Ikea Kitchen

Here's our new kitchen design, courtesy of the Ikea Home Planner software.

The Ikea software app is one of the flakiest programs I've ever worked with. It crashes at the drop of a hat. But it's free, and if you can live with its shortcomings, you can have a lot of fun running through the possibilities.

Here's the main part of the kitchen:

Two minor things to clear up: 1) Near the corner (by the sink), you'll see some white where there should be cabinet. The software doesn't handle filler spaces at all. I will install 5 inches of filler between the corner cabinet and sink. Using toe kicks, I'll make it flush with the sink base cabinet (this is a pretty standard cabinet mod). The other issue is that area above the microwave; there's a cabinet there too. For some reason when you specify the cabinet WITH the microwave, the cabinet face disappears. Without the microwave you see the whole cabinet just fine. Again, another inconvenience with the software.


Here's the side wall with some photoshop magic:

The cabinet above the fridge will be flush with the tall pantry unit on the left of the fridge. To the the right of the fridge, we're planning on installing some shelving, or some aahtwork.

Kitchen Derailment

Sad times at Grandma's house, folks. Just when things were looking up, just when real progress was being made ... we've suffered a setback. The area that we reclaimed after demoing the closet was to have base and upper cabinets measuring 73" across. I (i.e. Brian)* told the contractor that we needed 73" to accommodate the cabs. I even showed him one of the assembled base cabinets. The contractor not only framed the area, but added sheet rock and mud as well. In fact, after a small amount of sanding, it would have been ready for paint.

Only problem is that the area the contractor created from wall to wall is only 72".

It's a hair over, but still almost an inch off. And try as we might, we're not fitting cabinets that measure 72.8999932342342 inches into a 72" space. Believe me, I looked at workarounds. I can shave off a small amount of overhang on the corner cabinet, perhaps as much as 1/8". And I could replace the sheet rock that is installed on one wall with a slightly thinner wallboard to gain another 1/8". But even with all of this, this dog won't hunt.

Thus, our timeline has taken its first hit. We scheduled appliance delivery (new stove and fridge -- yeah!) for Sept 1. But before we take delivery, we had to have the floor guys in to resurface and refinish the hardwoods. And before we have this work done, we want to have the walls done. Thanks to the aforementioned missing inch, a part of the wall must now be reworked. And even if it's done immediately, the floors still won't get done (3 coats = 3 days) before next weekend.

Never mind that in addition to all of the above, we were also set to start cabinet installation. And the base cabinets can't go in until the floors are done. And the upper cabs can't go in until the walls are done. Sucks.

In other news, we pulled the trigger on the soapstone for the counters. Another DIY project. They should be delivered the week of the 10th. And if we can get back on track, there is a possibility that the cabinets could be installed, ready and waiting for coutertops upon their arrival. Anyway, on to the kitchen pics:




*Editor's note: If you haven't realized this by now, when we say "we", we really mean Brian. He's the hero here. Stephanie merely edits the blog from time to time, and picks up lunch. Just wanted to make sure that was obvious, if you weren't clever enough to figure it out already.

Reed Fence

There's lots going on inside grandma's house, but we're not totally neglecting the exterior. We're blessed w/ glorious chain link fence along the perimeter of the backyard. When we moved in, it was topped off with barbed wire (squirrels beware)! We yanked the barbed wire immediately, but the chain link remains. We kicked around the idea of using the existing posts and building a wooden fence using these brackets; another thought was to go with a reed fence over the chain link. Only issue with the reed was getting it at a good price: the local nursery was pricey, and it was never in stock; an online purchase meant hefty shipping charges.

And then one day we lucked out: reed fence came in at the local big box home improvement shop. On to the pics:

Before (with Rudy):




After: