Countertop installation for an IKEA kitchen in the GTA

Five of the 876 records in this directory carry IKEA in the business name. Listed by area, not ranked:

• BML/IKEA kitchen installers, East York: rated 5.0 from 114 reviews; listed under Kitchen Renovation only.
• Kitchen Installation.ca - Installers & Design of IKEA Kitchens, Etobicoke: rated 4.8 from 32 reviews; Kitchen Renovation and Cabinet and Countertop Installation.
• Prime - IKEA Kitchen Installers, Scarborough: rated 4.9 from 32 reviews; Kitchen Renovation, Countertop Installation, plus Cabinet and Countertop Installation.
• IRON - IKEA Kitchen Installers, Willowdale: rated 4.9 from 132 reviews; Kitchen Renovation and Countertop Installation.
• Vip Kitchen - IKEA Kitchen Installer, Willowdale: rated 5.0 from 22 reviews; Kitchen Renovation and Countertop Installation.

Willowdale is the thinnest of those four areas in the directory. It holds 3 records in total, and two of them are the IKEA-named companies above. East York holds 11 records, Etobicoke 44 and Scarborough 81. Those are counts of every record in the area, not of one category.

Ratings do little to set these five apart, since the directory's 845 rated records average 4.7. The categories tell you more. Countertop Installation is the category for companies whose listing covers the top itself. Cabinet and Countertop Installation is a separate category for companies whose listing covers cabinets and tops together. Prime, Vip Kitchen and IRON carry Countertop Installation. Kitchen Installation.ca carries only Cabinet and Countertop Installation, and BML/IKEA carries neither.

IKEA Canada's countertop range has pre-cut laminate tops, pre-cut wood veneer tops and custom-made tops, including glass composite. This article checks the wood veneer ones. Five of the six checked here are 249 cm long and 65 cm deep, which is 98 by 25 5/8 inches. HOLMARED is shorter at 188 cm, or 74 inches. Their listed prices on IKEA Canada's product pages today are HOLMARED bamboo at $179, KARLBY oak at $299, PINNARP ash at $349, PINNARP walnut at $399, MÖLLEKULLA oak at $425 and SKOGSÅ oak at $580.

IKEA does not publish a per square foot price. We worked one out by dividing each listed price by the top's length times its 65 cm depth, and that arithmetic gives roughly $14 to $33 per square foot. For a published figure, Home Depot Canada's countertop cost table puts wood countertops at $13 to $50 per square foot on Ontario pricing, before tax. The same table lists laminate at $14 to $20 per square foot, supply only. So an IKEA top is a cheap wood top, but it is not cheaper than laminate.

How the tops are made explains the price. All six product pages describe the surface as veneer. Five list particleboard as the main part, and the HOLMARED page lists particleboard among its materials. A solid wood butcher block is solid timber all the way through. The butcher block countertop cost guide for Toronto sets out what solid wood costs, and IKEA's prices change often enough that you should check the product page again before you buy.

The GTA price guides cited here price a stone top by material and area; none of them changes the rate for the cabinet brand underneath. Adept Renovation & Painting prices installed quartz in Toronto at $80 to $150 per square foot. Toronto General Contractors, citing GTA renovation guides, puts a quartz countertop for a standard kitchen of about 30 square feet at roughly $2,400 to $4,500, before HST. An IKEA kitchen pays those rates, just as a semi-custom kitchen with the same counter area does. The quartz countertop cost guide covers the range in more detail.

The order of work matters more on a flat-pack build. Teccorp Stone says final templating normally takes place after the base cabinets, island and finished panels are installed, level and secured. SEKTION is IKEA's kitchen cabinet system, sold flat-packed, so whoever assembles it does that levelling on site. If one company sets the cabinets and another supplies the stone, the fabricator measures whatever the first company left. The template appointment checklist lists what has to be finished first. If the dishwasher sits under the stone, read how a dishwasher is fixed under a stone countertop before template day.

This is why the categories on the five IKEA-named records matter. Only 3 of the 5 carry a Countertop Installation listing. Before you assume one company can do the cabinets and the top, check that field and ask whether they cut the stone themselves or send it out to a fabricator.

Adept Renovation & Painting prices an IKEA SEKTION build with upgraded doors at $10,000 to $18,000 installed, against $18,000 to $32,000 for semi-custom cabinets (standard cabinet boxes built to order with a wider choice of sizes and finishes). It says moving from semi-custom to a well-executed SEKTION build can save $8,000 to $12,000 with minimal compromise on function. Both ranges cover the cabinets only. Neither includes the countertop, so the countertop cost comes on top of either option.

Adept's breakdown of a mid-range Toronto kitchen shows how the budget usually splits. It puts semi-custom cabinetry, installed, at $18,000 to $28,000, and mid-tier quartz countertops at $4,000 to $8,000. An IKEA build lowers the larger of those two lines and leaves the smaller one where it was. So the same stone top makes up a bigger share of an IKEA kitchen's total than of a semi-custom kitchen's.

Adept also notes that Ontario HST (the harmonized sales tax) is 13 percent on all labour and materials, so it applies to the cabinets and the counter alike. Before you compare two quotes, confirm whether each one includes tax. The cabinet and countertop cost guide shows how the two lines usually appear on a quote, and three comparable countertop quotes explains how to line quotes up so they can be compared.

An IKEA kitchen does not have to use an IKEA countertop, and a custom wood top is within reach. Living Edge Kitchen Bath, a showroom in Pickering, publishes butcher block prices per square foot at 1 1/2 inches thick, with food-grade butcher block oil as its standard finish. Its list:

• Pine: $33
• Maple: $43
• Ash, red oak: $45
• Beech, birch: $48
• Sapele: $51
• White oak, hickory, cherry: $55
• Walnut, mahogany: $58

Toronto General Contractors gives a wider Toronto range of $35 to $100 per square foot for butcher block material, depending on the wood species. Every Living Edge species except pine falls inside that range, and pine sits just under it. A custom top is made to the length you need, not to a stock size you then trim.

The catches are size and climate. Living Edge charges an oversize fee above 18 square feet and warns that its prices may change because wood is a commodity. It also says wood can swell and shrink in extreme humidity or dryness, and it advises keeping the home humidified in winter to protect a butcher block. In a GTA house with forced-air heating all winter, that is real upkeep. Living Edge adds that you can cut directly on a mineral-oil finish if you re-oil it weekly.

Few companies in the index do this kind of work. Only 3 of the 876 records sit in the Butcher Block Countertops category, against 8 each for Solid Surface and Laminate. The butcher block and quartz comparison sets the two materials side by side.

The five records above are described only by what their listings hold: area, categories, rating and review count. The data says nothing about whether IKEA authorises any of them, how long each has operated, what each charges, what its warranty covers or how many kitchens it has finished. The listings for these five hold no price, warranty or years-in-business information, and this article does not guess. None of the 876 records carries an email address either, so you will have to phone to ask those questions.

One difference between wood and stone decides whether you need an installer for the top at all. Home Depot Canada sells wood countertops unfinished or with a stain or finish, and it says you may be able to save by buying materials in store and installing them yourself. A quartz or granite top has to be templated, cut in a shop and carried in by a crew. So an IKEA kitchen with a wood top can realistically be a self-install, and the same kitchen with a stone top cannot. With stone, you are choosing between a company that does both the cabinets and the top, and two companies that each do one.

Whichever route you take, go over the finished run before you sign off. The sign-off checklist for a countertop install lists what to look at, and the kitchen countertop cost calculator turns your counter area into a working budget.