the store to pick up - say next morning - the product was already sold - out of stock and another 2 weeks delay.  So pay for your kitchen and get it delivered early - you might have to wait for final few pieces - up to 4 weeks and that's very annoying, given that you are buying from IKEA. IKEA should always have everything in stock. 

Dear reader, you cannot imagine the flexibility of the IKEA kitchen system. You can have a very well designed kitchen with no lead time - you are only limited by your delivery method - if you can haul it that day then you can start it that day. That is amazing news for anyone who needs to do a kitchen reno fast - like when you are selling or buying a home - and it needs a kitchen. Those are your best times to do it. It never takes 2 weeks - you will likely be out of your kitchen for 4 weeks. Tons of well - ideally coordinated - tradespeople like plumbers and electricians, painters, flooring, tiles, likely drywalling and taping [least favourite things of mine to do, and boy! do I have a reno horror story that is so bad that is great!*] will go through your house. If you are deciding to do some of the work yourself, you are only adding extra days onto the project. If you've got the flexibility and you are a semi-pro than sure, try doing some of the things yourself - you will save money. But then again, how much do you value your time? Good ethical professionals - like myself - will come in, know exactly what to do and how to resolve things. My services come with a bonus that I am also a designer - I build nice things - I pay attention to details - I source most of materials at IKEA for cost. And it ends up looking like a million bucks. 

I am coming to the discovery of another IKEA SEKTION deficiency [the first one is the systems complexity, great for designers and challenging for twice in a lifetime users of the planning software] - it has a very rigid install system. The planning software is a great limit - I have never had a positive experience with IKEA kitchen planner, when I work from home. And apparently I am not alone in my experience - people universally hate it. Once I take note of the measurements I go to IKEA off-peak - usually off-peak - breakfast+design. 

Example - IKEA planner would not let you do anything with this wall. Because the main floor was opened up, there had to be a beam that was put running the length of the house - that put a limit on the height. There is also a box at the bottom - that box is required there for the headroom - stairs going into the basement. To IKEA planner that was is useless - the key is being creative with the SEKTION box. 

Want a tear-jerker story? Computer not-savvy seniors are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous unsavoury 'designers' who charged in the range of $120 dollars to convert their on-the-paper designs into the digital design - I got ethics, I don't do that.  If you are computer illiterate, then my advice is as follows - go to IKEA on a Monday morning for 9:30. Get yourself the $1 breakfast and free coffee - you want to be well caffeinated.  They open at 10am. Register for a computer - you are in the system now, eligible to receive IKEA Kitchens Associate's help - and just do it with their help, on a clunky black computer - yea, the early 90's first paged and then called - they want their computers back.  Mondays are the slowest [as opposed to the weekends when every IKEA turns into a ZOO]. Added benefit is that you can test your ideas right away in the store, they've got all cabinetry and hardware on display. 

Anyhow, what you get with my service is great flexibility - that SEKTION box is like putty in my hands. I can put it anywhere, anyhow, at any height, in any configuration I desire.  Pair that up with the flexibility to add any custom elements that your heart desiers.....and you got a custom kitchen.

Only nicest designs coming out of Studio Kosnik. 

on the picture - IKEA planner would not allow us to squeeze in a full size gable, so instead of adding full 3/4", I laminated the gable in matching high gloss laminate from ABET. 

Custom solutions for challenging space - on IKEA budget. This is a 3-piece base-kick for my last kitchen project - because it made more sense to built the vent into the kick than to rip out the basement ceiling to move it. Savings $$$!

* so the funny story goes like this. A reno is being done, the owner is thrifty and hires 2 guys who do it 'after-hours' - like they have full time jobs and do side gigs. These guys take their sweet-a** time and take 62 [sixty two!!!] days to drywall and tape his small basement. He was going insane, he was telling me that story and I was laughing out loud - real hard.  SIXTY......TWO......DAYS........

IKEA the Beautiful [also important stuff about IKEA kitchen islands]

Confessions of an IKEA Hacker.


