Overhead cabinets now can be easily swung open for ease of access. The kitchens are priced at IKEA’s usual retails. A 10 by 10 foot kitchen fitted with Sektion cabinets will range from around $1,300 to $2,200, excluding appliances.

In the kitchen, the couple found barely used appliances instead of new ones to save money. The cabinetry and butcher block counters are from Ikea.

Minimalist design can sometimes be a mystery, like modern kitchen cabinets that have no visible hardware. However, a quick little push on the edge of a cabinet can reveal an interior spring mechanism that holds the doors closed.

The room is outfitted with IKEA cabinets, an oven by Miele and a cooktop by Gaggenau.

In a centuries-old building in Montreal, Belgian architect and designer Gaeten Havart undertook a DIY kitchen renovation that makes the most of inexpensive materials. These simple cabinets and modern cabinet pulls are from Ikea and painted with a matte black finish.

One of the system's best new features are the interior drawers, which can now be as detailed as the most expensive high-end systems, providing a place for everything with drawers for pots, knives, tablelinens, and dinnerware.

Some companies offer specialty self-leveling paints that are designed specifically for repainting kitchen cabinets.

More traditional cabinet cup pulls from Ikea can still have a modern sensibility when paired with other sleek finishes.

Just because your kitchen is on the smaller side doesn’t mean you can’t make it as efficient and effective as possible.

Inspired by Danish furniture brand Vipp, Havart overhauled Ikea Akurum cabinets, electro-painting them with a resistant black matte coating. To create a streamlined effect, he capped the cabinet doors with the same finish as the metal appliances and added handles.

A high-gloss finish can be achieved by having a local automotive shop repaint the cabinet fronts. The finish will be long-lasting, strong, and shiny.

The client wanted to be able to prepare meals efficiently. A red steel pegboard backsplash lets him easily access cooking utensils. The cabinets are Ikea.

Black and white kitchen tiles add visual interest to this stunning modern kitchen by IKEA.

Their creative confections may ruin our diets, but we’re happy to be their taste testers anytime.

In this sleek kitchen renovation in San Francisco, the kitchen backsplash is an easy-to-clean glass backsplash that mimics the glossy finish of the surrounding white cabinets. Painters accomplished the high-gloss finish on the cabinets of a kitchen in San Francisco by applying a coat of paint, polishing it with very high-grit sandpaper, repeating the process for each layer, then topping it with three coats of clear varnish. "It’s like an auto body," says builder Jeff King. "It’s incredibly beautiful." The island provides shelving space and storage as well as a second sink, an is topped with pietra grigio marble.

For the kitchen, Tyler hired David Restorick, a furniture maker and friend, to build an island for storage and to wrap Ikea cabinets with oak for a customized look. He also built a staircase that doubles as display space for Tyler’s vast collection of colorful cookware by the likes of Finel, Copco, Cathrineholm, Jens Quistgaard, and Stig Lindberg.

Designer Jeff Sand’s Universal Chairs combine his love for classic French café chairs with an appreciation for “the beautiful metal casings on an old Moto Guzzi.” Sand Studios also designed the dining table and pendant lamp.

A post-renovation view of the kitchen shows it opening into the family room. Replacing the former white cabinets are Island drawer fronts and wall panelling of teak wood and reclaimed American elm countertop, milled by Vintage Material Supply. The differing grains of the teak veneers and elm countertop vadd complexity and rhythm to the kitchen's wood motif. Stuc Pierre plaster ceiling selected by the homeowner, Sloan Houser, adds an airy feel to the opened space.

A new pantry wall in a teak wood veneer supplies all-but-invisible cabinet space with the help of touch-latch door hardware. Perched atop the existing terrazzo flooring, the underbelly of the kitchen's central island, painted with Benjamin Moore paint in the Midsummer Night shade, is visible beneath the reclaimed American elm countertop.

The new kitchen borrowed space and light from the original courtyard. The spirit of the courtyard remains with the buffer between the kitchen and the exterior wall. The cabinets are from Ikea, the countertops are quartzite, and the grill top is from Bertazzoni.

