Our kitchen’s been “complete” for oh, about 5 months now, but any blogger knows that it’s no fun to take reveal photos until all the little details come together.  A big part of that was the cabinet in the dining room, I gave up on finding a table I liked or that fit.  Since it’s one big room now, I had to make the dining room look halfway decent too.

All that to say, I’ve finally gotten my act together and took pictures over the weekend.  I’m warning you, I took a lot.  I took so many that I’ll probably do this in a little series.  Obviously, you’ll see the dining area, but I’ll do a separate post on those details.  Then, I have the nitty gritty details of the kitchen.  All the little nuances we found along the way, and the fancy Ikea features we’ve used.  I’ll have some tips and tricks that cover all the way from the design to the installation.  Finally, you know there’s got to be a budget breakdown in there somewhere.  We’ve actually not totaled everything up, so it’ll be somewhat of a surprise for us too!

On to the good stuff.

We started with a small closed in kitchen that had all the right stuff, but due to size, wasn’t very efficient.  After removing a wall and reconfiguring almost everything, we have a kitchen that best utilizes the space and works a million times better than the space before.

This view shows the most dramatic difference.  What once was a wall with a closet, (mirrored door), and the wall cavity with the old chimney (that ran from the basement to the roof that we removed after installing a high-efficiency furnace):

Now has a much different view:

After the wall was removed we were able to bring the kitchen footprint further into the dining room, (which admittedly we didn’t use very often).  By adding the peninsula and bringing the refrigerator over, we added additional seating, as well as more space inside the kitchen area.

I knew from the beginning design stages I wanted a two-toned kitchen, dark lowers and white uppers.  I’m so happy I held strong and was able to convince Mike, because we both love it!  It caused some turmoil because that priced us out of some of Mike’s preferred cabinets like Kraftmaid, but it was Ikea to the rescue.  We’ve been very satisfied with the quality of the cabinets so far, and hope that they stay strong.

The style of the kitchen works well with our house and fits with the trim that Mike mimicked from the original woodwork.  It also looks modern and matches the tone of the updated living room.  Which is a good thing because due to the large opening between the living room and dining/kitchen, it can be seen from the front door

The view from the back door, (and the main door we use), shows the kitchen and dining area.

It reads less as separate kitchen and dining rooms and more as an eat-in kitchen, which is more our lifestyle anyways.

The new peninsula adds an additional 3 seats, and about 15 sq. ft. of counter space, which. is. awesome!

Moving around the kitchen we have the main prep area, the u-shaped zone that houses all the dishes, and space to prepare.

 
It’s so much bigger than it was before!  Mike and I hated cooking together in the old kitchen, but now we can both be in here in full working mode and not get in each other’s way.

The sink and dishwasher stayed in the same positions as before, which with two kitchen windows this really was the only spot it made sense.  The dishwasher has a cabinet face so it blends in.  

Our dishes are in the two sets of cabinets above the dishwasher and pots and pans are in the base cabinets of the peninsula.  

I was worried about the placement of these, thinking that if the dishwasher was opened I wouldn’t be able to reach the cabinets.  But, luckily there’s still room for me to fit in between the opened door and base cabinets and I can reach everything!

On the other side of the sink is our “pantry”.  While I would have loved to fit a tall cabinet in here somewhere, it proved impossible.  We’ve made due with uppers and the two corner cabinets. One upside is it forces us to use less packaged foods and go grocery shopping for fresher options more often, so I guess that’s good!

Next to the door used to sit the oven, which was where everything landed when you walked in.  Not the best place to set a purse, but like I said, we weren’t doing a lot of cooking in the space anyways.  Now, we have space to drop mail and things that need to be picked up on our way out the door.

It’s also where the trash and our shoes our hidden, but I’ll go into that in another post.
I painted the back door black.  I’m glad I was lazy and didn’t paint the door for almost 4 years because back in the day I would have gone white, but it looks so much better black!

On the other side of the kitchen is the cooking area.  The range and refrigerator take up pretty much the entire wall.  The size of the cabinets on either side of the range were determined by the space available after factoring the standard 30” range and 36” fridge. 

We were very lucky because with the creative trimwork around the basement doorway, (when you’re making your own, who will notice if it’s a little smaller than the rest of the house’s doors), we were able to get the standard 18” cabinets allowing for a good amount of space on either side of the stove.  For those curious, in our area 15” on each side is code, but 18” feels like such a luxury!

 

We mentioned before than an important upgrade for us was a counter-depth refrigerator.  It cost more, but with the configuration it was important not to impede the flow in and out of the room.

We’re very happy with the amount of space we have between the fridge and cabinet and can pull out the freezer entirely while standing in front of it.  You can even have someone move passed you with while you’ve got the doors open while searching in the fridge.  Although it’s my experience that Mike gets a little handsy when he passes ;)

Overall the project took five months as night and weekend warriors.  It might have taken less time, but we also started a week before Thanksgiving, so a lot of time was lost due to the holidays.  We did all the work ourselves, except for the solid surface, which was done by contractors through Home Depot.  We love our new kitchen and not to sound dorky, but it’s actually changed our lifestyle.  We eat a lot healthier now that we cook mostly at home, and it’s much easier to entertain now with the open space.  We have already thrown two parties here since we’ve finished and it’s a lot nicer having everything open and lots of room for food and prep.

