An IKEA kitchen… that doesn’t look like it

Aurélie Ryckebusch and her husband bought their first house in August. They knocked down interior walls and ripped out the old kitchen. “We looked a little at bespoke kitchens, but the lead times were really long,” explains Aurélie Ryckebusch.

So they opted for an IKEA kitchen, but with a little something extra. “We wanted a kitchen with a little more pep, with a higher standard sums up Aurélie Ryckebusch.

That certain something is the wooden fronts of the island, which they did not order from IKEA, but rather from BoKEA. The new company from La Prairie, on the South Shore, fills a specific niche: it sells doors compatible with IKEA cabinets. The concept is simple. We buy all the visible fronts from BoKEA (doors, drawers, panels), but the rest (boxes, hinges, drawer structures, storage solution), we order from IKEA.

“It’s to our liking,” says Aurélie Ryckebusch, contacted at her home in the Laurentians, in the home stretch of her renovation project. “We made a large island, as we wanted, all at a fair price. Aurélie Ryckebusch and her husband paid approximately $15,000 for their kitchen, which they set up themselves.

Lots of choice

Stylist and decoration journalist, Stéphanie Guéritaud maintains a directory of companies that allow you to customize IKEA furniture on her blog, Déconome. BoKEA is not unique. In Europe, there are several similar companies, such as PLUM, in France, and Superfront, in Sweden. There are also a few in Canada, including Kitch, launched in Alberta in 2017, and Swedish Door, in Ontario.

Stéphanie Guéritaud is delighted that the concept is finally arriving in Quebec. The big advantage, according to her, is the savings you get from buying the cabinets at IKEA.

Doors made by BoKEA, Kitch or Semihandmade, in the United States, are obviously more expensive than those sold at IKEA. “Generally, if we take an IKEA kitchen and that of a kitchen designer, we are between the two,” illustrates Steven Kiekeman Fontaine, president of BoKEA. An example ? A traditional 46cm by 76cm oak veneer door costs $130 at IKEA; BoKEA offers a similar model at $145 for red oak and $214 for white oak, but its products are made in Quebec, with local wood.

In the eyes of installer Marc Gozzi, who has been installing IKEA kitchens for more than 20 years, these new companies have the advantage of offering an incredible variety of styles and colors. BoKEA offers its six designs, which can be taken in five wood species or all Benjamin Moore colors, while Kitch’s line comes in five door styles and over 50 finishes. The quality is also there, says Marc Gozzi, who has already installed doors from Kitch, Swedish Door and BoKEA. “Apart from someone who really knows about it, no one will know that it is an IKEA kitchen,” slips the owner of MGB Installations.

stand out

Stéphanie Guéritaud also sees it as a way to distinguish herself. “There’s a really nice selection at IKEA, but people don’t want their kitchen to look like an IKEA kitchen! she laughs. These small companies, more mobile than IKEA, can also stick to the latest trends. BoKEA will launch a model with vertical lines this month.

Buying an IKEA kitchen and doors elsewhere also has some disadvantages. Doing business with two companies involves a little more planning. IKEA cabinets, which have precise dimensions, obviously do not offer the same flexibility as those made by a kitchen designer or cabinetmaker. And if you put them together yourself, it takes time (and patience).

These companies have small showrooms, but customers usually have to rely on samples and pictures on the internet to order. Unless defective, returns are generally not accepted.

“It’s true, it’s one of the biggest expenses in your home and you order without seeing,” agrees Andrew Hibbs, CEO of Kitch. But if we are able to offer these prices, it is precisely because we do not have all these showrooms…” Mr. Hibbs points out that his company has a team that offers support to customers, both for the design and for the order. This is also the case for BoKEA.

It should be noted that it is worthwhile to request quotes from cabinetmakers at the same time. Some accept to manufacture doors compatible with IKEA cabinets, notes Stéphanie Guéritaud. According to our experience, the price can be competitive.