[mpufall]

Hello All,

First of all, HELP! How do I post pictures to this thread?

I just joined this happy little group of folks a couple of days ago...quite innocently due to a "Customer Service" issue I was having with the store in Tempe, AZ. I'm not altogether sure that the issue has been solved yet, but I am hoping for the best and that the embarrassing letter I emailed to IKEA's corporate staff has had the impact that I intended.
My wife and I purchased our house just 5 months ago. Not the house I wanted, but she's happy and subsequently I'm happy. She walked in, made a comment that it has "good bones" and after a couple of "are you sures?" we made the offer and the rest, as they say, is history...sort of.
The previous owners had some issues with the use of space (1973 sq ft sectoned off into cracker box units is NOT my idea of the optimum use of space. had you taken the roof off the house, it would have looked like and egg carton on steroids! Consequently, I told my lovely better half that, contingent on us buying this beautiful little house, we would have to do some "remodeling", i.e. knock down a couple of walls, create some archways and above all, completely gut the kitchen (see the before shots). She looked at me, gave me this coy little smile and the "sure, honey, whatever you want" response that every man really wants and away we went.
IKEA attracted us, through some friends of hers who had also done their kitchen with IKEA products. For ease of use and an extremely modern palette, they are hard to beat and the kitchen her friends put in turned out gorgeous, so right away I'm sold. Giving other local contractors their fair due, we checked with several local businesses before we went with IKEA (low cost and their modern look is what really won the both of us over).
We hooked up the trailer to the Dodge Ram and drove the 840 mile, 14 hour round trip to Tempe, AZ (we live in El Paso, TX) and picked up our new kitchen, all 64 boxes plus some interesting accessories (you really have to touch and examine everything in the store...some extra stuff jumped into the basket as well) and manged to get everything home safe and sound, although rain threatened us all the way back home).
To date, we have, as I said before, knocked down two walls, completely removed and replaced all dry wall, exposed plumbing and ceiling from the kitchen and have turned the kitchen/diningroom/living room into one large Great Room. We installed recessed lighting throughtout the new kitchen space, the end of which is defined by an island that did not exist prior to the renovation.
The flooring (vinyl tile and old Berber style carpeting throughout) was stripped to the concrete and replaced with an Emperor Black tile. The island, which now seats 6 comfortably through contempoary adjustable height bar stools from Copenhagen (we did away with a so-to-speak "formal" dining room area), has a Black Galaxy marble top, a microwave built-in (the trim section for this off-the-shelf Panasonic microwave came from a company called Micro-Trim, found through a Google search...they have literally thousands of microwaves in their database) and dual pullout garbage containers (one recycle, one not). Oh, and the island is oufitted with under the counter mood lighting for that special night time effect.
The countertops are a Gray Swirl granite to contrast the island top and I installed under the cabinet task lighting at each of the 5 cabinets that have frosted glass panels in them (lighting inside the cabinets and on top of each of the cabinets helps to set the ambiance and really help the granite pop in the evenings).
Our secondary coffee island area is a multi-function item, used for the morning coffee,with a wine chiller built into the base cabinetry (my lovely wife's idea) which doubles as a bar as the need arises. In retrospect, this could have been a wetbar, but, perhaps for the next project...it's amazing how these things become a living, breathing, ever-evolving thing, isn't it?
We chose a white apron sink, also from IKEA of course and an interesting half-round range hood, stainless steel, to help complete the "black on stainless steel" look of the appliances. The size of the sink lent itself well to hiding the only seam we would have in the the granite. The sink countertop was 13' ft long...too long for one piece of stone. So, since the apron sink fits from the front of the sink cabinet to the sink wall, the solution was to cut the slab at the left side of the sink and continue on the other side, with no one the wiser that it's not one contiinuous piece.
And now we come to the impasse of the story. The faucet originally purchased for the sink had a defective cold water supply line. After numerous attempts to resolve the issue (IKEA insisted originally that we had exceeded their 90-day return policy - which we had, but due to construction contraints, I did not have occasion to look at the faucet's innards until last week when the sink installation began). After being routed to the corporate "Customer Care" center in Baltiomore, MDsevearl times only to be told by them that i needed to contact the Tempe store, which routed me back to the Baltimore call center, I finally emailed corporate IKEA, the address of which I found when i ran across the "IKEAFANS" site. Imagine my surprise when IKEA called that same day and said they would make good and send me the replacement part for the sink faucet?!
Long story short, we have a faucet to install and then a beautiful pomegranite colored 1" tile glass backslpash to install throughout the cabinet and stove area and we will have this "little" makeover completed (completion pictures to be provided once the backsplash is in).
Even with the faucet snafu, it has been a pleasure putting this all together (mind you 95 percent of the installation has been by yours truly, because IKEA will not provide a team to install a kitchen in El Paso and althoughTempe, AZ was the closest location, it was outside of their area). My wife may claim that she hated doing dishes in the bathroom sink, chopping vegeatbles on a foldup picnic table and cooking on a hotplate for five months, but now that it is almost done, she comes home every night from work, turns on the dimable recessed lighting, plays with the adjustable cabinet lighitng, sees herself in the shiny new marble and marvels at what we have accomplished.
Thanks IKEA, and especially to Diane, the woman in the Tempe, AZ kitchens department who helped us to put our vision on paper and ultimately in our kitchen!!

[kerriiskk]

I wanna see pics!!! If you post them to a picture site like Photobucket you can get the links and imbed them into you posts.

Best of luck and can't wait to see the pics!

Kerri

[mpufall]

Thanks for the info, will see what I can do. Should have a bunch to post of the finished product next week some time.

[Schmela]

We need photos! ;-) Congrats on the new kitchen! Your wife is quite the trooper. I've been whining about the bathroom sink dishes since we started our kitchen just under a month ago, and as of tonight, we have a functioning dishwasher. Wahoo! I'm not sure I could have made it much longer with a teething 1-year-old and no kitchen. My husband and I both like Adel MB, but we chose Adel birch due to the poor natural lighting in our kitchen. Anyhow...post some photos if possible. We still love looking at all the Adel MB kitchens.

[mpufall]

It seems like it will never end and then one day you're sitting there enjoying this new thing you've accomplished and you will laugh about the dishes in the bathroom sink/tub. We were unable to use anything in the kitchen until the end due to the fact that we ripped plumbing and everything out...hang in there!

[Gloria]

Hi mpufall, welcome to IKEAFans! Glad to hear they made good with the faucet issue. Pomegranite colored glass tiles sounds scrumptious! Another way to post pictures is by uploading them to the IKEAFans Galleries. (link at the end of my post)
Best wishes,
Gloria