[Ad] Creating a new look kitchen with Superfront fronts for IKEA kitchens

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If you’ve been following me a while, you will be well familiar with my grey, Scandi-style kitchen. It really captured a look of the time and indeed spawned multiple copies. Installed at the end of 2016, the plain grey fronts offered a clean, contemporary style that felt calm and pared-back. The matte finish of the doors, coupled with the idea of taking the units right to the ceiling, helped create a more bespoke look that belied the affordable IKEA price tag.

The result was smart, sleek and simple enough to adapt to whatever styling you wanted to add. For us, the grey worked with Scandi-inspired white painted floors and later pale oak floors. The grey kitchen became a neutral backdrop for everyday life to take place in the heart of the home.

Now, after nearly seven years, it’s time for a change. Enter Superfront – the Swedish company that creates custom fronts for IKEA kitchens, wardrobes, sideboards and bathroom units. You can use their high quality, designer fronts to get the look of a new bespoke kitchen for less (buying IKEA carcasses separately then adding their doors), or to update an existing kitchen without having to buy a completely new kitchen. Not only does that help you get a new look and style without too much trouble or upheaval, it also makes it a bit more of a sustainable option, extending the lifetime of your kitchen for longer. I really rate IKEA kitchens and their Metod units in general, so it would feel like a shame to just get rid of them. Sometimes all that is needed is a simple refresh.

And now that we have completed our new, light-filled contemporary extension, it felt like the kitchen needed an update to match. It’s always a bit of a domino effect isn’t it? The Veddinge grey fronts have served us well, but after six months of renovations, quite a few were scratched and it was starting to look a bit sad in places.

I had also fallen a little out of love with the grey. I think grey had a big moment in the 2010s, but in recent years that cool, quiet colour has been replaced by earthy tones and warmer beiges that feel more restful and inspired by nature. I think the warmer end of the spectrum is more appealing for many because those tones feel more uplifting and comforting. Grey can easily feel quite cold and clinical, rather than soft and welcoming.

And I think that’s what happened here. Now the kitchen is in the middle of the house, sandwiched between the living room at the front of the house and the rear extension, it is naturally not quite as bright. That in turn made the grey units feel dingier and dull. It needed something that would better tie it in visually and stylistically with the new extension and my style today.

Here’s a little reminder of how we went from a bright yellow Nineties inspired kitchen to a sleek, grey Scandi inspired kitchen that could evolve with us.

The Before

The inspiration 
And here’s the plan! This time instead of one seamless finish of grey, I’m going for a dual finish that will add a little more character and interest to the space. The Veddinge grey fronts will be replaced by Superfront’s Biscotti wood and Desert sand fronts for IKEA kitchens. The Biscotti wood fronts will bookend the kitchen, running down the fridge/freezer and along the base units to the sink and side panel on the left hand side of the sink. The handleless Desert Sand will run along the top units, forming a clean section of beige.

Admittedly the Desert Sand colour is only slightly different from the grey (my husband couldn’t notice the difference), but I think the warmer tone will add all the difference. I also think the rich grain of the wood will add another dimension to the space, creating a rich, tactile feel, where you can’t help but want to touch everything.

The look I’m going for is a little more high end and grown up in style than before, to tie in with where I am in my life. You will also notice the chunky bar handles that give the wooden fronts a Japandi-style look. I think in general interior styles are moving away from the slender and thin to the chunky and impactful. The bar handles are a little different in style to what I’m used to in my home, but I wanted to embrace that very modern, tactile look and add a little striking talking point.

Here are some example images from Supefront of how the bar handles look with the Biscotti wood doors. As you can see their imagery is rich in visual texture and warmth, with the polished plaster walls, marble worktop, wooden fronts and shaggy rug. It’s neutral but wow it has a lot of character.

And here’s a sneak peek! We’ve got our builders to fit the new Superfront fronts. The fronts themselves are fairly easy to swap and change – you just need to unscrew the hinges and put the old hinge into the routed hole in the new door and re-attach them. It’s the side panels, filler pieces and kick board that are a bit harder to cut down to size and fit if you don’t have the right tools or skills. I knew I wanted a really professional finish so I was happy to pay for fitting to get the look spot on.

Below you can see the bottom fronts aren’t quite aligned – you need to adjust the hinges of the fronts to get them all lined up perfectly, which can be quite a frustrating job.

We’ve still got the handles to go then it will be like we have a brand new kitchen!

I can’t wait to share the final result with you in a couple of weeks when I’m back from 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen. It already looks like a completely new space. And it really didn’t take much to give it a different style with new fronts for IKEA kitchens.