*HEY! Before I forget Here is a tip from IKEA Hacker - you get a $100 back for every $1000 you spend. Buy the core with the the $1000's  - like boxes and doors - spend the refund on the interior fittings! 

In Toronto, Canada, IKEA has a kitchen on sale right now. I know because I went through it - intentionally, on the weekend - with my son - the restaurant was overwhelmed, we were lucky we found a table to eat. The kitchen planning department was busy, with extra staff on hands. I hear from from e-mail exchanges - via quotes - that IKEA is very extra busy on the weekends - they often run out of specific the Sektion cabinets and the people come back on the weekday. I speculate that they renovated - enlarged - the IKEA Etobicoke location specifically because they anticipated higher traffic and warehousing needs due to their kitchen launch - what a smooth oiled machine, IKEA is!

My favourite thing about being an IKEA hacker, is that IKEA forces you to be efficient, to constantly evolve and adapt. Example - from now on, I will answer e-mails and blog at the same time. The questions that I get - majority from North America   [that's my IKEA perspective], but they come from  from literally all over the world - wherever IKEA sells - are all good and relevant questions and I want to share the answers with a wider audience. 

Richard asks about my IKEA kitchen island install - does the quote include fixing to the floor? Yes, it absolutely does - I build custom kicks for all IKEA cabinetry. I developed a nice system for creating sturdy, rigid and stable frames that the actual SEKTION boxes are installed onto. They are fabricated on site to ensure proper size and accommodate site conditions -  I do not use IKEA's plastic legs as it's a weakness of the system, in my opinion. This was particularly evident when it came to the islands. SEKTION partially addresses that issue with the introduction of 'stabilizing kit' for islands - I bought one and am yet to open it and inspect it. 

My philosophy is though - why 'stabilize' when you can 'set it down' properly? So I build my own kicks - they are all constructed out of Canadian, 3/4", exterior grade ply that's nailed and screwed together - it aint' a looker - but it is a quality product that will survive a flood, other than being easy to level and will work with any subfloor - wood, concrete, tiles, vinyl, anything. The kicks get clad with standard IKEA mouldings or toe-kick covers. 

Wanna see what it looks like - here is my system




And now, for something totally different! - 


Look - 

 and here is another shot - 

Now, before you say 'hold-on! it's blue and oak!' or 'no! it's grey and oak!' - here is another issue to consider. IKEA introduced new mouldings - as illustrated above - for their SEKTION kitchens - remember? 'everything is new and there is more of everything'. That island is solid - I know because I tried rocking it - I am sure that they did not spare on the 'island stabilizing kit' on this one - the geometry also helps [see, my system works well regardless of geometry - you can go with any crazy design that you want, including cantilevers! ]. But notice that nice moulding around the base? - it is flush with the exterior. 'So what?' you ask.

Here - kitchen islands have a purpose. One of the functions of an island is to increase the overall work- surface area of the kitchen - increase functionality. There is a lot of ergonomics that goes into designing a kitchen - like heights and depths and radiuses, etc. One of those dimensions is the set-back on the kitchen kick - it's a space about 4"x4". That space is allocated for your feet, it allows you to stand right against the work-surface for a more comfortable work position. In the image you will notice that IKEA eliminated that element from the island - I am assuming that was done to showcase their new SEKTION base mouldings. And that is perfectly OK - from the ergonomics perspective - if the island is used for storage, or it is used for brief intervals. But try spending 3 to 4 hours leaning forward over your island while preparing a large Thanksgiving dinner for your family and guests and I assure you that you will feel the pain! 

CHALLENGE - do it. Go to your kitchen right now and stand back about 4" from the edge of the countertop. Try making a sandwich, or better yet, prepare yourself lunch. It is uncomfortable, isn't it? Yea. 

