Ikea Installers vs GC
decided to go with Ikea kitchen cabinets for a renovation job. will need to get a GC to do some other work in the kitchen. with that in mind, i need to decide whether to have the GC build/install the ikea cabinets or have a specialist (e.g., traemand or kitchen couple) do the work. i’ve…
decided to go with Ikea kitchen cabinets for a renovation job.
will need to get a GC to do some other work in the kitchen.
with that in mind, i need to decide whether to have the GC build/install the ikea cabinets or have a specialist (e.g., traemand or kitchen couple) do the work. i’ve received a ballpark estimate of the work from a few of these specialists, and the cost seems a bit ridiculous to me given that all they’re doing is putting the stuff together and installing them.
i’m inclined to have the GC do it all, but my question is are the ikea specialists really that ‘special’?
one of the major reasons why i’m inclined to have the GC do it is because i think there may be special fittings or fixes that need to be made in order for the cabinets to work in our layout – e.g., corner sink and hood ventilation.
anyone here who have used their GC to build and install their Ikea cabinets? if so, how did it come out?
We did our kitchen with Ikea cabinets. It made more sense (cheaper) for us to assemble the cabinets ourselves and just bring in the GC to hang the track and throw up the cabinets himself. Once you get one cabinet put together, the others go much more easily. Stay away from Ikea people. I have never heard good things about them.
>I’d highly recommend you take the money you’ll put into labor and buy better cabinets.
Rot. IKEA cabinets are extremely well made, and the only issue, off-gassing, is no longer one as they use low or no-formaldehyde board. The hardware is top rate (slides, soft close, completely adjustable hinges) and you can dress them up with fancy pulls and real wooden doors.
Also, they’re so easy to put together you should do it yourself. Let the GC install and fine-tune
not surprisingly, a wide spectrum of opinions on this one.
personally, i can’t imagine a respectable GC not being able to have his/her crew install the cabinets as effectively as an ikea specialist.
really, the only thing that’s making me lean toward a GC doing the install is cuz the cost of a specialist (given a GC’s overall construction expertise) seems inflated.
i guess next step is to get the line item estimate from the GC to do this to make a more even comparison.
I agree with masterbuilder. You aren’t going to save money if you have to pay your GC to put them together. We did them in a rental unit and it only made sense because my husband spent days putting them together. After that he said never again.
I’d highly recommend you take the money you’ll put into labor and buy better cabinets.
If you stay the course with IKEA, you should at least have your installers/GC glue and screw all of the pieces together.
i’m looking into having traemand do our ikea cabs. the fact that they’ll place the order and pick it up is worth the $ to me as that’s usually the most painful part 😉 got a good estimate from them including modifying a cabinet to fit a space it shouldnt.
We had our carpenter do the work in our rental kitchen and he did a great job (he’s now retired). We probably paid about the same as what setancre paid.
Agree that there’s nothing that special about Ikea cabinets that an experienced contractor can’t handle. And I’m sure most have worked with them by now.
If you’re hiring a GC to do all the other non-cabinet-installation work in your kitchen, I don’t see the point in hiring the Ikea “specialists.” We had our GC do it for our kitchen reno a couple years ago and it went absolutely fine. He said they had no problems with it, and my sense is that there’s nothing particularly special or different about Ikea cabinets than any other kitchen cabinet brands.
I’ve used Traemand for an Ikea kitchen before (rather than our GC) and I would highly recommend going that route only because they are so familiar with the product it probably takes them 1/10th the time it would take a normal contractor. All they do all day everyday is put together this stuff and they are very fast, efficient and know how to make it look perfect. They are also able to modify pieces as needed for plumbing, non-square walls/ceilings, etc., and know different fixes for unique situations. They can also tell you right away if you’re missing any pieces from Ikea, which a regular contractor may not realize until something just isn’t fitting correctly.
I didn’t find the price all that expensive. It cost us approx $1000 for 1.5 days (12 hours) work from 2 men.
My two cents.