Modern Ikea Cabinets in a vintage Airstream
It actually is simpler to do that you might imagine. I think of Ikea parts as large tinker toys or Lego blocks. For example, just because Ikea doesn’t make a tall 18″ cabinet that doesnt mean I can’t make a tall 18″ cabinet from Ikea parts. And, yes, that is one of the things that I did.
But a reasonable question is why would we want to put Ikea cabinets in our Airstream? Why pull out the existing cabinets? Several reasons:
- Our cabinets were decaying. There had been water damage that required significant repair, we knew we had a major project.
- I have an Ikea kitchen and love the cubbys, drawers, fittings and thingamabobs that come with the Ikea Rationale fittings.
- Minimal carpentry skills required for a truly professional looking finish. Drawers, doors, pulls and even sinks are all Ikea-rrific. You gotta love it.
- I knew that I could do it. I had done my own Ikea kitchen. I had bought the flat boxes and installed the cabinets. If I could DIY 21 linear feet of base cabinets, wall cabinets and another 14 feet of tall cabinets, I could DIY a 19 foot trailer, with help – of course.
- Finally, design. My house, with an Ikea kitchen, was one of Metropolitan Home’s 2001 Homes of the Year winners. An Ikea kitchen is flat out beautiful and I love good design.
The picture above shows the run of kitchen cabinets dry-fitted in the trailer. The order is from left to right: 24″ refrigerator-30″ sink-24″ oven-18″ tall pantry. The pantry is next to the bathroom and on the other side of the bathroom is another 18″ tall cabinets that will be fitted with shelves for a linen closet and will also hold the electrical components and the two deep cycle batteries that we charge with a solar panel. More on that soon.
Fitting the base cabinets is pretty simple. I’ve discussed my friend the compass in an earlier post. Our trailer does not have much of an arc below the mid-line. I used the cardboard inside the Ikea boxes to sketch a rough pattern and then used the compass to make the cardboard patterns more precise. When it looked like I had a pattern that was pretty close I cut the Ikea fiberboard, but only after bringing each piece inside the trailer and clearly labeling which piece went where and which side was up. You have no idea how confusing all these square pieces of white fiberboard get after a couple of hours, or minutes. I became the queen of blue painters tape and sharpies. A tip: the fiberboard will shatter if you cut it with a jigsaw, but a jigsaw makes it really easy to cut the arcs that you need. I found that taping the fiberboard with that blue masking tape that you use to mask windows worked perfectly. No shattered fiberboard edges, and I could scribe lines on the blue and then pull it right off after I made my cuts. Perfect!
Here’s an after picture.
There are a few posts between here and there. In this view the gaucho is pulled out and the bed is made because my son is visiting and we use the trailer as a guest house. I’m just on my way to the airport to pick him up.
Next post: The final installation and my perfect floating counter….Yes, I did get it! Yay me.
I love your post..keep it up!
Cheers!
Hi Leslie,
With just two pictures and this blog, you’ve got me so inspired. I have a ’61 Tradewind. I’m doing the planning now. Do you have any pictures of upper cabinets you installed and could you tell me how you attached them to the airstream?
Thanks!
Wayne
Hi Wayne!
Actually, we did not do any uppers with Ikea. We pulled them down to give the trailer an airier feel. We did do the tall ones though and I just posted a step by step on how we did that.
Your article is informative and fun. I’ve been thinking of re-doing the inside of my GMC motorhome with Ikea cabinets, for the same reason you replaced yours. You did a great job and now I’m inspired to look at this option more seriously. Thanks for posting.
Ken
Glad you like it! I just added a new post with step by step instructions on how we fitted the cabinets. It may help you.!
would love to see more pics of this! I’m doing a 62 and a 63 this week.
Loveddd the upgrades! Where did you find those kitchen lights?? Are those 12V? We have been looking everywhere (with no luck) for modern looking 12V fixtures!
Hi Halei
Glad you like our updates. The fixtures are Ikea, of course (LOL). They actually do not make them anymore. But the do have a number of 12v lights that can be used in the trailer. We’ve used the Grundtal and Dioder along with other integrated LCD fixtures to reduce the power required to light the trailer.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=lights&category=products&range_subcategory=16280&name_subcategory=Integrated+lighting&sorting=relevance
Leslie
Leslie,
Looks great. How long did the kitchen take you from design to finish? Did you do anything with the bathroom?
Thanks,
Gabriel
Hi Gabriel!
Hmm, design to finish is pretty relative. There are still parts of the trailer that are WIPs. For example, I am not happy with the upholstery, so I just ordered some wonderful Knoll Ultrasuede from this really great discount reseller: Modern Fabrics. I will be redoing all the upholstery over the next few weeks. We did completely revamp the bath. In fact, we replaced it with a bath out of a 65 Globetrotter that we had to ship across the country. That was a story and I need to do apost on it. I also added an Ikea Godmorgan cabinet to the bathroom so I now have a nice, shallow medicine cabinet.
Thanks for looking!
Leslie