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IKO Kitchen Remodeling: The Fort Lauderdale Owner’s Guide
If you have an IKO kitchen and something has failed, a full kitchen remodeling job in Fort Lauderdale typically runs $14,000 to $45,000 installed, depending on cabinet line, countertop material, and whether we’re opening walls. Most owners find us the same way: a cabinet face has swollen in the humidity, a countertop seam has separated, or the finish on an IKO-style cabinet box has started to peel after a few South Florida summers. The good news is that we can usually match, replace, or rebuild the failed section without tearing out the entire kitchen, and we’ll give you a written price before any work starts.
We are an independent remodeling contractor in Fort Lauderdale, not affiliated with IKO. What we do is work on their products every week, and we know how they fail in this climate.
Which IKO Models This Applies To
IKO is better known in roofing and building materials than cabinetry, so when a Fort Lauderdale homeowner says they have an IKO kitchen, they usually mean one of two things: either the kitchen was built with IKO-branded melamine or thermofoil cabinet boxes, or the home itself is an IKO-spec build where the developer used IKO sheathing and trim products behind the kitchen finishes. Both situations show up in older Fort Lauderdale condos and mid-1990s to early-2000s single-family homes, especially in neighborhoods like Coral Ridge, Victoria Park, and Plantation.
The compatibility gotcha is this: IKO melamine cabinet boxes are not sized like standard American frameless cabinets. The door hinge boring pattern and drawer slide spacing can be metric, and the end panels are often 5/8″ rather than the 3/4″ you’d find on a KraftMaid or Wellborn box. That means you can’t just grab a replacement door from a big-box store and expect the reveal lines to match. We measure the existing box, the hinge cup diameter, and the drawer runner spacing before recommending whether to replace a door, rebuild a face frame, or swap the full cabinet run. When an OEM IKO part is discontinued, we’ll often spec a KraftMaid or Wellborn replacement and scribe or shim it to match sightlines. It costs a little more in labor, but it prevents the “one cabinet doesn’t match the others” problem that ruins a kitchen visually.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your IKO Kitchen Remodeling Is Failing
- Swollen or soft cabinet bottoms under the sink. The IKO melamine substrate absorbs moisture through the cut edges, and in Fort Lauderdale’s average 75% humidity, a small drip becomes a swollen corner within a season. Once the particleboard core swells, the laminate won’t lay flat again.
- Peeling thermofoil on door and drawer faces. Heat from the oven and steam from the cooktop eventually separate the vinyl thermofoil layer from the MDF core. This shows first on the cabinet doors closest to the range, and no amount of glue will make it look clean after year five or six.
- Hinges pulling out of the door face. When the European-style cup hinge loses its bite in a 5/8″ IKO door, the screw threads strip the core. Re-tightening helps for about a month. The real fix is a new door or a bored-and-doweled repair.
- Countertop seam spreading at the sink or cooktop cutout. If the original installer set the seam over the dishwasher or the sink’s front rail, the constant heat-moisture cycle works the seam apart. In Fort Lauderdale kitchens without a vented range hood, this happens faster.
- Sagging adjustable shelf clips. IKO shelf pins sit in a thinner gable than newer cabinets, and heavy dish stacks will eventually wobble the pin holes until the shelf drops. It’s a small fix, but it signals the cabinet boxes are at the end of their serviceable lifespan.
See the difference
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After
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
Kitchen remodeling in Fort Lauderdale runs $14,000 to $45,000 for a full job with Penhallow Remodeling. A smaller kitchen or a partial replacement, like new cabinet boxes in the existing footprint, runs $9,000 to $20,000. Cabinet installation alone is $4,000 to $13,000. Countertop installation runs $2,000 to $6,500. Backsplash work is $800 to $2,500. A new kitchen island runs $3,000 to $10,000.
What drives the range: the condition of the walls behind the cabinets (rot from a slow plumbing leak is common in older Fort Lauderdale homes), the cabinet line you choose, the countertop material, and whether we’re relocating electrical or plumbing. Our written price includes tear-out, haul-away, materials, labor, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise. If something fails inside the guarantee period, we come back and fix it at no charge. That’s in writing, on every job.
DIY or Call Us?
If you’re handy, there are a few things you can safely do before calling: confirm whether the problem is one cabinet or a whole run, pull a drawer and measure the box depth and hinge spacing, and look for a manufacturer label on the back of an end panel or inside the sink base. That information helps us quote faster.
Where DIY goes wrong with IKO kitchen parts is the rebuild. Matching a metric-spaced hinge boring pattern to a standard American door blank requires a jig and patience. If the box itself is swollen or rotted, you’re not replacing a part, you’re rebuilding a cabinet, and that’s a job for someone who does it weekly. Trevor Nash has spent two decades dealing with humidity-driven cabinet failure in South Florida, and he’s been known to point out that the wrong fastener in this climate is just pre-ordering a callback. If you’d rather not learn that lesson on your own cabinets, call (754) 551-2922 and we’ll come look at it.
FAQs
IKO melamine and thermofoil cabinet boxes typically last 10 to 18 years in Fort Lauderdale’s humidity, with the doors facing the oven and dishwasher failing first. If your kitchen is older than that, you’re on borrowed time. Call (754) 551-2922 and we’ll give you a realistic assessment and a written price.
Yes, in many cases we can replace a single door, rebuild a face frame, or install a new cabinet box to match the existing run, as long as the surrounding boxes are structurally sound. The match won’t be invisibly perfect, but it will be close. Call (754) 551-2922 for a free estimate on exactly what you have.
Replacing a single cabinet or a short run usually takes one to two days. A full Fort Lauderdale kitchen remodel with countertops and backsplash typically runs two to four weeks, depending on material lead times. We’ll give you a real arrival window before work starts, not a vague “we’re about a week out.”
We don’t keep IKO-specific parts on the truck, because the compatible dimensions vary too much by build year. We do measure on-site and order exact replacements from recognized trade brands like KraftMaid and Wellborn, and we can often turn a single-door replacement around in under two weeks. Call (754) 551-2922 and we’ll tell you what’s available for your exact cabinet.
Written by Trevor Nash, Owner, Penhallow Remodeling Fort Lauderdale at Penhallow Remodeling Fort Lauderdale, serving Fort Lauderdale and nearby areas.
