Ikea cabinets

Before the ink was dry on the mortgage papers, we purchased our cabinets from Ikea. This was back in April, to put things in their proper perspective. And despite some last minute second guessing on our kitchen layout, we are sticking to the design more or less exactly as it was way back when. First, here is part of what it looked like upon delivery. Boxes and boxes all needing assembly:



Before we even moved in, I spent a few days assembling some of the base cabinets in the living room. And thats where they stayed for the next few months. Until this past weekend, that is!

Still need to shim here, level there, but you get the idea:




You might notice a new stove in one of these pics. Yes, we accepted delivery on our fridge and stove. More on that later...

Kitchen floors & a little history

Last week the kitchen floors were resurfaced. Unfortunately, we don't really have any good pics that show just how bad it looked. When we moved in, the floors had vinyl tile. We peeled those off to find another vinyl tile underneath them (actually, those older tiles peeled off easier so we were able to take 'em off in a 2 for 1 deal). But those older tiles were connected to the floor with some brown paper, and the brown paper had some black tar-like backer to it. So when we removed all the tile on the floor, we had a brown paper floor that would wear away creating a constant stream of dust and debris that would filter through the house. The beaut in all of this is that under the paper, under the tar was some hardwoods that were installed in 1940. Underneath some of the hardwoods was some newspapers (?) with that date on it. When we ripped the plaster off the walls, I found other newspaper from 1940 in the walls as well. Apparently when grandma was our age she must have had a big house renovation project as well! The cabinets we ripped out way back in May were from 1970, so there was one other renovation between 1940 and 2007. That puts the pace of renovations about every 30 years or so. Lets hope this one doesn't look as dated as the last one!

So anyway, like I mentioned, no choice floor photos. But here are a couple pics that do show a part of the floor. You can get the idea from these:




And here is a pic similar to above, with the new old floors (and you might sneak a peak at a new appliance):

Kitchen color

We have selected Fusion from the Benjamin Moore Aura line. We have 2 coats up (except where we plan on having base or wall cabinets). On to the pics:

Soapstone slabs!

On Friday we took delivery of our 4 60" x 30" soapstone slabs. Luckily we were able to move it to the edge of our driveway during delivery. The alternative would have meant recruiting friends and moving each 270 pound slab from the curb to the backyard. That would have not been fun.

Some kitchen designer tweaks

Now that the kitchen is coming together, nothing like some cold feet/last minute second guessing to our layouts. We've already posted the working model. Problem 1 is one side has lots of cabinets while the other side has much less. Problem 2 is we have counter space on one side of the stove, but nothing on the other. So here are some alternatives:

Addressing problem 1 - we have 2 possibilties:

Here is the first option of adding more cabinets to the back. Here we completely enclose the fridge and move the only counter space over from the right side to the left:


For option 2, we have the stove moved to the back. We add a counter to the side of it, so we have more production on this part of the kitchen. Note that the half bath is to the left of the these counters. Some might think its odd to have the stove <5 feet from a bathroom. However, this layout also solves problem 2:


And with the stove moved to the back, the fridge therefore must move to the other wall:


Of course, moving the stove and fridge locations would mean more plumbing work and more electrical work. Plus we would have to buy a new 15" base cabinet and one of the wall cabinets we already bought would most likely not get used at all. So its more costly. But I do like the idea of having 18" of countertops on one side of the stove and 36" on the other. What do you think?