An ongoing repository of my favorite links:

Banquette:

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/artic...-cabinets.html

Pantry article:

http://www.ikeafans.com/articles/pla...gurations.html

Blind corner base:

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/modif...ee-valley.html

http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware...722,43723&ap=2

Dalbrough's kitchen:

http://www.ikeafans.com/real-ikea-ki...and-after.html

Microwave solutions:




http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/modif...-cabinets.html

Ticor sinks:

http://www.galaxytoolsupply.com/Tico...-Sink-s/58.htm

Pantry built into studs:

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitch...om-closet.html

Appliance garages:

Justification for not using microhood:

Alternative to cover panels:

Use of gap between corners:

A great idea for the gap between that corner cabinet and the stove:

• Quote:
  Originally Posted by imagineblueskies
  I had a 4" gap in the kitchen we just today finished (photos coming). I made it into 2 open shelves with the top shelf about 4" from the countertop bottom for rolled up towel storage and the bottom part for cutting boards stacked on their side. I've been using it for several days now and LOVE my gap. :) If I had known how useful it would be, I'd have planned it in the first place!
• 

Whew. All that's left on my list:

• Some touchup painting on the walls and painting the doors
• Trimming out the back of the island Domsjo
• Base, floor transition, and crown trim (in both the kitchen and livingroom)
• Vent the microhood... sometime... eventually...
• Another trip to IKEA to buy 3 Glenn stools (hopefully - if they're finally in stock yet)

There's some other unresolved issues. The entryway area seems a bit bare and the walls are... unrelentingly orange. It's a great fit with the cabinets and countertops, but I think some artwork or something is in order.


The workstation area also feels pretty sparse. Maybe a dry-erase calendar type board will be going up here. Eh... and a forced air register :D


On a positive note, the stove area is great for cooking - lots of room to work!


And praise :IKEA:, I finally have a dishwasher (after around 2 hours of dicking around with additional fittings and a pesky leak that is). The Domsjo is everything I hoped and dreamed, and with our schnazzy plumbing job, I have tons of room to store my step stool, cleaning supplies, and glass recycling bin underneath! Not to mention the great two-bin trash pullout in the same bank and great cereal-slurping-eat-in bar area.


So thanks for all your help IKEAFans, and perhaps some *truly* complete photos to follow in the coming weeks.

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The wine cubbie is done! I wanted to have a 36" wide cabinet over the fridge to allow for the potential future expansion to a wider fridge. My current one is 30" wide and suits me quite well, but what to do with the extra space?? Solution: wine cabinet I think that could be a viable solution for really almost any problem...



I had purchased a 24x64" Nexus Birch door in the as-is section for only $15 (sweet!). We (read: my dad... he really took the lead on this project) took the door and ripped it in half to create the sides of the cabinet. We notched out the bottom to match the depth of the toekick on the other cabinets.



Next we ripped the back piece from leftover cover panel used to cover the bottom of the wall cabinets. The bottom and top pieces came from the same scrap. We covered the toekick in leftover plinth and secured with silicone (since we had put the fridge next to it before remembering to finish nail it in place with the air gun). The whole thing sits on a frame of four 2x4 pieces cut and screwed together. This is one heavy bastard of a cabinet.

The bottle holders are more or less found goods. I paid fifty cents a piece for them - they're old clay drain tile that a local lumberyard had in storage for like 40 years. Approximate dimensions are 12.125 inches deep x 5 inches wide (4 inch inner diameter). You could use 4 inch PVC pipe as a substitute, but it wouldn't have the terracotta's great effect of tempering temperature swings.



We just set the clay tiles in the sized-to-fit cabinet. Each one was secured to the next with a dollop of silicone caulk. Finally, the whole stack was centered with door shims and allowed to set. The next day, I added a couple of extra spots of silicone toward the back of the cabinet to keep the vertical stack from moving. It's quite sturdy!

Well the next step of the project is certainly the transformation stage. Drawers and doors went on and I scribed and installed the custom laminate countertops that I ordered. Lansa handles went on all the doors - vertical on the uppers and horizontal on the lowers (excluding the sink cabinet).

I ordered all 10-1/16" Lansa handles for *all* of my cabinets. Results.... I dunno :confused:. I love the proportion of handle to drawer size on the 18" cabinet, and it looks fine on the 30" drawers. I like it on the verticals too.


But I have six 15" wide drawers where the big handles look a bit... crowded. They fit, they're *fine*, but in retrospect I maybe would have chosen the next size down for those smaller drawers. Am I going to fill all those holes and put new handles on? Probably not - it's just an exhibition in uniformity versus proportionality in the Lansa handle.

How's that for a hokey title? ;)

I meant to post this last week when we had finished installing the glass cabinet doors, but real life interfered, YKWIM?

This area are original cabinets--the only ones we did not remove for our remodel. I liked how the cabinets were set back into the wall, and I thought that painting them and replacing the regular doors with glass ones would give this area some interest, elegance, and open the room more. Of course now I have to keep the cabinets looking nice inside lest it lose its visual appeal. :P



Here's a close-up of the bling:


I think the glass knobs give it a hint of--dare I say--class.

