Building IKEA Kitchen Cabinets: An IKEA ENKOPING Kitchen

We used IKEA kitchen cabinets to create our own idea of the ideal kitchen in our Tiny Lake House rental. Today I wanted to share with you the process of building the cabinets, and how our IKEA enköping kitchen turned out!

Last year, we completed the renovation of our Tiny Lake House. This is a 467 square foot cabin on a lake that we now rent out to vacationers. And we also love using it ourselves! You can see the whole renovation journey of the cabin right here.

For the small 63 square foot kitchen, we knew we wanted to use IKEA cabinets. They’re affordable and have lots of features that are handy for small spaces and everyday life messes. When I found the IKEA ENKOPING line, I knew it was the perfect, classic look (and price!) for our little cabin. It features a textured white shaker door style covered in durable foil.

Here’s what our Tiny Lake House kitchen looked like mid-project:

Here’s when the shiplap ceiling and LVP flooring was newly installed. I built the frames of the IKEA cabinets and was starting to place the appliances! I’ve used the IKEA SEKTION kitchen system for years now in a few different projects. I find them easy to assemble, and I’ve been happy with the durability. We have the old version of these cabinets in our own home. Here’s my positive review of them after over 10 years!

Assembling the IKEA ENKOPING Kitchen Cabinets

As I was assembling the cabinets, I was already able to tell that this space was going to be an ultra adorable dream kitchen! The ENKOPING cabinets were a great fit for this cabin with their subtle grain structure and bright white colour. IKEA kitchen cabinets were very hard to source at the time of this project, so I was happy to find these ones in stock. They’re a white shaker style cabinet with a wood grain effect, and I always love white kitchens for small spaces to help bounce the light around. Plus, white kitchens stand the test of time and you can easily add colour through accessories.

Adding the Retro Style Appliances

As a fun pop of colour, we installed some mint-coloured retro look appliances by Unique Appliances (they were gifted to us) in this little kitchen. I love how they look in this midcentury cabin, and the mint green paired with the white is a fresh & bright look for this small space. You can read my review of these appliances a year later by clicking here.

Final Touches to our IKEA Kitchen

After installing the appliances, I added the IKEA cabinet door fronts to the kitchen cabinets. I finished them off with simple black handles for a minimalist look. We used two IKEA kitchen cabinet drawer units to create the peninsula, and on the back we installed some shiplap to finish it off.

I love all of the drawers in the peninsula as well as the pull-out functionality for the trash cabinet under the sink. All of these details are wonderful when working with a small space like this one!

To add a warm atmosphere to this white kitchen, we opted for the KARLBY walnut veneer countertop. I love the warm wood colour, and it’s nice and budget friendly.

I sure love the combination of the white wood effect cabinets with the mint green appliances and the warm wood character of the countertop. It’s such a great mix for this tiny cabin!

More Reasons to Love IKEA ENKOPING Cabinets

All in all, I’m extremely happy with our decision to use IKEA ENKOPING kitchen cabinets for our Tiny Lake House. Here are more reasons why I love these cabinets (after a year and a half of using them so far):

• they’re easy to clean – we simply use a damp cloth with a squirt of dish soap to wipe the doors as needed.
• IKEA has a generous 25-year guarantee on their kitchen cabinets – I’ve easily replaced door fronts over the years
• they’re a quick build – I can build the SEKTION frames myself with a simple drill. Mounting them can be a little tricky and it’s better with two people!
• soft close doors – special additions to the door hinges make the doors close nice and quietly
• classic look – like I mentioned, the white shaker style kitchen fronts are a timeless look that works in a lot of home styles
• endless possibilities for layout – I love using IKEA’s online kitchen planner to fiddle around with layouts when designing an IKEA kitchen. The SEKTION cabinets come in a couple different depths and a variety of widths so that you can make the most of your space.

The final result of our kitchen build is nothing short of adorable. I love how it all came together! If you’re curious to learn more about all of the elements in this kitchen like the tile, sink, shelving etc, you can visit my blog post here where I share the entire kitchen build process with links. I’m so happy with how this wee kitchen turned out, and our guests have loved it too!

Tell me: What do you think of our little IKEA ENKOPING kitchen?