Who's using IKEA cabinets? Talk me out of using them!

[Troy Sheets]

So we're a few flips in now and we've only used IKEA cabinets with the soft close hinges. They look good and work well but our contractors hate them due to the assembly time. We're probably getting dinged by the contractor for the assembly time too but, outside of that, the cost and quality seems comparable to cabinets I'm seeing sold locally by cabinet distributors. 

Thoughts? Any suggestions on where to get the best quality and price on cabinets in Philadelphia area? I'd love to try something else.

[Aaron McGinnis]

We've used Ikea in the past. Done quite a bit of it, actually. I know them better than I want to, so here it goes -

PROS -
* Easy to pick up if you're missing a piece
* Excellent value for hardware options. Doing fancy hardware combinations would be twice as much from a conventional manufacturer (Pull outs, pull downs, etc.)
* Typically immediately available
* Good longevity for regular human use (Not low-grade tenants)
* Doors are super easy to replace if you need to replace something or change styles later
* The rails are affordable. Frameless cabinets need to be installed on rails, and something from a 'real' manufacturer costs 2x.
* It's very easy to price as a layman
* The homeowner can customize to their heart's content. One time we flipped a house with Ikea and gave the homeowner a $1000 gift card for a full-price offer... and it worked.
* If the cabinets are installed correctly, they're good and sturdy.

CONS -
* Easy to pick up... until that one piece you need is unavailable and will take 6 months to get to you from China.
* Contractors hate them and it's virtually impossible to bill enough to cover assembly.
* It's almost impossible to wrap a typical installer's (or carpenter's) brain around the assembly method. If you weren't a Lego kid, you're basically SOL. Putting together a full kitchen is more like putting together the world's most challenging Lego kit than it is normal carpentry or cabinet work.
* Logistically, they suck. The delivery sucks. The waiting in line sucks. I've never had a kitchen or anything else delivered 100% accurately... there's always parts missing, and half of someone's bed mixed in. 
* Did I mention that waiting in line SUCKS. Someone is going to spend hours dealing with the incomplete or inaccurate delivery.
* Their design software is a total POS. My kitchen and bath people typically run 20/20 and scream bloody murder at the screen when running the Ikea software. 
* The crappy design software makes it very hard to do anything beyond basic, straight layouts.
* The crappy design software and the batching of some parts (like hinges) invariably means that you are going to end up with too many hinges.
* For a frameless cabinet, the reveals are large and unsightly. Granted, that may not matter most of the time... but it will never compare to a good quality frameless cabinet.
* The plastic feet suck, the toe kick sucks worse. We usually end up ripping down 2x6s to make runners for the base cabinets, and then nailing 1x4 in for toe kick.
* The toe kick is sold in absurdly short lengths, making a really clean install of toe kick impossible.
* The parts are downright fragile in the boxes. We've never gotten through a delivery or install without something being damaged in the box either from being dropped, or bending down the middle, or whatever. 
* The last kitchen we did came in 997 (actual number) individual parts/boxes/bags. The delivery guys give zero ***** about sorting things accurately, and so just sorting the parts takes hours and a decent logistical brain.
* Doing that kind of sorting in a small, crowded, dusty, hot, cold space is awful.
* In order to figure out what parts are missing from the delivery BEFORE you need the parts, the only viable option is to have someone stand in front of the delivery truck with your own bill of lading and manually check off every piece that comes out of the truck. Not only do the delivery people hate this, the person tasked with the job will be ready to sit in a hot bath and slit their wrist once it is all over.