I think ikea’s cabinet quality is such that you will probably just grow tired of your kitchen and want to remodel before you have to do so because the cabinets are breaking down.

By the way, Ikea recently upped the warranty to 25 years. I don’t expect to be in this apartment in 25 years, but nice to see that they’re confident, I guess!

If you are remodeling with the idea of selling and appealing to a broad market the real estate experts say to go with all white cabinets. Even if you plan to keep the kitchen for a while going with all white cabinets is also a good idea if you ever need to buy replacements parts (door gets scratched, damaged, etc.) - the white cabinet style would probably still be available. Sometimes Ikea discontinues certain cabinet styles.

They also have a 10 year warranty. My parents got Ikea cabinets 15 years ago and they still look brand new.

We actually bought this faucet yesterday:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/cata.....s/90060551

But then we came home and realized it was too tall to go below our cabinets. So we’ll have to return it, I’m afraid. Too bad — I love it. Whatever we get, it really has to have a hose or spray, which probably rules out most goose-neck models.

Yes, we’re getting an apron sink! I’m very excited about this. It’s the same model as the one in the photo, only it’s narrower and single-bowl (the one in the photo is double, which would be great, but we just don’t have room for it without sacrificing lots of counter space).

We’re not going with dark countertops, but I think those can look great, personally. We’re actually doing something pretty interesting with ours. We love the look of marble, but it’s super impractical for a kitchen. This Italian company recently became the first to figure out how to simulate marble-like veining in a quartz countertop — nobody had ever done it before. It’s called Okite. It’s very hard to find Okite, and very expensive, because it has to be imported. But! We lucked out, because DuPont just signed some sort of deal to offer Okite colors as part of its Zodiaq line. Still, it’s very new and thus hard to find, but we tracked down a company out in Suffolk County that’ll do it. Also, the Ikea saleslady from yesterday completely refused to believe that Ikea couldn’t do it, too, and though she’d never heard of it, she promised to track down the info and get back to us tomorrow. We’ll see — I have my doubts.

Are you totally redoing your kitchen? What are you doing for cabinets?

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zo.....038;size=o

It’s a very European country kitchen look. That sink is very similar to the one we’re getting, too. I’ll post some before-and-after photos on Flickr when it’s all done — should be about a month or so!