So, when making a decision whether to install the IKEA base moulding on your island consider how will that island function? - sure the mouldings are 'perrty lookin' - but if you intend to spend extended periods of time standing against it - the island - you want to make sure that you will be comfortable and efficient - you don't want to end-up with lower-back pain every time you cook dinner!

And hey! Want to add some flair to your island? Hire me for the install - not only will I do a good job, but I will let you know in what ways you can customize it with readily available IKEA pieces - your design style need not impact your love of cooking! Hey! I like cooking myself! 

Chapter 2 -  IKEA the Beautiful

I love IKEA. It is a such a wonderful corporation! 
Other than them doing their taxes in that little European duchy of Lichetenstein [sp?] I think that they are flawless. 

here - IKEA fantasy booth! In an attempt to reach out to a younger demographic - mainly the one using '#' they set up this cool 'fantasy booth'. 'Imagine yourself in a new bedroom' was the tagline. My youngest one sure did! Their frozen yogurt is a good deal too!

When there is a need to spend time some man-to-man time with your oldest - he is practically a teenager, IKEA is an excellent venue. The variety of healthy and hearty meals and a very reasonable price. The 'limited time' beef is saucy and rich - cooked in a slow cooker? - the mash potatoes are mashy and the veggies? - well, you got to eat them right? The fish and chips are good too - benign enough that even my 12 year old - who is still a picky eater - will eat the whole thing. I'm loving' it! It helps that I live about 5 min away from IKEA Etobicoke, too. 

While on the weekends IKEA turns into a zoo, the weekdays are much slower and easy going. Slow-n-Easy Mondays - IKEA supports  entire senior ecosystem - healthy and affordable $1 breakfast and free wi-fi attract top senior crowds. 

Example - grandmas lounging on display.  

And my favourite: IKEA is my other office....

IKEA's SEKTION and the 'last kitchen' you will ever need - REVIEW

Chapter 1 - Confessions of an IKEA hacker - why I love the SEKTION kitchen!

[edit] this is my most popular review, but I got a much more detailed and technical review of SEKTION here. 

You should buy an IKEA SEKTION kitchen. I am buying it for my dream kitchen - with few mods, mind you. 

Often times people get confused what it means to have a 'custom kitchen' - it's the IKEA vs. Custom dillemma. People feel that they cannot get a good enough of a product going with mass produced. In fact, I am aware of a trend - people disliking the IKEA model perceiving it as cheap, lacking in quality. 

This could be farther from the truth when it comes to IKEA's kitchens. IKEA's kitchens are well made, 3/4" construction and are well edged - premium features in my opinion.  You can do so much to improve on the original assembly - I offer that service. But you can do an awesome job assembling and installing it yourself. You should get a professional plumber and a licensed electrician if you need any of that work done - plumbing or electrical. 

IKEA is amazing at its hardware. Here check out this video from BLUM that I shot at IDS - this is BLUM's premium hardware line -

and this one - 

 

and this one - 

Nah, you will not find these on an IKEA SEKTION kitchen, but IKEA worked with BLUM and they created - in my opinion - the optimal solution - I have not seen that many organizers since ever. I am yet to check out the pricing - but if you can afford to add their bells and whistles - it makes your kitchen infinitely more practical. There is storage for practically everything - small and light to big, heavy and awkward - the kitchen is designed to anticipate changes. In my opinion, at the IDS, no kitchen exhibitor showed anything closely as practical as IKEA - with the closest one being Scavolini - and they had their awkward moments.  I was very impressed - it really made me question why I build premium baltic birch drawers - tradition*? This is the photo that gets me -

The geometry of the boxes is very clever, it allows for any style to be expressed especially when paired up with SEKTION doors - modernist, classic, contemporary. Nobody can beat them on their slab, solid colour doors. That style doors is the staple of any modernist looking kitchen - they do it plenty, they do it well. It is when you get into the wood grains is when you run into trouble - the grain - door-to-door - does not match, it may end-up looking like a patchwork, a wooden quilt. IKEA does best to minimize that with the choice of darker, evened-out, 'shaded' [proper finishing term] tone to their wood grains. As a purist, I have to disagree with IKEA on the wood grain doors - all the finishing completely obscures the grain - in some ways you might as well just paint it. 

