IKEA SEKTION launch - what's really in the 'kitchen'? + SCANDAL [part 1]

[this post was started the day of the launch - Trade Day at the IDS...]



Part 1

Today IKEA launched SEKTION - the kitchen system that replaces AKURUM - at the 2015 Toronto Interior Design Show. IKEA had another exhibitor Semihandmade removed from the show first, and then they launched.* I felt that it was a bit heavy handed on their part - they have a history of being heavy handed. If you are curious, or you have been living under a rock, Semihandmade picks up where IKEA kinda' leaves-off** - they make aftermarket doors for IKEA boxes - kitchens and wardrobes and others. By IKEA's account, they have sold 7.7 million kitchens and by Semihandmade's account they have sold over 700 door sets. Personally I don't think IKEA had anything to be concerned about - in terms of volume of sales - I rather think that the professional audience that day, might first see what a lot of people already see - beautiful modern wood grain doors [or custom paint shaker] - that fit IKEA kitchen boxes - custom look on a budget - and that market is only going to grow. 

Hey! I'm offering that service for the Canadian market now! Get custom made doors for your IKEA SEKTION kitchen!

As much as their 'popular marketing' is warm and inviting - giving us that cozy feel of Scandinavian Modernism - they are brutally efficient. IKEA has the lowest market cost option - that's a statement pulled off their European produced marketing video, delivered by a woman with blond hair, very blue eyes, and a frigid gaze that pierces the soul of any competitor. 

IKEA is Blum's [the hardware manufacturer] largest customer - IKEA says 'jump!' and Blum says 'how high?'.  Their designers worked together on developing efficient and functional - optimal solutions - to the kitchen dilemma. IKEA, it seems was able to lower the production costs of hardware AND made it more functional - they did several things - keep on reading till the end.   

IKEA has a history of being able to reduce prices over the years - mainly by finding efficiencies within their system. 

******

LAST MINUTED UPDATE - while writing

IKEA wins BEST BOOTH AWARD at the Interior Design Show!
[why wouldn't they? they had the largest booth in a premier position [$$$]; they had the tallest booth in the premier position [$$$]; and they did have a spectacular interior design [$$$]]



***************************


They invest heavily in automation - BILLY bookcase production is fully automated, no human hands touch that bookcase other than yours [see video in this post]. The first step in production of Klippan sofas is shrouded in secrecy, no on has access - other than employees - there are no images and no video footage exists of that 'production first step'. I speculate that it has to do with the automation of the first step - there is some cleverly designed machine  that in a single 'insert' eliminates about 4 hours of skilled manual labour - there are 800 sofas manufactured bye SWEDE WOOD, in Poland, for the world's consumption every day. IKEA - along with a complete switch to LED lighting - has invested in a windfarm, in the province of Alberta, Canada, which will allow them to become energy independent. So while the rest of us will be at the mercy of the market swings - shortages, conflicts, politics - for our energy consumption, IKEA will be able to operate in total independence. And that is their goal for 2020 - total energy independence. They are also investing in their labour force, now offering a pension to any employee that has been with the company for at least 5 years - I've been going to IKEA Etobicoke for the last 15 years, and I keep seeing the same faces. It is stunning to me, the amount of foresight that IKEA has an as a corporate entity. 


Part 2

So the public got a first hand view and try of SEKTION. 

That old system AKURUM has been my 'go-to' box for a large portion of my business - I was curious how my business is going to be affected - and it is, I can already see it. I went into IDS 2015 IKEA booth and opened everything, inspected all the hardware and place of origin [AKURUM boxes were manufactured in the US; some doors were made Sweden; some parts were made in China; some parts were made in Russia!]

I also knew that there be lots of other kitchen manufacturers - large and small. By seeing all of them, by inspecting all of them - their kitchens all in one place - I would be able to better position the IKEA kitchen in the market - is SEKTION a good product? What are its strength and what are its weaknesses? 

SEKTION has definitely that European feel - at the show, each SEKTION box was full of hardware - BLUM - that optimized the interiors. Traditional shelving was banished to the upper boxes - anything above about 6 feet. Drawers, drawers, drawers everywhere! IKEA has done away with their aluminum RATIONEL slide-out boxes - nice, but still the interior walls were slanted reducing the drawer 'floor area' and thus capacity - and replaced it*** with a white, powder coated steel, rectangular slide out box - more storage, likely [I haven't gotten the specs yet, a good indication are the gauge of steel and colour of the runners on the slides] increased weight capacity. 

Here - traditional hinged doors with internal drawers

And - 

There are plastic dividers that further divide this box. 

[To be continued]



*IKEA is rewriting design history - there never was Semihandmade at the show IDS 2015. It did not exist. SEKTION is and always will be. 

** Because IKEA veneer and veneer-imitation doors are production doors there is no way to ensure that consecutive doors have matching grain. Matching grain on sequential doors and panels is usually found on high-end kitchens. 

*** Revision, the BLUM boxes still have the lower walls slanted - not as much though as before.

January is Design Week, Part 2

[this is retroactive - it was written the day of]

I did it! I did it and I am alive! The last 3 days I've been in the shop till 11 pm and going to sleep at between 1 and 2 am, because I write daily. 

Sorry, no pics. I have to download and edit - and that takes time. 



6 hours to assemble deliver and install a large platform, that had to be very accurate + floor it + edge it. 

