AISLIN CARTOON - JUNE 11TH, 2011

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Montreal is crazy with the Grand Prix - no parking anywhere!

Get a kitchen reno you love for less. A new kitchen can cost as little as $5,000

Dream kitchens usually cost a lot of money. But it's possible to achieve an up-todate look without breaking the bank by using Ikea components.

Susan Evans's new kitchen is proof that a major kitchen renovation can be done for less than $10,000 - without cutting corners.

The Oak Bay home she bought recently desperately needed a kitchen makeover. But a custom kitchen renovation, which typically starts at $30,000, was beyond her budget after the home purchase.

So she turned to the idea of redoing her whole kitchen with Ikea components to stretch her dollar.

"When I was in Vancouver I saw a lot of houses with Ikea kitchens," says Evans, who recently moved to Victoria from Vancouver. "They all looked good and, more importantly, they were within my budget."

It cost her about $5,000 for new cabinets for her kitchen, which is about 3.3 metres square (11 feet by 11 feet). Other costs include labour for installation and the services of an interior designer to refine her idea.

The interior designers who helped Evans with her design didn't need to be swayed. Both of them have Ikea kitchens themselves.

"I don't live in a high-end house, so I just couldn't justify the cost of a high-end kitchen," says Heather Draper, principal designer of Bespoke Designs. "I got way more value redoing my kitchen with cabinets from Ikea."

She says a kitchen can be done beautifully without having to spend a lot of money.

"Its may be more challenging, but in the end more rewarding, to make an inexpensive kitchen look fabulous," she says. "It's like doing a dream home on a budget."

The interior architectural designer at Bespoke Designs agrees.

"It takes more time to try to fit the same amount of amenities in a small kitchen," says Alexis Solomon, who has been with the design firm for three years. "But one has to be careful with overall esthetics, not just function."

She says although it may be easy to work with Ikea components, they have limited sizes to work with compared to conventional local kitchen cabinet manufacturers. A local manufacturer can offer cabinets in 7.6-centimetre (three-inch) increments, while Ikea offers only four pre-set (albeit the most popular) sizes to choose from.

This means the designers have to come up with some creative alternatives if a room doesn't precisely match the cabinets available.

"We sometimes take a cabinet and lay it on its side as a solution," says Solomon, a native Victorian. "We have to think outside the box, in a manner of speaking."

People are sometimes embarrassed to admit that they have budget kitchens. But the designers have a solution: They paint them and dress them up with different pulls or mouldings - everything possible to disguise their roots.

But people need not be embarrassed, says Draper.

"I have equipped penthouses with Ikea components. They may be inexpensive but the quality is very good. Take the door hinges and drawer slides. These are parts that usually break down and give people headaches," she says. "But Ikea has some of the best working parts. This is what sets their kitchens apart from the rest."

The cabinets themselves are simple enough to assemble but the installation part can be tricky and time-consuming.

"It can be overwhelming for some people," says Anthony Stubbs, co-owner of IKAN Installations, who exclusively installs Ikea kitchens. "We have the tools and, more importantly, we have perfected the technique to get the job done right."

He says the advantage of Ikea kitchens is the fact that the Vancouver store usually has most of the components in stock. That means he can go over at any time to pick up the kitchen cabinet pieces.

Installation can be completed in as little as a week after he receives a deposit on the project, he says. Typically he buys the units, transports them over to the Island, assembles them offsite and then installs them in the client's house.

His company used to do renovations, but the demand for kitchens has meant the company does only Ikea installations fulltime. His services include kitchen design, a 3-D rendering of the completed design, shipping, assembly of the cabinets, the demolition the existing kitchen, if needed, and installation of the new one.

Evans is so happy with her kitchen renovation that she is redoing her bathroom - with Ikea components of course.

parrais@timescolonist.com
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