And this is precisely why I am offering nice matching wood grain slab doors for IKEA SEKTION boxes. I also make matching cover panels for kitchen islands, fridge panels, full length dishwasher panels [IKEA doesn't do that!], and any required fillers - you always need those. 

And finally the price. IKEA has the lowest market option. You cannot possibly get a better quality kitchen - some exceptions. It is the economy of scale that lets you purchase one of the most versatile and practical and amazing kitchen system for so little money - it would not have been possible before. From what I have been able to gather at the Toronto Interior Design Show, is that unless you are purchasing a kitchen like Scavolini or Boffi, which I think are bought for their specific, unique design features, IKEA does not have a competitor. All the other exhibitors built well with 3/4" materials, but none offered such a range of interior fittings. True that IKEA uses white powder-coated steel instead of chrome and glass, but IKEA BLUM hardware is essentially 'the best' of BLUM - here - 

minus the motorized option - you are still getting the best design on hardware for an incredible price. 

And if you think that by paying more - you get something of superior quality, then think about this: 

A] this kitchen must have cost tons of money, and it advertised itself as such,  but the hardware on it was so utterly impractical. This piece of hardware gets a complete fail grade - look - 

How big does your kitchen need to be so that you Kitchen Aid mixer gets its own lower cabinet? That's just an inefficient use of space. I was really unimpressed with the expensive kitchens. Yes, they had tons of detailing, tons - beading and arches, and fancy solid wood countertops that definitely attracted the eye, but were in no way practical - to maintain them and run a normal kitchen would be a nightmare. 

SEKTION truly is an amazing system.  

SEKTION being so modular, so versatile needs to be properly designed. There are thousands of combinations and thousands of price points. I think first time ever, it will make sense to hire a professional designer - I think this may be the only weakness of the SEKTION system. Look, it almost feels like you need a rocket scientist for the job - you really don't, all you need is me - 

Oh, and the plastic legs on the kitchen islands - they never work - wobbly! You have to use my system - I honestly believe it is the best option. It makes the entire IKEA kitchen solid - the electrical and plumbing are easy to do properly. 

Tomorrow I am heading straight to IKEA to catch a peek at the kitchens - first thing in the morning.



[EDIT: April 2015] 
Want to know how SEKTION is an improvement over the old AKURUM system? 
Read my side by side comparison, changes and improvements - here.



*they look good in wardrobes;

How to install an IKEA kitchen island. Properly. PART 2

Opener

Hey! Home and Garden Television likes me!

                 'HGTV Kosnik'

Chapter 1

As someone who used to fabricate commercial millwork, I consider the plastic legs on IKEA kitchen cabinets to be - in my opinion -  a major weakness. Well, not a weakness - more of a compromise. 

Remember, the IKEA AKURUM [their kitchens] is a universal system that was designed to work around the globe - anywhere where IKEA sells. That means it has to work on floors that are concrete, plywood, tiles, linoleum, stone and on anything else that the potential client might have in their home. And IKEA does a good job 'compromising' on their design for the kitchen cabinet legs. 

Personally, as a designer, I consider the system quite brilliant for what it manages to accomplish - sell identical kitchen, thousands of units, around the world. 

[The next may seem a little technical, but bear with me, dear reader]

Kitchen cabinetry experiences loads and stress in many ways - I wrote about that in my previous post. There are static loads [things that don't move - like stacked plates and cups and pots and pans, blenders,  juicers and whole bunch of other things that our kitchen industry managed to create - useful or useless, you be the judge, I know I made some questionable purchases of kitchen products that were supposed to 'revolutionize' the way I cook...]. These are, what I call, direct loads that transfer from the shelves [or bottoms] onto the gables [cabinetmaker term for the sides of cabinets] and down onto the AKURUM legs and into the floor. An IKEA kitchen cabinet that has the AKURUM legs properly installed and is FIXED [like completely static] to the wall will take the load very well. I believe the load limit on those legs is around 1000 lbs - that is 300 kg of plates - that is a really big number, LOTS of fine china. 