We also ordered our "back" doors. We needed an entry and a storm/screen door. We are changing the orientation of the door from a righty to a lefty, so it won't swing into the peninsula. That would be really stoooopid (as the teens say) if it did that.

We *almost* got an entry door for $57! Yes, you heard that right. They were on clearance at Lowe's because the newer ones are the Low E glass, and this one was the old standard. It was the kind of door I wanted--15-lite, and it was the right size, but it was a right-hand door. Boo. I guess it's OK because I don't know how long the door would last, as it's steel, and this door is going to get hit with southern exposure and gets the most use. On top of that I was advised to get Fiberglass.

Soooo, we ordered a Therma Tru door, with 15 lites, grilles between the glass, with black hinges. I am stoked. I think it will look really nice. Since it is special order, that puts this part of the kitchen on hold for about 3 weeks. =:-o Which means the floor won't be laid for another month, which means I am going to SCREAM! :yikes:

OK, maybe I won't. ;^)

In the meantime, enjoy a homemade chocolate chip cookie!

Well, after 10 total days of pain, I have a new kitchen! We got done well after 1 am last night, but it is done (minus a few paint touch-ups and lots of cleaning). We ran into some snags, of course, but I am thrilled with the finished product. Once I recover from the ordeal of the final push, I'll post more about some hacks and lessons learned. You can see the full photoset here:

Flickr Slideshows (Sets)

Flickr Slideshows (Sets)

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We are on day 4 of the second round of kitchen stuff. This was supposedly final details and touch up, but it has ended up taking us much longer than anticipated.

The backsplash tile was a bit of an ordeal. My walls are quite wonky, so we had to build up some areas with thinset a bit to get a nice finished look. The laying was actually okay, even though it took a long, full day; it was the grouting that turned it all into a nightmare.

We grouted in one go, with probably 1.5 hours from start to finish. We did start washing off the grout before we were done grouting all the way around, but it dried faster than expected. We ended up having to scrape off dried grout with credit card edges and our fingernails. 10 hours later, it looked okay, except for one small section in the corner, behind where my mixer will now go. I doubt anyone else will notice it, and the overall effect is stunning. Lesson learned: when the grout package says to start clean-up 30 minutes after application, that's not a suggestion, it's a requirement.

We are working on toekicks and trim now. We managed to hack in one toekick drawer, but the second wouldn't fit due to the leg arrangement. I might be able to get a narrower drawer and add it in later. Or I might leave it - I really just wanted at least one so my baking sheets had a handy home.

Pictures soon!

Building an island part 2...

Well... turns out we had to remove some blocking behind the forced air register to allow the dishwasher to sit immediately next to the sink. Generally, however, mission accomplished.




We now have the back panel on, dishwasher cap in place, and the countertop installed with the sink hole cut! It really looks like something.

The dishwasher cap added a lot of stability to the structure - we let the glue sit overnight with clamps on the cap to really let it solidify before we installed it.



These pics were taken just before attaching the countertop - we secured the island one only with silicone caulk. It's extremely sturdy.

I decided to put my dishwasher as an end-of-run install, but to make things even more complicated, it's also an "island" install. Technically, it's a peninsula as the other end of the cabinet run is attached to the wall (but not other cabinets.

We needed to accomplish a few goals in building the island:

• Provide support to the countertop on the dishwasher end
• Create a way to attach the cover panels securely to the island frame
• Have a design that hides the edges of the floating floor being installed in the kitchen
• Create room for an outlet at the dishwasher end of the peninsula

The cover panels needed to be attached to the cabinets, but sit right on top of the flooring to hide the cut edges of the floor. We wanted to be able to attach the back cover panel to all of the cabinets and then to the end of the dishwasher area.

Solution: a cleat all the way around the island that the flooring will be cut close to and 1x4 and 1x6 lumber attached to the cleat that will reside between the cabinets and cover panel and provide a solid surface to screw through to the panels (since those thin back boards don't have much strength). The cover panels will sit directly on the flooring eliminating the need for floor trim around this area.







We haven't established the last corner of the island because we haven't quite figured out what we're doing there *gasp*. It's not very clear if the dishwasher will be able to sit directly next to the Domsjo sink because of the forced-air duct in that area. The outlet will be attached to the dishwasher side cover panel itself in an old-work shallow installation electrical box. Next weekend's project, I suppose.

And I swear I've done more - all drawers are in with pulls and the countertops are ready to be scribed and installed. It looks almost like a kitchen now, kinda (pics in the next post).

I am so so so happy to finally have pulls on my drawers! It was a pain in the tush to pull open the drawer a hair, just to have the tape break off and the door roll back in place. Grrrr. So we FINALLY received our backordered handles, and got them installed!

Here is a photo of our peninsula with the new pulls. Woo Hoo! I have to say I really love it. It is exactly what I had in mind *in my head*.



