Here Are The IKEA Cabinets Selections I’ve Made For My Studio
I decided a few days ago that I was going to order IKEA cabinets for my studio, and just be done with agonizing over options. I’ve spent hours over the last three days poring over the cabinet options that IKEA offers, and I have my selections in my online shopping cart. I’ve done everything except hit that final order button. So let me show you what I’ve selected.
First, here’s the drawing I did way back in 2017 (wow…2017!!) of the front wall of the studio.
This is the wall with the floral wallpaper. It actually looks like this…
So the idea is to have floor-to-ceiling cabinets on either end of the wall, and one lower cabinet in the middle. Here are the IKEA items that I found to work on this wall.
First up, this base cabinet with six drawers for the center in a 24-inch depth.
All of the cabinets are Sektion (that’s the name of their whole kitchen cabinet line, and then you choose the color/style of doors and drawer fronts to use on them). For the drawer fronts and cabinet doors, I selected the Veddinge white.
I selected Veddinge white because it’s costs less than the rest, and it comes with no details on the doors and drawer fronts. This is a bonus for me since that makes adding trim very easy (which, of course, I plan to do.) I’m also going to paint them, so the original color doesn’t matter to me. After selecting these, I remembered that John and Sherry from Young House Love used IKEA cabinets in their current kitchen, and they painted them a custom color. I looked, and found that they, too, used the Veddinge white, and then painted them a soft pinkish mauve color. So I feel pretty confident that I can add trim and paint these with no problem.
For the lower cabinet on the two outer sections, I went with this three-drawer base cabinet in the 24-inch depth…
And for the uppers, I went with this 15-inch-deep cabinet…
And on top of those, I’ll use this shorter 15-inch-deep upper cabinet…
So once I put all of those together, the wall will look something like this…
I mean, that’s pretty close to my original vision. And once I get it all trimmed out (I’ll add crown molding around the top), I think it’ll look fantastic!
For the wall in the “office” zone of the room, this is what I had originally envisioned…
Here’s what that wall actually looks like…
I decided to add more storage to this area than I had originally planned, so instead of having the middle section open underneath the countertop, I’m going to add drawers.
For the two tall sections on either end, I chose these 15-inch-deep base cabinets…
On top of those bases, I’ll use these 15-inch-deep upper cabinets…
And then I’ll top those off with these shorter 15-inch-deep upper cabinets…
And for the middle sections, I selected these 15-inch-deep bases with three drawers.
So once all of that is put together, it will look something like this…
The cabinets for that wall will need some spacers between them to make them fit the space properly, but it’ll work.
That leaves the wall just inside the doorway from the breakfast room. You can see the 15-lite door that leads to the breakfast room in the picture below, and I had planned to put a large bank of cabinets on the wall to the right of that door.
I actually didn’t select anything cabinets for that wall yet. I just simply can’t decide how I want that wall arranged, and then I started to question whether I even wanted or needed cabinets on that wall. So I’m going to hold off on that for now. Maybe I’ll do some open shelves, or maybe that wall doesn’t need any storage at all. All of these other cabinets, in addition to the storage closet that’s in the room, may be all the storage I need for the room.
So all together, the cabinets for those two walls come to $3948.00. I still need to add some side panels to my order. And then sales tax (for the cabinets, minus the side panels and filler strips) is $325.71, and shipping is $179.00. So altogether, I’m looking at around $4600.00. And then once I get them, put them together, and install them, I’ll add some trim, paint them, and add some pretty drawer pulls and knobs. So once all is said and done, I’d estimate that these two walls of cabinets will come in at around $5000.00.
That seems like a very reasonable price for cabinets that I don’t have to build from scratch, and that come with doors, drawer fronts, hinges, etc. Don’t you think so?
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
Yes! I’m glad you chose this route. Christie. Save your energy for the addition!
It takes soooo much time to peruse the options, the sizes, and on and on. What you have found with your patience and persistence looks great and you have the vision and capabilities to install these, trim them out, and paint them to look like you. Wow.
Looks great but won’t you cover up all that gorgeous wallpaper?
Plenty of it will still show.
Wow! This looks fantastic and will save you so much time, money and work. I can’t wait to see the final project. PS I love what Young House Love did in their kitchen, too.
Apart from you getting the storage you want for this room, which I look forward to for your sake!, I am really interested in you customizing the Ikea cabinets. I have watched a lot of your tutorials on how to build furniture yourself and am always in awe of it, but in the end I would rather go this route, esp as I don’t have all the saws and other tools necessary for building (let alone the expertise and courage!). As always, this is a very interesting journey you’re inviting us on and I keep my fingers crossed for it to go smoothly for you!