The IKEA drawer boxes [made by Austrian BLUM - they are the standard in the industry - in Austria]  present a different load - a dynamic load - a moving force. Again, it will work - if the AKURUM box is FIXED to a wall. Larger BLUM drawers - like the ones used for pots and pans - feature heavier duty slides - thicker gauge steel, heavier duty runners - the details are there if you know what you are looking for. 

Kitchen islands though are DIFFERENT - they experience different stress - torsion and shear [hey! I know that those are terms used in physics, but don't fret dear reader, I got a 'C minus minus' in my university physics class...I was just a mediocre physics student, 'sad face emoticon' - the truth was that there were people who were much better at it than I was; they probably went onto build like....rocket ships to explore Mars or maybe the moon....I chose to design and build cabinets...]. 

Torsion refers to the force of twisting - in the industry we say that 'there is a twist'; used to reference cabinets, solid lumber etc. - likely to occur during install, or perhaps when somebody overloads a corner of a cabinet. 

The other force is shear - that is when there are two forces within an object that act in opposite direction - example being someone pushing or a leaning against a kitchen cabinet. Shear - in my opinion - is the bigger issue for an IKEA kitchen island. Shear - or someone leaning, or pushing on or introducing repetitive motion to the cabinetry causes the AKURUM legs to 'tip off' [I am working on proper illustrations....will update the entry later] and - when not fixed properly to the floor - the cabinets to go tumbling down. This could be accelerated with heavy loads - like a granite/marble countertops. And if doesn't topple over, than it will have a 'wobbly feel' - I read it all over the web - people's AKURUM islands having a 'wobbly feel'. 

My AKURUM islands are rock solid. 

[ASIDE]

I have a 'almost teenager' son - his friends are already 'texting and dating'. One night we were watching a movie - totally appropriate - and these two 'older teenagers got it going on', on the kitchen island [just kissy kissy...]  He kind of blushed and looked at me uneasy, to which I answered, 'Son, you see there? That is a sturdy, well installed kitchen island. And two, these things you are witnessing right now, they don't happen in real life - only in movies.' I think he bought it, for now.....

[BACK] 

To be continued....

PS. DO NOT USE 2x4's for building anything that will even stand close to cabinetry [other than walls or blocking that will be drywalled]. 2x4's are dimensional lumber that twists and warps and cups and checks and splits [all woodworking terms for defects in wood; just look at a pile of 2x4s at Home Depot ]. Think about this - if a lumber mill can't make a log into nice clean pine/spruce boards that can be used for millwork on paneling or anything else that is 'nice' - they will make a 2x4 or a 2x3 out of it....yea - and that is NOT acceptable in cabinetry - I say, I got rigorous standards. The craftsman that I learned commercial millwork from - Peter, a Chinese-Canadian, who studied woodworking technology in Hong Kong 30 years ago!- taught me like this - the acceptable error on the cabinetry that you build should be less than 1/16''. Once I completed a project he would come over, take out his measuring tape and measure. And if it was OVER a 1/16" he would give me 'a look'. The cabinetry still went out, but the reason he did this was that he wanted to instil a philosophy of 'accuracy'. 

In a construction/renovation scenario, cabinetmaking is the most accurate trade.

Wanna know a curious fact? 

Framers work to within what I call  a 'strong 1/4"' - that's precisely because dimensional lumber like 2x4 or 2x8 or 2x12 are never straight - they always warp or bow - it's perfectly acceptable - solid lumber is a living product that reacts to the environment. There are woodworking practices that have been developed to counter and actually harness that wood movement for a good purpose. 

