How To Customize IKEA Kitchen Cabinets, No Carpenter Required

IKEA kitchens—and bathrooms and wardrobes—are super-popular, but sometimes you want to kick things up a notch and move past the ubiquitous IKEA look. These six companies craft cabinet fronts, panels, and more in a wide variety of materials, colors, and styles. Some of them will even work with you to create fronts in custom colors and styles. Design your basic IKEA kitchen layout, and then head to one of these companies to make it the kitchen of your dreams.

Semihandmade has been making doors for IKEA cabinets since 2011. They design doors and panels that work with current and old kitchen, bathroom, and closet systems in a very wide variety of styles, colors, and materials. Above, Sarah Sherman Samuel’s kitchen, with unfinished fronts painted “Pigeon” by Farrow & Ball.

PLYKEA creates “bespoke plywood doors, drawer fronts, worktops and cover panels” for IKEA’s METOD line, with plans to do the PAX line in the near future. Fronted with either wood or Formica, their doors are all made to order. Unfortunately, the company only currently ships to mainland UK, but they have plans to expand across Europe and the US.

Materials: Wood-faced plywood, Formica-faced plywood
What IKEA cabinets do they work with?: METOD
Panels?: Yes
Price Range: £1720-£1950 for a medium kitchen, and you can get a general idea and a custom quote.
Turnaround Time: No standard time—everything is made to order.
Samples?: Yes! A set of three plywood samples is £5
Available in the US?: No—mainland UK only.
Showroom?: No

Superfront’s showstopping cabinet doors (also, lead image above) are available in eight gorgeous patterns and 13 tasteful colors, as well as any custom color you desire. The Superfront website has a ton of helpful information for you and/or your architect to use when planning your kitchen. Fingers crossed that they start shipping to the US soon! Above a kitchen using their “Naked” fronts, which are lacquered MDF.

Materials: MDF
What IKEA cabinets do they work with?: BESTA, METOD, FAKTUM, PAX
Panels?: Yes
Price Range: €63-€269/door, depending on size/pattern
Turnaround Time: 8-11 weeks
Samples?: No, but you can order just one panel.
Available in the US?: Legs and panels only
Showroom?: Stockholm and Oslo

Handmade in Northern Europe, Reform’s lovely cabinet fronts reflect the company’s collaboration with designers from Denmark. You can work with Reform to design your kitchen from scratch or refresh your existing IKEA kitchen. You can also purchase panels and fronts in custom sizes for an extra 10% charge.

Materials: Painted MDF, veneer-fronted MDF
What IKEA cabinets do they work with?: SEKTION, AKURUM, GODMORGON
Panels?: Yes
Price Range: $1,532-$4,820 for a small kitchen
Turnaround Time: 10-14 weeks
Samples?: Yes! $40/each
Available in the US?: Yes
Showroom?: Brooklyn, Sydhavnen, Berlin

This Portland company was started five years ago with the vision of creating eco-friendly fronts for IKEA cabinetry, using low- and no-VOC paints, no-VOC varnishes, low-VOC glues, and recycled wood. Everything is made to order, and Kokeena will work with you to provide design plans and accurate quotes.

Materials: Veneer-fronted MDF, veneer-fronted recycled wood, painted recycled wood
What IKEA cabinets do they work with?: SEKTION, PAX, AKURUM, GODMORGON
Panels?: Yes
Price Range: $5,028-$7,291 for a medium kitchen ($2,000 minimum)
Turnaround Time: 4-8 weeks
Samples?: Yes! $3-$7.50/sample, depending on type
Available in the US?: Yes
Showroom?: Portland, OR

The thing that sets The Cabinet Face apart is this: “Order a set of kitchen cabinet doors from us and we’ll pay for an expert designer to create your kitchen. You get the ideal layout, and we get a rock-solid design to work with. Call for a list of approved designers, or choose your own and we’ll pay up to $199 of their fee.” You can obviously design your kitchen yourself, but having an expert by your side would surely bring some piece of mind. The other novel offering this company provides is the metallic acrylic finish option!

Materials: paint/stain-grade MDF, textured melamine, natural woods, solid wood, matte acrylic, high-gloss acrylic, metallic acrylic
What IKEA cabinets do they work with?: PAX, GODMORGON
Panels?: Yes
Price Range: Use the instant estimator to calculate your costs.
Turnaround Time: 5+ weeks
Samples?: Yes! $9.99/4 samples of your choice
Available in the US?: Yes
Showroom?: Denver