That is going to be amazing!!! Looking forward to seeing it all!
Wow! I think your selection is great. And your reasons are perfect. I know this is going to be an outstanding showcase wall. I can’t wait to see all of your ‘how you did it’ posts…and your finished creation.
Just an FYI, My laundry room cabinets are a similar set up on the tops. I have the taller cabinets on the bottom and the shorter ones on top and I can’t see in the shorter ones, I wish I had put the shorter ones lower and the taller ones on top. I am also 5’10” and ended up only sticking extra pillows in them because they are useless. If they were lower I could have stuck small things in them because once they were up 15” is really not that tall.
I’m about to do a kitchen reno, and have decided to do this, too. I’ll use the 15″ ones in between the base and the wall and use them sort of like an appliance garage.
I can’t wait to see how you customise them. Plus I never knew they sold a 15″ deep base cabinet. Thank you for enlightening me. Off to Ikea’s website now.
So happy to see you making such quick progress!
Love your ideas for using IKEA cabinets for your studio project.. You will be saving yourself time and money doing it this way. I am looking forward to watching the progress in your studio.
Excellent choices!!
I think you are a good shopper. Shipping was reasonable too. I just ordered 4 Lillie’s and the shipping was going to be over $20.00. I removed the order because I just can’t justify spending $20 bucks on 4 Lilly plants.
I’m excited to see your finished project.
It looks good to me. Just wondering where you will store all your tools?
The studio isn’t for tools. All of my tools, saws, etc., will still be stored in the sunroom. Eventually, I’ll build (or have someone else build) a workshop for me in the back yard, and that’s where all of my tools and the dirty work of sawing and sanding will take place. My studio is for the non-dust-covered projects and tools, like my sewing machine, art supplies, etc. Think of it like a huge craft and sewing room.
If you need file drawers you can use two 15” tall drawers in the lowers. Some people use a hanging folder frame. I used plastic file boxes and hanging folders. I put two rows of files in a 15” deep, 30” wide, 30” tall base cabinet and it is a lot of file space. Four boxes fit perfectly in each drawer. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012VIJGS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
With supply chain issues I had to order all the cabinet components separately in order to get them more quickly. I have used IKEA kitchen cabinets in a craft room, office and garage. Very satisfied. The inside lights are nice in some cases.
This looks perfect for the office. You will save so much headache not having to measure and cut everything yourself! Can’t wait to see it all complete.
Love it!”
Just an idea – for the spacers on the “office wall” base, might you be able to do stacked square openings for storing rolled things/tubes of things such as blueprints/plans, etc?
I’ll have to look over the measurements again, but I think it might be too narrow to be of any use for storage. But I’d definitely prefer for it to be useful space instead of dead space! Hopefully I can get that to work.
If I know you, you’ll figure out a way to put little shelves in between the cabinets (so no loss of width for cabinet sides) to create some storage there 😉
You can buy (or make) narrow rollouts, often shown for holding spices. The ones from cabinet shops have a front to make them useful as a filler strip. You could use something similar to hold small craft items or paints.
Yes… and left over rolls of wallpaper.
Since you haven’t ordered the cabinetry yet – find out when IKEA’s next kitchen event is on (it is usually twice a year, I think). If it is convenient it is worth making your purchase then because you get 15-20% of your purchase back in IKEA gift cards which you can then use towards anything else in store.
Great point! It’s usually this time of year as well – early March into April.
I love that you are choosing this route and saving yourself time and energy. I know you will make these cabinet look outstanding. If these cabinets are anything like the rest of their stuff “to be assembled”, be sure to invest in a ratchet and ratchet type Allen heads vs. using their measly little Allen wrench. This will save you a headache, a wrist ache and whole lot of curse words 😁.
I have not purchased kitchen cabinets but I did buy my kids dressers (Hemnes) there about 7 years ago and they still look and work like brand new. Surprisingly, I have been so impressed by the quality (made of pine).
I think it’s a good plan. I know IKEA can be tricky to assemble and it’s a ton of cabinets but I’ve always liked IKEA stuff. I have no doubt you’ll tart it up and it’ll look fantastic 😀😀😀
I think this is a great idea. I’ve seen others do the same thing & it worked out great. You’d probably spend more doing it yourself & save time & headaches. I agree about waiting on doing the other wall as well. You may come up with a new idea for that area.
We used IKEA cabinet boxes and ordered cabinet drawer fronts and doors from Etsy. We are thrilled with the mechanics of the IKEA CABINET hardware. We built cabinet boxes when we needed a special size and it only makes us appreciate the IKEA boxes even more because our cabinets are not as square as the ones purchased from IKEA. Plus, instant gratification! We installed those IKEA cabinets and we had something perfectly functional while we figured out the other details.
