Luxury Kitchen Design on a Budget with IKEA

In Denver, designing any kitchen on a budget can be a difficult task, especially if you want to get that more luxurious-looking kitchen that you saw on Instagram. 

When shopping for appliances for a luxury kitchen, Roth Living’s showroom is definitely one of the places that someone looking for luxury design will inevitably check out.

There you will see some elegant examples of kitchens that cost a pretty penny. But when you look closely at them, you begin to see that IKEA has pretty competitive build quality compared to the cabinetry found in the showroom. 

IKEA vs Custom Kitchen 

With IKEA’s Sektion cabinet system, there is plenty of overlap with custom kitchen cabinetry companies. They come with rigid 3/4-inch carcasses, adjustable soft-close hinges from Blum, and a modular sizing system that lines up with standard appliance widths. 

The box is the least glamorous part of any kitchen, and it's also the part almost nobody sees once the doors are on. That's what makes it compelling for many homeowners and designers to build kitchens that look nothing like an IKEA showroom.

There’s a great debate about kitchen box material. Plywood, plywood, plywood gets thrown around. In reality, IKEA’s melamine is sealed very well and no matter the material, the cabinet will be damaged no matter what if water is allowed to sit for a long time. The weakness in IKEA boxes comes with their back. It’s a little flimsy but with some extra backing structure and potentially just making them on site can alleviate the issue. 

Customizing the Kitchen Look

Where this turns into a great system is when you skip the IKEA doors entirely. I use the same fronts that are used at some of the most expensive homes in Colorado. With sequenced Decospan wood, the cabinet boxes disappear behind a face.

The savings come almost entirely from labor and markup rather than materials. A custom cabinet shop charges for design time, box fabrication, and installation labor on top of the wood itself. Sektion removes the fabrication step. the boxes arrive pre-cut, pre-drilled, and ready to hang, so a contractor's time goes toward finish work instead of building carcasses from scratch. For a mid-size kitchen, that difference alone can cut the total budget by half compared to a fully custom install using comparable materials.

I was first introduced to the Sektion system almost two decades ago working on luxury condos on the East Coast. They were generally small kitchens that paired well with a cabinet front maker to turn around kitchens quickly. 

Adjustments to Dial In: Drawer Fronts

To get that luxury feel, the cabinet faces need to be dialed in.

Vertical Height Adjustment (Farthest Back Smaller Screws) 

The rear screws adjust the overall height of the drawer front up or down. Both sides operate identically: 

Raise drawer front: Turn clockwise (both left and right side) 

Lower drawer front: Turn counter-clockwise (both left and right side) 

Horizontal Alignment (Front Most, Big Screws) 

The big front screws shift the drawer front side-to-side. 

Move front to the LEFT: Right Side: Turn counter-clockwise to release tension Left Side: Turn clockwise to move

Move front to the RIGHT: Left Side: Turn counter-clockwise to release tension Right Side: Turn clockwise to move

Drawer Front Angle

Pull back the white bars just above the drawer adjustment screws. There you will see white or gray adjustment dials. 

Towards Cabinet: Screwed clockwise to bring the cabinet face in towards the cabinet.

Away from the cabinet: Screw counter-clockwise to bring the cabinet face away from the cabinet box.