How to Install IKEA Kitchen Cabinets

This is the 2nd post in a series for the kitchen remodel of the Main House Fixer Upper here at One Hundred Acres Home. You can check out the old kitchen demolition and the kitchen remodel planning post here. Now it is time to actually install the IKEA kitchen cabinets and turn this remodel plan into a reality. I’m excited and nervous because this is my first IKEA kitchen. This post will show you the kitchen prep work, how to install IKEA kitchen cabinets, and how to finish them with doors, trim, cover panels and lighting. Let’s get started!

Prep Work for Kitchen Cabinets:

Here is the general area of the kitchen after my husband and I demo’d the old kitchen. I cleaned up the walls and patched holes we made during the demo. You may be able to tell that the walls and ceilings are smooth. Yes, I also smoothed out the old 198’0’s knock down texture for a more modern look. You can check out all the info and products used to smooth drywall texture in the post here.

The walls and ceilings have their final coat of paint. The hardwood floors are installed and ready to go. There is some debate as to whether base cabinets should be installed over flooring or not. Since the IKEA cabinets are supported by a wall track along the wall and small toe-kick feet, I figured the flooring under the cabinets wasn’t going to hurt anything. So the flooring extends under the cabinet here. I am writing this post after the kitchen is finished and has been in use for some time. Absolutely no problems with the extended flooring.

If you remember from the kitchen planning post, I have a 2-D drafted plans of the kitchen with everything dimensioned down to 1/8 of an inch. Here a print out of the kitchen sink wall elevation. Those orange lines of options for floating shelves. I STILL have not decided if I want two or three shelves.

The last prep work needed before I can get to the cabinet install is to place 2x blocking between the wall studs to support the floating shelf brackets. They need to be properly supported, and I really do not want to rely on drywall anchors here. This is my installed blocking for the floating shelves. I am still giving myself the option for three shelves here.

Next, I patched the drywall. The patches aren’t perfect. That’s just fine because that whole open shelving wall will get tiled to the ceiling, fancy!

Modern Classic Kitchen Ceiling Fan:

Oh, I almost forgot, I also replaced the old kitchen ceiling fan with something more modern and really cute to fit the modern classic remodel theme of this house. This is a Hunter Fan in the Cranbrook model in gloss black. I’m using three of these fans in the house for design consistency and because I think they’re so cute!

Here’s a closer look at the kitchen ceiling fan. The blades have a darker walnut and a lighter oak option depending on which side you face down. These are the light oak blades. I think they look really nice with the flooring. The fan also comes with an Edison bulb for a cool effect.

IKEA Kitchen Delivery:

Now let’s install some IKEA kitchen cabinets! One of the hallmarks of IKEA products is that you build them yourself. This is the same for their kitchens. But don’t worry, they come with very decent instructions and are pretty easy to put together.

When you order an IKEA kitchen, it will come delivered in many flat boxes on pallets to you door. Here is my IKEA kitchen delivery. They did not deliver inside during that time, due to the world-wide plague, so my workout for the day was carrying all these boxes inside to protect them from overnight dew.

These are all the boxes moved inside. It is a lot to sort through. Make sure you check your delivery right away for errors and omissions. I had missing parts and weird additions that required some calls to IKEA to get corrected.

Install IKEA Kitchen Sektion Cabinets:

My kitchen and the most common kitchen cabinets from IKEA (as of today) use their Sektion line of cabinets. Each cabinet needs to be constructed individually. It’s not difficult, and each one goes faster than the one before. Here is a link to their assembly instructions so you can see what the assembly entails.

This is the back of one upper wall cabinet. Those two metal clips on the upper corners hold the cabinets in place along a wall-mounted track, much like a French cleat system.

What’s great about this system is that it allows you to slide and adjust the placement of the cabinets along the wall-mounted track to get them set perfectly in place. You also know the cabinets are solidly supported because the track is connected directly to each wall stud.

After many careful measurements and the help of many hand levels and a laser level, here are my wall-mounted cabinet tracks. IKEA has a kitchen installation guide that walks you through how to measure and place these tracks. The do a good job of explaining, so I’ll simply direct you there if you want specifics. But, I want to emphasize here that it is VERY VERY IMPORTANT that these tracks be LEVEL! If they are off, your cabinets wont line up, your doors will look wonky, and your countertops wont be level or may not match at joints. Yikes. SO MAKE THESE TRACKS LEVEL!

Here are progress photos as I placed each cabinet on the wall track. I was able to install all of this myself, as a one-person DIY project because the track system makes placing cabinets very easy.

These upper cabinets might look tall to you. They are the tallest, 40 inch tall, upper cabinets available because I really want to maximize storage and cabinet space. They are placed as close to the 8 foot tall ceiling as I could get to work with the wall track system.

Next, I set the wall track for the base cabinets on the opposite wall and set the base cabinets in place. The base cabinets are supported along the wall track and with small adjustable feet at their front. The only cabinet I still need to install is the overhead refrigerator cabinet, but more on that later.

