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...]

IKEA Hacking - The cure for the 'Hidden Designer'?

Chapter 1 Chris said, 'Karol you channel Candice Olson'  'Thank you Chris', I said.


Chris is a smart, first time home buyer. He bought a townhome on a 'six year plan' - he will do some strategic work on the house, let it appreciate a little, and then sell it - upgrading in the process. 

He had the kitchen doors professionally refinished. Changed lighting fixtures himself, and did the backsplash in a nice stone with the help of his father-in-law. Selected a cool grey for the wall colour, paying attention that the paint be easy to maintain. He bought the required linear footage of nice MDF crown moulding and painted it proper white. 

As an ambitious individual, he considered doing an IKEA Billy Hack himself - learning as he went along. It was then he contacted me asking me to come look at his space. The space - his living room - had bulkhead that was 15" deep [and as bulkheads are usually built, with a laser I found that it was waving 'in-and-out' and 'up and down'], which almost matched the depth of the deep Billy bookcase. He had that space filled with IKEA Expedit units in dark brown. In the center there was an electric fireplace. He did not like the look. 

See, what Chris did not know, was that he suffered from an incurable condition - something I call the case of 'a hidden designer'.  My experience is that, often, the client leaves most design decisions to me - they trust me. Chris was different because he paid attention to all details - I felt that I had very little wiggle room. He was very specific about what he liked and required help in realizing his vision. I have to say, that I feel I was successful, as in collaboration we achieved savings [we kept the original fireplace] and were able to nicely expand on the design without raising too much end costs*. 

Instead of creating a wall of Billys [the original image that he showed me**, I believe, is the most widely circulated image of an IKEA Billy hack on the web, I see it all the time], we opted to create some 'voids' in the design. Chris has a plan to put some fancy wallpaper/fabric on the back and accent it with lights. We deleted the fourth Billy on the left, shortening the space to a 24" wide countertop, and thus gaining valuable width for the fireplace and a nice TV.  Chris plans to introduce the paint to the MDF - a matching white - and then do a natural stone arch just above the electric insert. Whoa! I said, that is ambitious!

Chris' favourite part of the built-in  -  that floating panel on the back is removable - makes for cabling upgrade on the TV a breeze. Here:

Chris said, 'Karol you channel Candice Olson'
'Thank you Chris', I said. 

That's right! I am not a interior designer - but the one thing that I do real good is a mean design for built-ins - professional IKEA hacking! Great designs done on a budget!

** Here is the image, it's by this really crafty lady -

http://www.centsationalgirl.com - and her 'hack', in my opinion is totally legit. If you follow her instructions you will be able to create built in like these. It is a simple hack - base and crown with covered gables. While it does work for this space, odd dimensions would create an awkward look - the covered gables [verticals] would keep getting wider and wider as needed to fill in the width. I am sure someone who attempts this hack will find out exactly what I mean. 

My IKEA hacks are seamless - they become part of a larger design. I hope it shows. I hack IKEA for the combination of functionality and price. All hacks are assembled to commercial millwork standards - my background is in commercial millwork. And I can make them look any way you want - I can do very modern, classic, arts and crafts, shaker, 'fancy french', even bauhaus. My IKEA Hacks are custom millwork - very well priced. 

To my knowledge I am the first professional IKEA hacker. Virtually all my designs and millwork are based on IKEA products - it being so vast and varied. I have developed a system for creating professional looking designs. Some of IKEA product lines are of such high quality that I decided to hack them to create my own line of super-luxe hacks - KingK + QueenT  - a combination of high end manufacturing with some fancy woodworking techniques.

* in the end it came to a vigorous fencing match and a draw, at which point we agreed on one-to-one barter - your workday for my workday. 

[UPDATE]

Chris painted it!
Here it is! Nice! Ready for Christmas!

Chapter 1

Here is a good IKEA Billy Bookcase hack. 

So, take two Billy bookcases [with doors], add 2 1/2 sheets of MDF, mix in a designer/maker and you end up with beautiful millwork - on a budget.


Chapter 2  - To design or not to design...

IKEA hacking is a very popular endavour these days - considering that a 'woodworking shop hour' can rival that of a 'car garage shop hour'. As a designer and a maker one of my favourite things to do is to browse the IKEA's 'as-is' section - which I always do - and see what I could build with the available pieces. My 'designer mind' wanders from piece to piece, while the 'maker' in me jigs those pieces together for a coherent look and practical function...

I personally admire the IKEA model - there is no other like it in the world.  

Democratic Design all the way!