The Dinner by Design install went really well. First of all - I got back to my roots....those beautiful floors. This time, first time ever I installed Moncer flooring product - oiled white oak, 6 inch wide, engineered, solid wood [I will write how nicely it is made and how luxurious it is in another entry!]. Just for this job I had my flooring gun serviced - it's been awhile - just so it operated perfectly - I could not risk a misfiring ruining a board - there were no extras. There were 24* rows exactly, all the boards were labeled, in sequence. There was a row A, and a row B. And between row J and K there was a special row that had the boards laid out for notches around the columns - and the columns have no bigger reveals than 3/16th - that's very small. There were special instructions that there will be no trim around those columns - that came from above. And the columns do look very clean and modern - well resolved. Hey! - I only executed someone elses vision on this one - but it was my best execution. I made this crazy looking jig, but it is crazy only because it was efficiently fabricated - 15 min - while for a more 'traditional looking' jig would have taken an hour. 

[aside]

I admit, I felt the pressure. For this successful execution under these conditions, absolutely every detail had to be thought out in advanced and an optimum solution achieved. Like, it turns out the the sprinkler system at the Design Exchange might be triggered by the fine dust that results from cutting or using the router. I had to pre-cut every line of flooring to within a 16th of an inch - in the 200k square feet flooring career, I have never done that. When they said - 'no cutting' I was like - 'So how the hell am I gonna do it?'

Ugghhh.....

Anyhow. 

[back]


But you know what the really cool and very rewarding part of this project was?

I got to work with this really cool and fun team from KPMB Architects. Because other than for the base, flooring, metalworking, they still needed to setup the graphics, wire all the fancy lights, someone had to make tough calls - all under the 6 hour deadline. What a great team! They complement each other so well!  So much fun to work with them! I found it incredibly humorous, when one of them, with a very serious tone and face expression assured me that 'they are a serious firm', they don't consider themselves 'a fun office' - which immediately brought an image of a 'trendy, brick walled loft filled with hipsters on Macintosh computers' to my mind - 'it's about the work'. I was chuckling on the inside for so long. Such a good dynamic and camaraderie - no wonder that KPMB produces such nice architecture - no detail left out - even the envelope that I got with the deposit was really nice and had a watermark [!]. 

I was so impressed with that envelope - it really set the standard.

Any time there was an issue, they always had a solution. Like, where do we find a parking for a big truck? Hey! There is an open lot, just behind a new condo building - fits there*! - and it just around the corner! - so I don't have to drive across the city, as was suggested, and walk back - downtown Toronto, tall truck parking is an issue. Routing** the flooring planks for the columns and the flush-trim bit slices the electrical cord rendering the tool useless - my carelessness - IDIOT! - one of them just goes back and re-wires it so the by the time I get around to the second column - it's all done. I felt as if I had personal assistants on this job - everything was ready for me, passed to my hand - the floor, all million individually labeled pieces, almost laid itself. And it was needed - those 6 hours flew by - success!

Hey! - I Loved being part of their team. I was honoured to work with such a talented, eager and handy bunch of architects and one interior designer. 

I want to do jobs like these. 

At the end of the day - late evening - when I emptied the truck of tools and put them away, adjusted the heat, shut the lights off in the shop - I sighed, looked up at the frozen sky and said to myself - 'This is life. I love it! I'm a fighter and that's the best chance I've got!' Then I snuck into Charles' shop, next door - he was still tinkering with something - said goodnight to my friend and headed home to sleep it all off....Tomorrow is another day...




*we were charged double the money 'because it is a big truck'
**I routed in an adjacent storage room

my first TRUE IKEA Hack - #001

Chapter 1 - my first TRUE IKEA Hack #001

I did it! I did it! My first TRUE IKEA hack! It's a big deal for me, because from now on I am officially offering that service - TRU-Hack.  

TRU-Hack is a lower price point option from my original IKEA hacking system - however - it is not always applicable. Sometimes it does not work for the space - either the geometry of the design OR structural issues [like stacking]. 

I have largely resisted doing on-site hacks because they bring their own set of challenges:

A] No mods to the cabinetry - BILLYs in this instance - the original IKEA cabinetry still gets reinforced.

I always use screws in assembly - rigid. The backs get screwed on as well. The client saves money because they assemble the product themselves - according to IKEA instructions. 

The two extra plywood cleats - added at the back - keep the box rigid and square - they eliminate the need for a typically required fixed middle shelf - all BILLYs have one fixed shelf.  They also ensure that the back hooks will install properly and stay there despite years of use. 

This very much felt like an improv-design. Andrea wanted to have nice beadboard for the backs - which in turn required shortening of the shelves - to make it all fit. She also wanted to have an option of installing additional hook - higher up - the kids are only getting taller, and their jackets longer. 

We did all that. 

We used a modified crown moulding - modified because it was cut down for the proper dimension and nice fitting profile - to create a 'picture frame' design. I used a laser level to set all the hooks - it was good quality hardware, I could tell. 

To cover the gaps  between gables [sides] Andrea suggested to use nice, small, symmetric profile, solid wood moulding - I thought that was a great idea! It was good problem solving all around! 

Andrea experimented with the heights of the shelving to create the desired look - REMEMBER, it's all adjustable, change as often as you like! - and presto! 

This was a one long IKEA hacking day..... that final picture was shot at 10PM on a Friday night!* 

Anyhow, I think it turned out very nice. All that needs to be done is to do some painting. 

So how expensive is a project like this? Me and Andrea did some math and we have number - curious? e-mail me. But, I will tell you one thing - it's way cheaper than doing it using my original IKEA Hacking system. Major savings come out of the fact that you assemble the product yourself - I just strengthen it. And you are completely stuck with stock dimensions - that's the other thing you have to think of. My other system offers greater flexibility in sizing. But rest assured I always do my best to make it look like a million bucks! 

It's like it was always there!

[FIN]

*'What were you doing on Firday night?' 'Oh...I was IKEA Hacking.'

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.