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In Kitchen Blogs
Lookin' good
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 May 31st, 08 12:26 am |
Our appliances were installed today! Since my husband and I are professional chefs, we went top of the line for our appliances. I can't wait to cook! Here's what we went with:
- Wolf 30" gas range
- Viking Convection Microwave Hood
- 30" Subzero refrigerator
- 24" Bosch dishwasher with an Nexus Yellow Brown door as the cover panel
Still to come hopefully next week: install glass backsplash, undercabinet lights, and faucet. You may also have noticed the brown paper hanging on the wall on the right. It's covering a floor-to-ceiling opening about 13" wide where we're going to install an acid etched glass panel to provide some natural light. I hope it turns out nice.
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In Kitchen Blogs
Kitchen Countertops & Cabinet Pulls Done
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May 23rd, 08 7:21 pm |
The kitchen countertops (Silestone in Blanco Maple) and cabinet pulls (Ikea Metrik) have been installed.
I'm still trying to decide a few things:- For the door on the base corner cabinet (it's the 49" corner cabinet with drawer and door -- back right corner of kitchen), should I put the handle going horizontal (like the drawers) or vertical (like the doors). I think I'm leaning toward horizontal so it blends in with the drawers that are on the same wall -- I think having one vertical handle amongst the horizontal drawer pulls might look odd.
- For the glass wall cabinet doors, I'm undecided on what kind of pulls to put on them. I know I don't want to put the Metrik on them. I'm thinking about either the Grip or Strecket and putting them on the bottom edge. Or another idea is to use touch latches -- have any of you used touch latches with the glass doors?
My appliances will be delivered on Tuesday. 
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In Kitchen Blogs
Cabinets are done!
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May 15th, 08 6:20 pm |
The cabinets are done! We're now awaiting installation of our Silestone countertops, followed by appliances/sink/faucet and then the backsplash. And, we've decided to use IKEA's new Metrik cabinet pull in stainless steel.
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In Kitchen Blogs
Cabinet Installation
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May 14th, 08 9:15 pm |
Here are some pictures of my cabinet installation...
Cabinet frames going in -- you can see the veneer banding that I put on all the edges to prevent the white laminate from showing through:
And the doors went up, except for the ones that we cut down:
I forgot to take pictures today -- all the doors are up now and I'm really excited about the results. I ended up replacing the two 15" false drawer fronts on the 30" sink cabinet today with one 30" shallow drawer front -- it gives a cleaner look. And the cut down doors came out great. Pictures to come in the next couple days.
The countertops measurements have been taken and should hopefully will be installed next week. And then we'll be ready for the appliances to be installed.
Another tip: When you order, make sure to double check that IKEA gives you 1 shallow and 2 deep drawer frames for the 12"/15"/18" 3-drawer base cabinets. I just discovered that they gave me 3 shallow drawer frames, so I have to take them apart and return them for the correct depths.
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In Kitchen Blogs
Lessons Learned & Tips
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May 9th, 08 9:53 pm |
I've been tied up running back and forth between home and IKEA trying to get the kitchen done, so sorry I haven't had time to add updated pictures yet. In the meantime, I wanted to share some valuable lessons that I've learned during the process so far.
Ordering/Home Delivery:- If you are going to buy cabinets at an IKEA store and get home delivery service, make sure to check into all the fees for home delivery before you buy your cabinets. Here's why: I bought my cabinets at the Elizabeth, NJ IKEA. The delivery is a flat $99 (according to the big signs). However, this only includes the first 15 items -- it's an extra $25 per each additional 15 items (plus there's a $10 surcharge to deliver to Manhattan). All of the kitchen stuff is sold separately (doors frames/fronts, drawer frames/fronts, hinges, drawer/door dampers, etc.) -- this adds up to a lot of items! I made the mistake of buying everything and then going to the home delivery people only to find out that delivery was going to cost me $375! My recommendation: If you want your kitchen delivered, to keep the delivery cost down, place one order for the larger stuff like cabinet/drawer frames, tall cover panels, tall pantry doors, trim strips, and plinthes and get that delivered. Place a separate order for the smaller stuff (hinges, dampers) and door/drawer fronts and bring them home yourself -- you can probably fit this in a car.
- Another tip is to buy the cabinet/drawer frames, cover panels, trim strips, and plinthes and install those first. Once you're done with that, then make another trip to IKEA for the drawers, doors, hinges, dampers, handles and accessories when you are ready to install them. This will give you more room to assemble and install the cabinet frames and will make it easier to keep things organized so you know exactly where and what everything is. I got everything at once and it took me some time just to sort through the big pile of stuff that was delivered and figure out exactly what I had.
- If you are getting glass cabinet doors, IKEA assumes that you want glass shelves for inside the cabinet (at least they did when I placed my order). If you don't want glass shelves, make sure to double check with the IKEA people when you're placing your order.
Assembly:- Don't open all of the boxes at once. Assemble one cabinet frame at a time so you don't loose any screws/parts or get them mixed up with other screws/parts.
- For the 30" four-drawer unit, be aware that the divider post for the two top 15" drawers comes separately from the cabinet frame. Be sure to put this in before you mount the cabinet frame to the wall because you need to secure the post through the back of the cabinet with nails. The same goes for the drawer for the 49" corner cabinet, and I'm guessing ditto for the 24" four-drawer cabinet.