Kristi I am happy for you. While they are still lots of work for you to assemble, install, and then jazz up, so much of the not fun work will be done. No doubt they are not custom, but for your craft/sewing studio they will be perfect. I was in IKEA yesterday, and again I really like the kitchens. I bought a few more storage items, and a desk for my office/craft room. I love the gray-turquoise units, and I think it is going to phase out so I wanted a few more pieces before it is gone. Everything I bought years ago is still like new. By the way if you join their family membership which is free, you get 5% off things (not sure about if it is only in the store or orders as well) and other deals here and there. Good luck with everything. The shipping seems so good for such big heavy items. I never have that luck which is why we drive a few hours to the nearest store. I am excited for you, and I think you will be happy you went this route. Your studio will be useable very soon!
I noticed that the drawers have sides that are not solid, so do you have to add them? I have never used Ikea cabinets but DIY’ers have sure done some nice things with them. Going to be a wonderful room for you.
When i was building my studio for sewing and art i got a lot of greatrecommendations for Ikea cabinets. I ended up useing cabinets from Habitat restore. They worked fine but were in bad shape to start off. As many as you need i think you will be happy with lkea.
That looks really good. Who knew the Ikea had such wonderful options.
Just a heads up. We own a rental duplex. We redid the kitchen in both units with Ikea cabinets in the 2000s. One side has birch cabinets. The other side has the white laminated cabinets that we bought in 2009. The birch cabinets still look brand new. The white ones looked great until 2019. Those tenants moved out in 2021, and when we did the check out, several of the cabinet doors and drawer fronts were delaminating. I’m not sure why, but the delamination happened at the very top as well as where you’d expect someone might have been cleaning them. Anyway, we checked the warranty. They’re warranted for repair or replacement for 25 years, but you have to have an original receipt. As it turns out, because the cabinets were for an income property, I had the original receipts (though they’d faded and were hardly readable). I also had the “pull lists” which were readable.
Ikea honored the warranty, but wanted to refund our original purchase price. They’ve changed the design of that line of cabinets, and the cost of the replacement cabinets would have been a lot more than we paid for them in 2009. The cabinet boxes were fine. My business partner pressed the issue with them, saying the warranty was for repair of replacement, not refund. They capitulated and replaced all of the doors and drawer fronts. Because of the design changes, we had to do some modifications to the cabinet boxes to get it to work (eg redrill the holes for the hinges to get them to line up properly), but we made it work.
So my unsolicited advice is to save any original receipts you have for your new cabinets. Also scan them so that you can read them after they fade. We saved $1800 because we still had the original receipts.
I’m so glad you decided to go this route! I know it will save you so much time and mental anguish in the long run. Are you using the studio space at all now? If not, I know it will be amazing to be able to get in there and use it the way that you intended.
I am, but not nearly to the extent I will be once everything is organized.
Wow that will go up quick! You’ll be done in no time! What are you going to use for counter tops? Or did I miss you saying?
Maybe you could have a pull out trash bin instead of spacers, behind your desk!
Your plans are always fantastic, only exceeded by your execution of them.
One important suggestion: Before you actually order these Ikea cabinets, go to an Ikea store and look at them and their finishes first. Make sure that you approve of the way they will come together and satisfy yourself that the veneers will stand up to your refinishing/paint.
I have to say, you can’t go wrong adding MORE storage. You don’t think you need as much as you actually do. Your choice of combinations looks like you’ve covered everything you might possibly need to store. Can’t wait to see the transformation. You always do such a beautiful job.
You bet! And I think you will be happy with the IKEA cabinets. My daughter and SO just tore out and redid their kitchen with IKEA cabinets. They are woodworkers and have ALL the woodworking tools, have made fabulous furniture, etc. so could have made everything themselves, but choose IKEA and were very happy with the way everything went up. One cabinet was not included, but no problem, they just made their own to match. Your studio is going to be a wonderful place to create!!
These look great! I think IKEA cabinets go together very nicely and pretty easily, especially if you do an “assembly line,” doing the same step on all the similar items at the same time. I think you’ll also see opportunities to beef-up or customize them as you go.
It so exciting to see this room coming together, too!
Absolutely. You have proven to everyone that you are a master cabinet builder. If you factor in the price of wood these days and the crazy amount of time it would take to build them $5,000 is a bargain. As for the wall beside the door how about saving it for hanging some of your artwork or work in progress. Are you still planning to do the large island workbench for making draperies and other big things? How about some big deep base cabinets for bulky tools? Maybe with some peg board or classier looking slat board to keep hand tools and other things at the ready? I am redoing my studio at the moment and it is a struggle to balance usefulness with pretty.