Carpenters work to within an 1/8" - you still need to be as accurate as possible, but once you start doing trim and you need to install a tall baseboard against a wonky wall you will immediately realize the challenge. Again, techniques have been developed to deal with on-site challenges, and professionals make it look effortless - years of experience. 

Cabinetmakers are like rocket scientists - nothing over 1/16" is acceptable. We have the tools and materials to make it so and there is no excuse for being sloppy. Or it could be that the fabricator was inexperienced - OR - in my opinion - the worst - when you have another trade trying to do the work of a cabinetmaker. I assure you, from practice - it never works out. 

It's like this one quote I did - a carpenter offered to build a row of upper kitchen cabinets - and he did not realize that plates come in size 'large' - the largest serving plates were too large in diameter for the doors to close completely. 'Wow', I said to myself, 'for a cabinetmaker that would have been an 'epic fail' -worthy of a YouTube short.

Hire the right person for the job - that's what I say. 

How to install an IKEA kitchen island. Properly.

Chapter 1 - How to install an IKEA kitchen island. PART 1.

[Make sure to to click the 'kitchen island' label found at the bottom of this entry to see all my 'IKEA kitchen island' entries! - enjoy!
EDIT: for detailed drawings click here!]

[Opening]

I had a chance to do a nice install recently. A center piece of which, in my opinion, is the island - 12 cabinets - a combination of lower units [at 24'' depth] back to back with a row of the shorter [12'' deep; 30 3/8'' tall] upper units - IKEA makes it possible to mix and match uppers and lowers. That's really good, smart, very flexible design.*

The client went with a very nicely done IKEA Lidingo Gray - solid grey gloss, 'frame-and-panel' MDF doors. This year, at the Toronto Interior Design Show - which is the most prestigious, non-commercial design show in Canada - IKEA did Lidingo Gray for their booth. I doubt that many of us have the 20' foot heights and the option of doing gold gilded ceiling - but it looked amazing. IKEA splurged [they got the money....] and had a custom made, really nicely detailed marble slab for a countertop and did some fancy trim carpentry. It ended up looking like 'a million bucks'!  

But it did not cost a million bucks. 

And the island ended up at a reasonable 2200 Canadian dollars + the cost of that nice marble slab. Here - 

That was a really nice kitchen island. 

IKEA instructs that the kitchen island be fixed to the floor and I agree. Kitchen islands are essentially free standing cabinetry. Think about all the the forces that will work against that cabinetry - people leaning on it, pushing on it, sitting on it, standing on it and whatever else. Add to that the weight of the stone slab and a large double sink full of water. You get the picture - it has to be rock solid. It also needs to be dead level - my standard is the rolling marble. 

My practice is to build a sturdy rigid base that is both - easy to fasten to the floor AND super easy to level. The tools required to build such a kick [that's what I will call it from here on] are the same tools that you will need to properly assemble a medium size IKEA kitchen - treat yourself [buy or rent] to a set of cordless drill/driver combo [get the one that will do hammerdrill option - just in case you have to go into concrete] - it will be silly of you to attempt to assemble any IKEA kitchen with a Philips screwdriver. A mitre saw is required to install many mouldings -  rent it at a local Home Depot [there, a plug for Home Depot]. I mention Home Depot, because they will also be able to rip [cut lengthwise] the plywood that you will be using for the base - very convenient. 

Chapter 1 - How to install an IKEA kitchen island. 

The advantage of going with this design is that there is flexibility in setting the height of the countertop surface. In most instances it does not matter if you set the height a 1/4" one way or another - but on this install it did - the client wanted to match the finished height of the stone countertop to a window sill - less than an 1/8" was the only acceptable tolerance. Having a self-leveling laser level is the handiest thing around - it is guaranteed to be off less than 1/8" over a 100 feet. 

I offer a service that I call a 'premium IKEA kitchen install' - I charge the same amount of money that IKEA kitchen installers do. I improve on the assembly of the cabinets and build my own kicks for all the lower units. The services really shines when you got an ambitious plan for your kitchen island. [to be continued...]