……..I hear this all the time, “Well lets just go to IKEA and buy the interior cheap and just put it in”. We all then laugh but it’s one of those price comebacks that there is no answer.
I mean, if you make it through the bowls of that monster and get spit out or otherwise out the pick-up department your knockdown trinket wrapped is triple recycled packaging designed to be palatsed and airlifted to ant of 8 countries the instruction sheets were written for…….you get home and somehow after fiddling with the Allen wrench to put your economic masterpiece together it somehow isn’t the same dimensional size as the rest of your furniture so you go back and buy the rest of the ensemble you saw in the monsters belly. That’s it! There’s the angle IKEA is using. Their cool looking “eurostle” funky named fixture can’t fit in with your early American dining room…..so you buy more! Don’t trap yourself in that……I use my Scouting survival skills, move along the wall of the spacealways keeping the outer wall of the building to your right…..eventually you will have to come to an orifice you can escape from…….
So for me to, alone, go into the monster to prove this point ……..thank you for your recognition.
So yes, their sofas are so much less than the one at Hevertys it seems irresistible but remember the scenario above…..I’m going into harms way though for something specific. I sherpa-ed for Janie in this beast picking up some a Christmas stuff and spied an interesting looking kitchen table. It was the “SUNNERSTA” (who names this stuff) with a “LILLVIKEN” also including a ‘LAGAN” faucet in chrome. Sounds like Bilbo’s rescue party from the Hobbit!
This was a stainless steel top kitchen counter with sink and matching table…all white powder coated steel construction knockdown packed complete with that LAGEN chrome single stem faucet. WOW, what a buy…..the entire galley for my motorhome for only $206! So HERE is that savings everyone used to taunt me with while designing a GMC interior. Heck, a galley counter like that custom built would be a couple thousand. Hey, so lets see the TOTAL savings of putting our IKEA kitchen into use. You know there is one so look for the moral here.
Our test subject in our coach “JeyGee” so take a look at the finished product at the upcoming GMCMI convention in Florida next year………here is the original tally for my friend JayGee, a 1973 Canyon Land that has been well loved and used for many years. With the 1/2 life of the glue reached, the counter structure was literally falling loose
It all still worked but the drawers would not open ell, doors soul not shut and lets face it, that 4 burner stove with the oven was in perfect shape but were never using that applience! So JayGee is in for a galley makeover so here we go……remember now, if this is to be a fair comparison to a properly designed and executed GMC galley…..lets start the clock:
Breakdown was pretty well foreward
It took @ 4 hours to carefully render the tally counter to this
The innerds showing the furnace, wheel well, sewer pipe, hoses, wires, lines and insulation. What now? What now indeed, how do we cover all that mess to hide it from our restaurant style euro kitchen counter? 
F.first we need to clean up 45 years of behind the scene dust, dirt, grease with water residue mixed in with the varmet droppings……..What fun, took me a couple of hours, a wet vac, brush, Dawn dishwashing liquid and a roll of paper towels but finally the refuse was broken down…in cans ready for the dumpster..
NOW for the build. First off we need a level, stable platform to set the SUNNERSTA min-kitchen on. Some measurements work….the width of the structure and our galley opening in the coach are both @ 5′. Depth is good under 24″ but the height is off. We also need to do something to seal off and hide the wheel well, furnace and a plethora of wires and hoses. Cut, fit and build a floor and cover structure 1 board at a time maximizing our useable space I have now a single piece structure 
and a level 3/4″ platform to build the SUNNERSTRA in and onto
…….this exercise took @ 7 hours or a full day. I didn’t have to make the back panel but I wasn’t sure the level of frontal finish on the structure so only the sewer and water pipes stayed visible
This structure and the back panel will get a white epoxy texture coating which will take @ 4 hours labor and @ $100 in materials. I’ll do that later but lets modify and install our IKEA kitchen……. Clearing the wheel well and furnace covers took some fancy measuring and then assembling the IKEA knockdown modules…..took me @4 hours to find English in the manual (yes, I read them) assemble the units double checking my measurements and custom cuts. And here it is, fitted in place
$206 on IKEA knockdown, fitted into the galley space in a GM floor plan coach .If you’re going for the restaurant look, here it is. So to this point, we have .17 hours and the cost of the IKEA stuff, plywood, staples and glue. Thats @ $275 plus $1650 in labor (17 hours). ADD TEXTURING THE I have the equipment and past expertise to do this but hey, a $2000 galley? Oh but wait there’s more, drawers and doors, slides hinges and all that. What another 15 hours of trim, say $200 in materials brings this unconventional, Euro/ restaurant SUNNERSTRA MINI kitchen for @ $3600….doors, drawers, sink, complete.
Heck, that’s @ where you would be building a REAL galley…..that looks like it is supposed to BE there. Of course you say “I can do the labor myself”…..with all due respect you cannot. Henry Ford’s first car I bet took forever to build and it probably didn’t work that well! Same here, discovery and building 1 off….. Your labor will take more than mine. You say you are retired and you labor is free. In fact with the finite time you have left the value of your time is increasing every day so if you’re talking to me redesigning your galley don’t use the “I’ll just go to IKEA and just be done with it”…..you will be wrong and irritate me to boot.
I’ve blown way too much of that valuable time today….I felt this was something good to say………see ya tomorrow..
