We had Ikea cabinets in our last house and LOVED THEM! I'd never have thought to go with Ikea, but our architect showed us a really beautiful kitchen in her portfolio. The kitchen belonged to a chef client of hers and I was just stunned at how pretty it was. Our architect said that since the chef's budget was a certain amount and he wanted to spend almost all of it on appliances, she had recommended Ikea cabinets. I was sold! So we bought the cabinets and my hubby (a contractor) put them together and was able to fabricate a few filler pieces for the areas where we did not have cabinets (like the 1 foot to each side of the range) - so there was a little bit of custom work involved - but in any case they were great and altogether I think our cabinets cost about $5K for a good-sized kitchen. Amazing since the lowest "custom" cabinet bid was around $15K, on up to $50K. I liked that all the drawers had the slow-close feature where they don't slam shut. Loved that I could have almost all drawers and no cabinets. We ended up getting really beautiful granite countertops and professional appliances. I'm telling you, when you have a Viking range, everyone thinks you spent a fortune on your cabinets.
I'd recommend them! Especially if you're handy and can assemble them yourself, you'll save a ton of money and they are quite well made in my experience.
The only thing I'd maybe steer clear of is wood floors in the kitchen. We had them, too, and you have to really pay attention to wiping up spills so the wood doesn't buckle. In our kitchen in our current house we put in tumbled marble and sealed it, and it worked well. (To save money, they make ceramic tile that looks exactly like real marble - I saw some at Home Depot for about $1/ft and was mad I had paid so much for the real thing!)
Happy remodeling!