I snapped this earlier, but obviously did not do any "staging", as you can see the missing toe kick, the blue tape by the door, and unfinished floor, etc. I just wanted to "show off" my new jewelry! :D

We ordered glass for some of our cabinet doors, and that should be ready tomorrow, so we are finally getting a move on it, again. Whew. :cool:

One of the littler Ikea Fans, enjoying her Fagerland kitchen with Lansa handles:

Standing assistance...

Now, back to my regularly scheduled programming of work/sleep/play! Miss you all!

Here's the combo I went with for the TV. The 56" screen is about an inch too long to fit on a single besta lower shelf, so I bridged two together.

It still made the wall look a little empty, so I went back to Ikea and got a pair of besta shelves. Coincidentally, when mounted on the chrome frame, these are the same height as the top of the TV frame.

The top of each shelf is decorated with some artwork done by my 3 year old. She likes to play on MS Paint (I like it cause there is no real paint to clean up afterwards!). I saved two of her drawings as JPEG images. Opened them in Photoshop and re-sized them to get an aspect ratio that was both close to the cabinet door size, and a size that wal-mart could print out. Emailled the two files off to wally and they were ready for pickup in an hour. I used some rubber cement to tack the pics to the white cardboard, and when sealed under glass, they look nice.

The besta cabinets are also going to house a few electronic components (cable box, media player, receiver). Since they will be more or less sealed behind the glass doors (white panels will be taken out), I am working on rigging some PC fans to help with air circulation. I'll do a separate post for that when the time comes.

This is an 8x8 section for the girls to do crafts in and play. As I mentioned, the table is fitted with adjustable legs. They were not cheap at around $15 per, but since they can be adjusted as the kids grow taller it means not having to buy them a new table. Plus I thought it was cool.

Some Ikea storage bins for paints, crayons, colouring books etc. Trying to teach the older one to put things away when she's done. Too bad she doesn't have a good example to follow!

A few picture frames will go up in this corner, and one wall with have two magnetic boards. Lee Valley make an M4 threaded magnet that will screw into Ikea cabinet handles, so I got a couple 6-packs of cabinet knobs that will be used as magnets (makes them too big to try & swallow).

Lots of left over parts from my besta shelves.

And yeah, that's a hammer drill I use. No allen keys for this guy!

Thanks Macbride! I hope to have it done by the end of July...of this year.

The effektiv cabinet is the perfect depth for the centre channel speaker. I used 3" toggle bolts to anchor it to the wall. They are rated 50 pound per bolt, but..I'm not sure if drywall can hold that. For my own peace of mind, I added some brackets that could be attached to a stud.

Most bracket are at least 3/4" wide, but Ikea makes a tubular one that it about 3/8". This was perfect because it could fit on a stud and I would not have to move the face plates under the cabinet. Once the TV is in place, this bracket cannot be seen.

I figured since the cabinet had frosted doors, that I could install a couple other brackets I had laying around. A plastic one from Ikea and a metal one from Home Despot were anchored to the stud with 3" screws, and attached to the bottom and top panels of the cabinet.

The beech finish on the effektiv series matches the Besta series, so hopefully it will look OK alongside.



The speaker is pushed flat against the wall, and is flush with the front edge of the cabinet. Almost like I planned it that way!

Well I ran into a little snag, but with the help of ecomod, I was able to overcome it. Seems like some how some where I lost the plugs that go into the 15" pull out. Well ecomod had some extras and was kind enough to send me a set.
The island is assembled and all the pieces have been attached to each other, but the 12" deep cabinets i am using didnt have holes for legs. I had a choice, I could drill holes for the legs or I could saw off the little bits that go in the holes and just screw them to the base. Since I am a bit of a perfectionist and after trying to get the hole alignments just right and failing. I decided to just cut the legs and screw them to the base. The measurement for this was much simpler and got it correct right away.

Now I have started installing the toe kick and have realized that i might not have enough plinth. I know that I can take the cut offs and piece them together fo some of the out of the way areas that no one will see, but that doesnt quite sit well with me (refer to the perfectionist comment). So I am doing all my long runs first then I will see what i have and how many more pieces of plinth I iwll need and plan another 12 hour trip to Phoenix. :yikes:

The countertop has been ordered and just waiting for the installers to come out and make the template. In the meantime I am working on tearing out the wall where the refigerator nook will go. I am really starting to hate plaster walls. Well the plaster I can deal with, its the 2 tons of chicken wire thats embedded in it thats really driving me mad. I think I have gone through half a dozen saw blades (that were labeled wood and metal) just trying to cut out the llarger pices to minimize the mess. Well I guess I should bite the bullet and just pound the plaster to smitherines so that I can pull the wire out more easily.

Things are actually coming together and I am surprised. It seems like it has been taking forever to get to this point. Looking back, I only started the rip out of the old cabinets about a month and a half ago. From some of the posts I have read some people have been working on their projects longer, so I dont feel so bad.

I will post some more pics when I get things sorted out a bit so it doesn't look so much like a construction zone.