IKEA Upper Wall Cabinet Lighting:

Once I set all the base cabinets and confirmed my general layout worked, I realized that it would be a lot easier to install the upper cabinet lighting WITHOUT the base cabinets in the way. So I lifted them off the track and moved them out of the way.

The above photo shows the installed cabinet lighting. I am using the IKEA Mittled LED spotlights in the glass cabinets each side of the stove. Those are the round lights you see. You’ll need to drill holes in the cabinet top to place those lights. The Dewalt hole saw kit came in handy for drilling clean, exact holes here.

The under-cabinet strip lighting is also IKEA Mittled in LED strips. All the chords connect behind the cabinets and joint together in a lighting coordinator called a “wireless control” that allows for a wireless on/off/dimmer switch of you cabinet lighting.

Some people hide the wireless control above the upper cabinets. But you can see I placed those cabinets as close to the ceiling as I could, so I put the wireless control in the center cabinet above the stove/microware. Everything operates with an IKEA wireless remote that I will attach with a 3M sticker to the finished tile backsplash once that’s installed.

Here is a look at the under cabinet lighting. It is a soft white light that adds a nice a very nice touch to the kitchen.

Finish Molding Trim at IKEA Upper Cabinets:

Next, I tested the look and fit of the upper cabinet doors by installing a solid door and a glass door. The doors and cabinet fronts are from the IKEA Lerhyttan line in black. I think they are lovely in a dark modern classic, kind of sexy way.

If you look closely, you can juust see a small gap between the top of the upper cabinets and the ceiling. The gap is still noticeable with the cabinet doors on. It bugged both me and my husband, so I decided to add a small, very simple, crown molding to close off that gap.

The photo below shows the scrap 3/4 inch thick wood I added above the upper cabinets. This acts as a backing support for the finish molding. I simply brad-nailed these to the upper cabinets from below.

While we’re adding support for trim and finishes, there is also a small gap at the corner you can see in the photo below. This 30 inch wide cabinet typically has two doors. But because I want open shelving on the opposite wall, I will cover the left-half of the cabinet with a cover panel. The right half will have a normal door and allow access to the “hidden” part of the cabinet. Clever yeah?

I built up a filler piece for that corner gap. Here it is from below the upper cabinets. Everything is nailed together with brad nailer using 18 gage brad nails and then nailed to the wall or the cabinet.

Anyway, back to the ceiling molding. I want this to be simple and to blend in with the cabinets. So I used some scrap pine boards and cut them to match the thickness of the cabinet doors and the height of the gap between the cabinets and the ceiling. Then I got really lucky and found a wood stain that matches the IKEA Lerhyttan finish. Here are some of my custom molding pieces with the stain.

This is the black stain I used. It is a very very close match to the IKEA Lerhyttan finish. I called IKEA for their help, but they would not give me the name nor a recommended match for their finishes. I am happy to report that this DIY version is a good match.

Once the stain was dry, I installed the molding along the top of the cabinets by brad nailing them into those backing pieces. Here is the corner molding. I will fill the small nail holes with a black colored wood filler and will install a cover panel on the side of the cabinet to match the doors.

This is my simple, modern classic molding with the cabinet doors. You can see the color match is pretty good.

To give this a professional finish, I installed a super small bead of black silicone caulk where the trim meets this ceiling. If this gets messy, it could go south really fast. So I used the blue tape you can see in the photo below to guide exactly where I want the caulking. Make sure your tape is placed in a straight line! If you do this right, it looks soo good and professional. Thankfully it turned out, and I did not get black caulking everywhere.

Finally, I installed the wall track for the refrigerator cabinet, got that placed exactly where I wanted on the wall, and installed the molding. I will finish off the refrigerator cabinet with tall panels from IKEA on both sides. But I want to set the lower cabinets first.

Install IKEA Kitchen Cabinet Doors & Cover Panels:

We’re in the home stretch! Next, I installed the upper cabinet doors and cover panels. IKEA sells the cover panels to match their doors. They came as part of the kitchen order. Here are the finished upper cabinets and some progress on the lower cabinets.

You can see I installed that cover panel on the upper cabinet closest to us. There is also a cover panel at the far side to cover that “hidden” upper cabinet space.

IKEA also sells what’s called a deco strip to finish the bottom of the upper cabinets. This is the installed deco strip. I like that it hides the under cabinet lighting from view. The side cover panel on the right extends to cover the end of the deco strip. The blue tape tabs help me open and close the cabinets doors for the time being.

More progress on the IKEA Lerhyttan doors and finishing.

Now that I have the bottom cabinets placed, I installed one panel for the refrigerator.

Here is the finished refrigerator box out and the installed IKEA kitchen cabinets!

There are some very minor things left. I will install the toe kick once the stove is in place. I also want some cover panels for the exposed cabinets around the microwave. But I will install those once the microwave is in place. But it is *basically* done! Stay tuned for the countertops, appliances, cabinet pulls, backsplash, and floating shelves! Whew!