And, because there’s nothing better than seeing before and after's, I tried to take photos from the same angle that I took the original photos back in the day.  Technically the actual before’s should be the way the kitchen was when we moved in, but I’m using our “Phase One” kitchen after the $89 makeover.  

Sometimes it’s hard to spatially read a room you’ve never been in, so here’s the floorplan from before:

And, after:

We lost some space in the dining room, but gained so much more than just space in the kitchen!  We’re loving the new space and it feels weird to have the final large scale renovation project of this house behind us.  It’s nice to finish on such a high note though!

I’ll be back soon to share the dining room, sources for the kitchen, Ikea tips and tricks, and of course more photos of our kitchen because I just can’t help myself!

We’ve been laying pretty low here for the last couple of months.  It’s weird for us not to have major projects going on.  We’ve been enjoying the nice weather as much as possible, and no matter what the back to school ad’s say, summer is not over in my book.

We have been looking forward to August in the house progress sense because like I mentioned back in June, we had a glass cabinet coming our way.

Like I said, I bought it while down in Florida knowing that while it wouldn’t fit on the airplane with me, my dad was planning a trip up here for a dirt bike race.  We’re excited he’s in town, (Mike’s already mentioned hopes for golfing and dirt bike riding), we were also very excited to finally have our cabinet!  It’s kind of funny because along with the 4 Ikea boxes, he was also responsible for transporting a sewing machine, kitchen mixer, and multiple family heirloom dishes for my sister and I.  No pressure or anything!  He, along with all the precious cargo, made it here on Wednesday, and we spent no time putting it together.

Of course there was only about 4 minutes before I started filling it a little so I took some really quick photos in some crappy lighting around 9pm last night to share. 

It was pretty easy to put together for Ikea standards, the only issue was it’s all glass so I was freaking out more than I should and Mike was deliberately egging me on.  The only advice I would give is to lay out a big area on a rug or carpet, we put it together in the living room.

The profile is pretty much the same as the small table we stuck there ages ago.

 

The beige looks a little more gray than what the typical “Ikea white” is.  I compare our Adel kitchen cabinets to the standard “Ikea white”.  This definitely has a more gray undertone.  Not bad, just not what I was expecting.

I used some tall bottles of wine and whiskey to determine shelving heights, but unlike the kitchen cabinets where you have to get pliers and a death grip to remove those stupid little pegs, these come out pretty easy.  They also come with little rubber covers so that the glass sits on those rather than metal.  The cabinet also comes with two holes on the top for optional lights to be installed.  We hadn’t planned on it, but it’s nice if we want to.

It’s nice to have the glass sides because it doesn’t seem so bulky, if that makes sense.  I’m sure it’ll feel more substantial once it’s full.

I plan to fill it tonight, mostly because I got ambitious and brought all the liquor up from the basement, and now our counter looks like this:

So yeah, I think we’ve got enough bottles to work with!

I’m hoping filling this cabinet finally gives me the motivation to take photos of the kitchen this weekend.  We don’t have any social plans, so I’m hoping I get time to squeeze in a little photo shoot.  Happy weekend!

I recently jazzed up a couple cheap planters that I thought I'd share.  Mostly because they were so easy, that anyone can do it.  And, I want to publicly declare the presence of live plants in the house.  Maybe if I say it here, I'll be more likely to feel the pressure of keeping them alive?  This black thumb sure hopes so!


I found a mini orchid plant from Home Depot that was marked down to $4.99.  I figured if I killed it I would only be out 5 bucks and, who doesn't love normal things in miniature sizes? 

I was on a mission to find a cute pot, but couldn't find anything I liked.  As I was purusing Ikea my last trip, I came across their selection of mini orchids.

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The little pots were the perfect canvas for something more interesting, but I already had the plant so I didn't want to spend the $8 for these.  I lucked out when I found a couple dead ones in the as-is section they were selling for something like $2.  It probably looked weird buying a dead plant, but I didn't care!  I also picked up some more succulents, because our Home Depot and Lowes both had pretty sad looking selections.

We had a party at our house recently and I needed something to mask the little orange plastic containers, so I found these nondescript black plastic planters at Target also marked down to $0.72 a piece.

So, to start this thing I had a plain white ceramic cup, and an equally plain black plastic cup.  I knew I wanted to gold leaf the white planter so I used a foam brush to paint on the adhesive in a diagonal shape.  I wanted the edge to be rough, so I didn't worry too much about being perfect.  I followed the directions and let it sit, then gold leafed it until it looked good and then sprayed it with some gold leaf sealer.  I can't wait for it to flower again, it looks a little sad until then.


For the black planter, I had found this pot on Etsy and thought it would be an easy pattern to replicate. 

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I used a white paint pen and free handed until I liked the way it looked.  It took maybe 20 minutes.


I'm not sure that they'll always live together, because I don't really think a (flowering orchid) really goes with a spiky succulent, but while I wait for the flowers to come back they're together.


 Right now they live on the window sill in the kitchen, and I have two more black planters that I may doodle on with different designs.


And, I know it's hard to get a size orientation with close cropped photos, so here's a little wider shot for comparison.


It was such a quick and simple upgrade that I'm excited to do more, but I may have to cool it on the plants right now, I've only kept them alive for a couple months so far.  I don't want to get cocky and have a bunch of planters but dead plants!

Any tips on keeping succulents alive?  Mine always seem to grow up, which makes them look weird.  I also may have a slight tendency to over water them.  I kill them with kindness, literally!