I made two large worktables for this room a while back. When they’re put together, they measure 5 feet x 10 feet. You can see them here: https://www.addicted2decorating.com/the-finished-studio-work-table.html
May I suggest that your order one cabinet paint it and see how you like it. I have some IKEA cabinets and love them BUT I did not paint over the white Finnish. I would not order all of those until I was certain if the finish will hold up to your usage. You will have your dream room if it works for you!
Hello, Kristy! I just so happen to be doing the Ikea route for a smaller studio space. I wish I had your skill in visualizing and your ingenuity at putting things together!
I have one idea that might be important to you (or possibly to other artists out there who like to check in with your wonderful blog). Watercolor paper storage is very difficult due to the size of full sheets of watercolor paper. Architect or map drawers are out-of-sight expensive and are bigger than necessary. Many of us store the 22″ X 30″ paper under our beds or standing up behind furniture.
IKEA to the rescue! IKEA has ONE wardrobe frame that will hold this size paper–PAX, which is 59x26x79 1/4 “. Doors can be added without bending the paper. I have decided to do a PAX/AULI combo (Auli is mirrored doors) with 6 KOMPLEMENT shelves on a little more than the bottom half, then a big space for my printer, and then another shelf at the top.
I’m checking out your choices for the rest of my room!
So metod is called sektion in the us. Interesting. If you are going to be painting the cabinets you probably don’t need the side panels – the point of those would be to have the same colour as the doors. The side of the cabinets is white anyway, they are your standard melamine.
I just had an idea – I think that last wall may be great to use for some sort of trolley-bench. You have been struggling with your tools ending up all over the place when you are working in a room and have considered having some sort of trolley before; this is an opportunity to make one, make it large enough, and have a space for it where it won’t be clutter itself. It’s right by the door, so kind of an obvious place!
Ok, so I did a quick search and it seems they are aaaalmost the same but not entirely. So their counterpart, not a different name. Found this interesting article: https://jillianlare.com/what-you-must-know-before-planning-your-ikea-kitchen/
But one thing I forgot to say before, if you haven’t used their designer (as I see your drawings being handmade), I would recommend you do so before ordering; may help you make sure you have all the tiny bits that you need, as it add them automatically and gives you a shopping list (or at least, that’s what it used to do, not sure if they changed it).
When will you be starting on them?
I’ll be starting on the studio as soon as I’m done with the home gym.
I’ve done three kitchens in Ikea cabinets and love them! Can’t wait to see how this turns out, especially with the customizing you’re planning.
this is going to look SO GREAT – what a huge useful space!! I can’t wait to see the end result! Have you decided to keep the floral wall? (I personally LOVE it)
I will be keeping it, and I realized what it is that bothers me about that wallpaper. So I’ll be making some modifications…but keeping the wallpaper.
Look forward to the results!! I’m lucky enough to have a spare bedroom that is my office / craft room, but this is so great – what a dreamy space!! <3
YES! Very reasonable! Love it!
Wow! I love this! I’m so excited to see what you’re going to do with these IKEA cabinets! I have been wanting to something similar with my laundry and craft rooms and I’m so inspired by this!!!!
Ok! Awesome plan! So now be ready to fire up the label maker to label the drawers and shelves. Maybe there is a cute way you can put a custom label with gold trim on each of them on the outside. I know we need a system or we will stuff and shut. Just trying to get the wheels turning on how to organize all of this. 😃
Kristi, you make it look so easy! I love your choices and can’t wait to see it come together. Maybe for that last wall, you’ll find an antique cabinet or pretty set of etageres. Something other than built ins will add a little more “soul”? Love your designs and I’m so happy you’re getting this room done. Very exciting!
Oh, looking forward to seeing you tackle Ikea cabinets. Lots of other bloggers have, of course, but you “think” like me! It’ll be interesting to see your thoughts and process. Would love to see a post about how you designed your Ikea cabinets, the process and what tools were helpful for you during that process.
It’s a tough choice between option 1 and option 2 for me. I can’t find a post where you mentioned what hardware you’ve chose so if you haven’t, Ithink you need to make a pull vs knob decision and pick out your hardware before deciding on trim. Color and size of hardware are going to play a big role in the final look since they are the jewelry of cabinetry. Also, I have a hard time believing your 36″ drawers will stay well aligned with a dinky single knob as depicted.
Oops, just posted that to the wrong page.