Binkies and Briefcases

I forgot to update you on the status of our Ikea kitchen. I know you’ve been holding your breath, right. 😉

We did decide to take the plunge and order our cabinets from Ikea. They had the best warranty we could find and their prices saved us almost $3,000, which means I can get a nicer counter top than the builder-grade laminate that was originally in our quote AND we can add a wet bar to a different area of the house and still stay on budget.

We are currently storing them in approximately 80 million different places and slowly putting one cabinet at a time together as the builder works on finishing our roof. We were rained out several days last week and now we’re in the middle of a killer heat wave. The weather just won’t cut us a break and is making our progress much slower than we originally anticipated.

There is no way we are going to be in by late August, like we originally hoped. At the start of construction, we were given a four month schedule. We started in late April.  This weeks marks the start of month 4. That ain’t happening. At least with the roof coming together, it is finally starting to look like a house.

Sigh. I’m just SO ready to be settled. I may or may not have had a mini break down last night (totally did) complaining that Penny is only 18 months old and she will have lived in 4 different places by the time our house is finally ready. Between our last house, which we had to sell before we could start construction, living with the in-laws for 7 months, this temporary apartment where we are for the time being, and eventually our forever house-which I am never leaving, ever-that is a lot of bouncing for a baby. For all of us, really. I’m over it.

We know it will be worth it in a very short while when we can finally go home and stay there. FOREVER.

We’re trying to stay positive and focus on things we can control, like the kitchen. Our kitchen is smack in the middle of our house and open to just about every living space, so it’s a crucial part of the design.

I used Ikea’s online kitchen planner and worked with a very helpful and knowledgeable designer in the store. She talked us through a lot of things, like how to adjust the cabinet that will hold our oven so that it could have more drawer space and save us money on parts, and how much clearance should be on top pf the refrigerator, etc.

We decided to order our cabinets, sinks, and all of the appliances except the frig from Ikea. At first, I thought I would go with different appliances because I didn’t want that “Ikea showroom look.” The more I thought about it, the more that seemed like a dumb reason to miss out on the opportunity to save 20% on my appliances (since we were placing a large order during the kitchen sale) and get appliances that came with a better warranty than the other ones we were looking at. Especially since I actually think the Ikea showroom kitchens look pretty nice in the store. However, I hated all of their refrigerator options, so we bought our frig from hhgregg at the same time that we ordered our washer and dryer. 

We want a solid surface counter top and found Ikea’s counter options to be really over-priced, even at the sale price. (Unless you want butcher block, then they are a great option!) We will probably go with acrylic or granite or a mix of both, for the island and main area, from Lowes or Home Depot when it is time to install the counter.

That’s why in my design you don’t see a counter.

I won’t be able to decide on hardware or a back splash until I choose a counter top, but for now, this is what we decided for the kitchen:

We will build a custom range hood, like this one from Miss Mustard seed. Eventually. There’s that word again. It seems a lot of things will happen eventually.

I don’t plan to paint the kitchen blue (but never say never) I just did that in the program so I could see contrast between the cabinets and the walls. I like the 3D view because  it gives a better perspective of what it will feel like in real life. Again, this version is missing the counter and refrigerator because we bought those from different places. The Ikea planner only shows what you will buy from the Ikea store. That white wall on the right isn’t there in real life. That space is totally open to the living room. The doorway next to the oven is open to the dining room.

We will have hardwood floors like the picture, which I am a little nervous about for practicality, since we have very small kids, a dog, and this room is directly off the pool. But it was much cheaper than tile and because of the location of the kitchen if we went with another option there would be 3 or 4 different flooring materials coming together in this area. We decided to go with wood because we like the look, it’s cheaper than title, and it kept the flow going through the house. It should also be a little easier on my back than tile would be. (I have serious back issues.)

Eddie is planning to fill in the space on the top of the cabinets with plywood and molding to make it appear that they go all the way to the ceiling. I’m hoping that little wine shelf can be converted into cookbook storage instead because we don’t have that much wine to display and the wine we do have can go in the wet bar area. 

I think my favorite part about going with an Ikea kitchen was that they offer a very affordable double bowl farmhouse sink with a 25 year warranty, so I did get my farmhouse sink after all. (If you follow me on Facebook, you might remember that we had previously agreed that the more expensive options we looked at weren’t going to be worth it, since our sink doesn’t face the living area and very few people would see it.)