- FYI, for the 30" drawer unit, I think you can get one 30" wide drawer front for the top drawer instead of using the two 15" drawer fronts that come in the set. I think IKEA sells a 30" shallow drawer front separately for the 30" oven cabinet. If my hunch is right, you can also use the 30" shallow drawer front as the false front on the 30" sink cabinet instead of using two 15" drawer fronts. (I'm going to check into this next week)
- It is easier to install the drawer runners before you assemble the cabinet frames. Once the cabinet frames are built, depending on how flexible/coordinated/slender you are, it can be a bit awkward installing the drawer runners. The drawer runners come in the box with the drawer frames.
Nexus Yellow-Brown:- Be aware that the grain pattern varies a lot from door to door on NYB. I think they must sort through a lot of doors/drawer when they create the NYB kitchen displays you see at the stores. The doors I got had a lot of variation, so I made several trips back to IKEA to get extra doors/drawers to choose from. I probably bought 4-5 times the number of doors that I actually needed in order to get doors/drawers that look somewhat similar. All the extras can be returned (even with the box opened and even if you don't have the box at all).
- If you will be bothered that the NYB grains don't match up exactly or you don't have the patience/time to buy, sort through and return extra doors/drawers, you might want to reconsider choosing NYB. You may be better off with a solid color or a wood door with a more subtle grain than NYB.
- The 12" NYB wide doors in particular have a strange grain pattern that doesn't seem to match well with each other or with the wider size doors. It looks like IKEA uses many more veneer strips on the 12" doors than they do on the wider sizes, and so you get a much more stripey look. This looks particularly weird on the 24" cabinet with two 12" doors. My solution is to buy the 24" wide door and cut it down the middle from top to bottom to create two 12" doors -- this way the grain will match perfectly and you don't have to live with the stripey look of IKEA's12" door. I used edge banding to finish the cut edge. You can use a router to cut out the holes for hinges.
- If you're cutting doors down, the veneer will fray on one side if you just run it through a saw. To get a clean cut, wrap painters tape around the place you're going to cut -- this will decrease the fraying, but not eliminate it completely. After you wrap the door with tape, score through the tape and veneer with an Xacto-knife at your cut-line before you make the cut -- this really helps keep it from fraying.
- For the veneer banding, I used FastEdge pre-finished wood veneer edge banding in Teak -- it's a really close color match to NYB. I got it from Bellows Products (www.bellowsproducts.com) -- $25 for 50'. Make sure you get the roller and trimming tools to get more professional results.
- If you're concerned about the cabinet frames being visible through the gaps in the doors (particularly a problem with the corner cabinet and if you're using white cabinet frames), use edge banding on the cabinet frames. Make sure to apply and trim the edge banding before you assemble the cabinets. It will be much faster/easier if you do this and you'll get a better result too. I edge banded all of my cabinet frames and it looks really great. It didn't take that much time and was worth it for me.
Well, I think that's it for now. I hope this helps someone out there! Pictures of my kitchen are coming shortly. Please stay tuned.
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In Kitchen Blogs
Kitchen Transformation is Underway
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Apr 29th, 08 11:30 pm |
My kitchen has been making slow but substantial progress. It already looks so much different/better than the old one.
We dropped the ceiling in the kitchen just enough to put in recessed lights -- it's so much better lit now (the lighting trim hasn't been put in yet...that's why they're dangling right now).
The porcelain floor tile has been installed, but it's covered up for protection so you can't see it in these pictures. The walls have been taped, spackled, skim coated, and primed (pictures to come).
So now we're all set for cabinets -- they were delivered today and I have already assembled all the wall cabinets. Tomorrow, we'll install the wall cabinets and hopefully assemble all the base cabinets so those can be installed on Thurs..
I decided to put wood veneer edge banding on all the cabinet box faces since I went with white cabinets and don't want it showing through the gaps between doors. Putting the edge banding on is fairly easy once you get the hang of it and doesn't add that much time -- I think it's well worth it and gives the cabinets a more custom/expensive look. (FYI, FastEdge's prefinished Teak wood veneer banding is a close match to Nexus Yellow Brown.)
I'll post more pictures in the next couple days of the cabinet installation.
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In Kitchen Blogs
Before & Demolition Pictures
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Mar 31st, 08 2:06 pm |
I am finally renovating my circa 1980-something kitchen after living with it for a year and a half.
The previous owner of my apartment had sponge painted the entire kitchen a buttery yellow, including the kitchen cabinets which had faux-vintage blue glass pulls. They also painted the once beautiful hardwood floors a yellow-green-blue plaid pattern. The kitchen appliances were mismatched -- the fridge and stove were beige with faux-wood trim and the dishwasher and microwave were white. And we had white laminate countertops and a white plastic pull-out faucet. Yikes.
When I moved in, I painted the cabinets and walls white and changed the cabinet pulls and faucet, but it was like putting perfume on a pig. And we definitely didn't have enough storage space -- my husband and I are both chefs.
So, we're finally starting our kitchen renovation! Here are my palette and plan: Nexus Yellow Brown cabinets, Silestone quartz countertops in Blanco Maple, Groove 18" porceline tile in Bamboo for the floor, and acid etched glass that's has a hint of green for the backsplash.
Demolition was completed last week! Goodbye ugly kitchen!
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