...with a question mark because I'm sort of shocked at the lack of major catastrophes. Of course, I've jinxed it now, but maybe the incessant thinking, surfing, researching has actually paid off. Or the other shoe has yet to drop.

The recap:

Mission statement - I want a kitchen that has enough counter space for me to properly prepare multiple dishes at once, storage space to hold food for a family of three, lighting to actually see what I'm doing, for a budget-friendly price with an eye to resale value.

The space before and the plans: are in my plannning post

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/kitch...ut-please.html

and a big thank you to everyone who gave their advice!

Last Thursday we took the afternoon off work to order the kitchen, hoping to avoid any major line-ups. The process with the kitchen associate was fairly painless, although we didn't really get any great insights...maybe our plan was just that good?

Fast forward through the 2 hrs of waiting time for order to be processed, getting us paid and waiting for pick-up and we're ready!...where's the microwave? Uh, and pretty sure the countertops aren't on the cart...where's the pantry?! Sigh.

Flag down an IKEAN. He goes to check. I start to panic - 35 minutes till daycare closes. Then I see a cart in the back that looks like it has countertops and our missing pantry. Point it out to the IKEAN. Nope, not ours. Five minutes later and the micro appears...and yes, that cart WAS ours! So DH starts checking the order line by line while I rush off to daycare.

After all that, we were only missing one item and were given one additional item. Not bad!

So that gets us here:


Our poor dog has no idea what's happened to his normal sleeping zone. But I think he'll thank us when he sees his new treat bin.

And that's where it stayed til yesterday, when we demoed the kitchen in one night.


The other half of the kitchen that will eventually get done...yesterday it was storage and now it's assembly zone (the bins are outside...let's hope we didn't put anything in that will freeze as it's -20 c tonight!)


Upper cabs gone!



Exhaust fan off



The mystery hole



Sink base, countertop off



Firstly, I'm SHOCKED that we didn't unearth more things than we did when we tore out the old. The exhaust fan was actually properly hardwired! YAY! But it was on the same circuit as the dishwasher, which means we need to run a new circuit. There's a mysterious hole in the drywall unearthed behind the fan...what the heck?! Perhaps that's where Mr. Mouse may have been getting in. That's getting sealed up. The oven will move over enough to fit the 12" cab (whew!). The wall studs are the proper 16"...we can work with this!

The old kitchen came out fairly unscathed and was picked up by Habitat for Humanity this morning. Unfortunately, we added a new gouge to the floor and a wall near the door. And there may have been some raised voices...mostly on my end. Yeah, I was a little nervous last night. But it's done. Next!

Tonight DH built some of our upper cabs while I, uh, blogged. We had high hopes of getting everything done this weekend, and by everything I mean the frames, innards, countertop, sink...basically getting us back to a functional kitchen since our place is too small to go without for too long. Plus with a dog and a 19-month old, it's amazing how much you use the kitchen sink! Instead, we're hoping to get just the prep wall done, minus the microwave...my dad has kindly agreed to lend his handy hands, his tools, and his electrical engineering degree to our cause He'll be working on the wiring issues tomorrow while DH builds and hangs cabs, I rip out the backsplash, purchase the sink and faucent and help with the cabs, and my mom babysits. It's a family affair!

So now we're up-to-date on the updates. Tomorrow is a big day for the check-list and I'm hoping we can keep the pace up. But if not, I know we won't let it sit forever as some of our other home projects because we just can't afford to give up our space for too long or we'll all be miserable.