IKEA Kitchen Planning
If you've ever done a kitchen renovation, you know about the researching, measuring, remeasuring, re-researching, and choices, choices, choices. It's stressful and time consuming, and there are about a million paths you can take based on style, function, and price. If you haven't been through this process, then you've come to a great place.
After looking at the options at Home Depot, Lowes, and IKEA, we've narrowed it down to IKEA. Partially because one of their famous kitchen sales will be starting March 4 - April 17 of this year. The deal is, you have to spend at least $4,000 in order to receive their generous 15% return in the form of a giftcard. That's at least $600 you'll get back for purchasing through them which is about the cost of some appliances.
Regardless of their sale, IKEA also has a 25 year warranty on their kitchens as well as a surprising reputation for quality. Like many people, you may think of IKEA's products as the ones that fall apart after a year of use... but not so with their kitchens. My parents built a house in 2007 and installed a stunning IKEA kitchen that looks practically new to this day. While they were visiting us last week, we asked for their advice on the IKEA front and they whole-heartedly gave their support for it. Especially in a house of our size and price range - it just makes sense.
By using their kitchen planner tool, you can add in all the dimensions of your space, floors, paint colors, correct placement of doors and windows, and even add weird additional structures that your particular space may have. It's a little slow and frustrating sometimes, but you learn how to navigate it well over time.
Our current kitchen has a very awkward layout. The kind of layout you look at and go, "What were these builders thinking? Look at all the wasted space and lack of storage..."
Tom and I love open concept homes (said every HGTV guest ever) and our downstairs has the potential to embody that so well. It just means we need to remove a wall and a pantry and move a fridge. Oh, and add about 3x more storage and about 35 more linear feet of countertops.
Here's the current state of things:
Yeah. It's a cluster. And it's a pain in the butt to function in... just ask the goose egg that's on my head from when I nailed my head on an open cabinet and then wept like a baby on my mother's shoulder.
But here's our plan:
- Remove the wall between the living room and kitchen. So as to scoot the kitchen into the living room just a smidge and open the space.
- Remove the current pantry and put the fridge in its place.
- Smooth the ceilings throughout.
- Paint the walls.
By doing all those things, we can have a space that looks like this:
LOOK AT ALL THE COUNTER SPACE.
I actually made a mock-up of the entire downstairs because we actually own that sectional, table, chairs, and bench... so you guys are seeing the big picture! We wouldn't probably install those built-ins next to the fireplace just yet, but it'll stay in the plans for the future - we just aren't totally sold on them yet.
We love this layout because we aren't sacrificing our pantry, and will instead replace it with one that has drawers (praise Jesus).
Also, you'll notice the half-wall between the rooms. This will serve as a minor separation and something to install outlets on for the kitchen.
We decided to leave the stove where it is so that we don't have to move the gas line, but it'll scoot about five inches to the left of its current position.
Small adjustments will still be made, like adding pendant lights over the long counter and possibly some open shelving above the dishwasher, or a slight change in the drawer combinations of the base cabinets. But overall, the size and dimensions are pretty much set in stone!
We're ecstatic to be moving forward in this process and we'll be sure to keep you all updated as we go along. In the meantime, what do you think?