For this kitchen, the architects paired slate-gray HPL (high-pressure laminate) cabinets by Henrybuilt, cool Basaltina countertops, with custom shelving and a white Corian backsplash.

Pros: Laminate is at the low end of the price range for countertops, is scratch- and stain-resistant, and comes in a tremendous range of colors. It’s also easy to install, making it a viable DIY option for the handy crowd. Cons: Because laminate countertops are created by layering pieces of plywood and plastic, edges can chip off easily, and the surface can even melt if too much heat is applied directly.

Guess used inexpensive graded pine plywood so that he would get heavy grain patterns on the surfaces. One of the main goals in the kitchen was simplicity. To that end, he opted for a poured-in-place concrete island. "We didn’t know if we could afford to do that, but we found a great subcontractor [Nate Francis of Countertop Creations] here who had never really built anything like that," Guess says. "Because he was interested in giving it a shot and adding it to his portfolio, he didn’t charge an exorbitant amount of money because it was sort of an experiment for him as well." The kitchen features a GE Profile refrigerator and KitchenAid range, microwave, and dishwasher. The sink and faucet are from Kohler. The project's builder was Joe Doherty with Custom Homecrafters of Austin.

The cabinets are from Ikea, the range is by GE, and the Jenn-Air refrigerator is tucked unobtrusively into the pantry wall. The troweled concrete floor was poured in place by the builder, Peter Knudsen.

A Carrara marble backsplash adds cool contrast and a sense of drama when set against the custom oiled-steel black cabinetry in the renovation of the kitchen in this A. Quincy Jones home in Los Angeles.

“The walnut unit between the kitchen and dining room ties into the fumed oak floor,” Dubbeldam says. “The rest of the materials in the house—glass, marble, stone—were selected to offset the wood.”

At a seaside New Zealand house, the simple kitchen has strandboard cabinetry and an MDF island that conceals a fireplace at one end. The bright green cabinetry of the island are a happy pop of color that references the native greenery outside.

In the sleek kitchen, the white Ikea cabinet uppers seem to disappear into the wall, while the bases get a distinctive custom walnut wrapping. Flanking the cabinets are open bookshelves, which provide secondary function as a spacial divider for the children’s play area. A Dornbracht faucet sits on a slab of Vermont Olympian White Danby marble, which is also used for the island and backsplash.

The budget was nearly as tight as the space in this cheerful renovation of a 516-square-foot flat in Bratislava. The centerpiece of Lukáš Kordík’s new kitchen is the cabinetry surrounding the sink, a feat he managed by altering the facing and pulls of an off-the-rack Ikea system. The laminate offers a good punch of blue, and in modernist fashion, Kordík forwent door handles in favor of cutouts. “I wanted the kitchen to be one simple block of color without any additional design,” he says.

Christine (at left), and Amanda (at right) chat with David’s sister Aroha Yates-Smith (center) in the kitchen.

Builder Jason Miars fabricated the walnut-paneled walls and kitchen cabinetry, which is accented by stainless-steel Linnea drawer pulls.

The kitchen features Ikea Sektion cabinets and Whirlpool appliances. The dining area contains a table from CB2, a George Nelson pendant, and Eames molded fiberglass chairs that were picked up at the Alameda Flea Market.

Pippa (left) and Maisie (right) play in the kitchen. Though Hale and Edmonds would have preferred Bosch appliances, a deal at Ikea was too good to pass up. They purchased all of the cabinets and appliances (a combination that earned them 20-percent off the total) for a mere $4,700.

In the kitchen, white MDF cabinets stow tools. A Lebanese cedar island and stainless-steel countertops provide ample work space—and a place to display treasured items, such as the Buono V60 drip kettle by Hario. The island features a Franke sink with a Vola faucet. The oven is by Siemens.

Home Renovation Tip: Determine Splurge-Worthy Items Upfront

A consistent wood palette makes the interior feel cohesive.