LESLIE: Penny’s next and she listens to The Money Pit on The Quake in California – KQKE. And you’ve got a kitchen question. You’re thinking about replacing your cabinets. How can we help?
PENNY: Hi. Yeah, this is a great show. I live in an older condo complex built about 30 years ago on a slab foundation. I have – I have a lot of moisture so I think I’m going to have to replace my entire cabinet – all the cabinets in my kitchen and not just, say, reface the doors or do something simple. And I’m trying to think about how to save money and I’m wondering whether it’s possible to just plunk in – more or less plunk in – say, an Ikea rebuilt cabinet.
TOM: Are you talking about Ikea?
PENNY: Yeah.
TOM: Oh, yeah. I love those cabinets …
LESLIE: Yeah, we love them.
TOM: I’ve got – I’ve got Ikea cabinets in my kitchen right now and they’re – they were great. I mean they’re really sturdy, they’re inexpensive and they were fun to put together. So it’s (chuckling) …
LESLIE: And you know what? I think Ikea offers a lot of choices that are a lot more design oriented at an inexpensive price. Where if you went to, say, a big home improvement store, you’re limited to one or two choices of the prefab or the ones that you put together. And you know, they’re nice but they don’t give you a lot of choices. With Ikea, you get a lot of fun options and the price is fantastic.
If you’re thinking about replacing cabinets and since it seems like you want to keep cost down, you want to make sure that you keep the cabinets in the same positioning. So replace the cabinets that you have with the exact formation of the cabinets that are in there. So, this way, you don’t have to worry about moving things around; whether it’s plumbing or electrical or gas lines. So that makes it very cost effective.
TOM: Another little trick of the trade, Penny, is when you take out the old cabinets and you’re ready to start putting in the new ones, you want to put in the wall cabinets first. And one thing that’s different about the way Ikea cabinets install that’s different from, say, the other standard wood cabinets is it’s actually a pretty smart design. They have you mount a steel bar on the wall first and then – so you simply have to level the steel bar – and then, the new cabinets hang on the steel bar. Yeah, it’s a really smart way to do it because, normally, you’re lifting this very heavy cabinet up and trying to keep the whole thing lined up. But you have to just level the steel bar with the Ikea cabinets. So it really works well. So I think it’s pretty easy to do compared to doing the traditional box cabinet.
But just take your time. Take it one step at a time. Keep the layout the same, like Leslie said, and you’ll be good to go. You’ll have an inexpensive kitchen and it will look great.
Penny, thanks so much for listening to us on KQKE.
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