IKEA Cabinet Installation Serving Southern California

IKEA cabinets don't install like traditional American cabinets. They hang on a metal suspension rail system that has to be dead-level and anchored into studs before a single cabinet goes up. Get the rail wrong by a quarter inch and every door, drawer, and countertop downstream inherits the error.

Joe Runkle Construction has installed IKEA cabinetry — and only IKEA cabinetry — for over 15 years across San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs. Assembly and installation starts at $75 per cabinet. Licensed, insured, and bonded, with Joe himself on every job.

Done right, the rail system is brilliant — it carries the weight into the studs, makes fine adjustments easy, and produces the seamless, built-in look IKEA kitchens are known for.

Done wrong, it's unforgiving. A rail that's off-level, under-anchored, or run through the wrong wall section compounds its mistake into every cabinet that hangs on it. Most installation failures we're called to fix trace back to the rail, not the boxes. This is why a general handyman who's great with traditional cabinets can still struggle with an IKEA kitchen.

Southern California houses are rarely square. Walls bow, floors slope, corners drift from ninety degrees — and IKEA's system assumes none of that.

Bridging the gap between a modular European cabinet system and a real-world wall is the craft of this trade. We scribe filler panels to wavy walls, level base cabinets across sloping floors, and plan around plumbing and electrical so everything lands where it should.

Then comes the detail work that separates a professional install from a decent one: door gaps even to the millimeter, drawer fronts in a perfect grid, soft-close hardware adjusted so every cabinet closes with the same quiet click. That's the finish line we work to on every job.