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DH is assembling cabinets today, so I guess it's time to start a progress blog. Here's what my kitchen looked like in November of 2003. Yup! A vacant lot - well except for all the trees. We managed to site the house so as to keep far more of them than we had to cut down. This has been a long process. The house was 95% designed at that point.
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Here's an overhead view from the planner. The island will have a solid stainless steel top (not the C shape shown), with 3' of knee space on the back side for one person to sit at a stool. The two cabs at the back of the island are 18" tall wall cabs. The open space underneath is for feeding the cats. The pantry on the right will be pulled out to give more of a built in look. The three cabinets on the back wall will all be 18" deep, like the center one.
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This view from the NE corner of the room shows the main work area of the kitchen.
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This view from the SW corner of the kitchen shows the three dish cabinets on the left wall. The center unit is an existing piece that I built in 1974. (I used a piece from the planner of the same approximate size.) DH will build two new ones. The refrigerators and freezer are on the right wall. Lots of people keep an extra fridge in the garage. I just decided to keep it a little handier. I haven't decided for sure how to handle the pantry space. The space is perfect for a 15" and 24" unit side by side, which is probably what I'll use. I'm still considering one 39" unit with sliding shelves. This would require more construction on DH's part. What isn't shown here is the top row of cabinets on both walls. Those on the fridge side will be painted to match the wall color. There will be a glass display unit over the dish cupboards.
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This next is a computer rendering of the room. DH is building the drawer fronts and doors. There will be 2 drawer fronts on each cabinet, with interior drawers on most of them. We still haven't decided on shaker or slab fronts. We have a special piece of art that will go over the stove hood, hence the plain cabinet. Not sure what the backsplash will look like. The living room is to the right.
Wow it already looks amazing. Can't wait to see the progress photos. I love your idea of all drawers. Makes for a very uniform modern look. Keep them coming....
I would love to do all drawers- yours looks fab! Do tell about the drawers under the sink- just ditching the top few and keeping the bottom functioning?
Maybe a stupid question, but does IKEA offer a two drawer without any other smaller drawers at the top?
What a Lovely property - it looks like it's along a trail, is it? (or is that your own 'fondness' path?)
And cherry! - My sister-in-law just did her floors in cherry - she wanted a darker look, but didn't want a stained surface that could be scratched through the color - her floors are a beautiful warm, not too dark a shade - she is very happy with them.
- What strikes me the most about your plan are the windows along and into the living room area - It will be a beautiful living space I think, especially with such lovely trees - I'm so glad you could keep so many of them.
Thank you for showing us, I look forward to seeing the progress!
Thanks for all your wonderful comments! I've been dreaming this kitchen for three years now... and some form of new or remodeled one for many years before that. It's so wonderful to finally see it coming to be. Thanks to everyone for helping me work out the kinks of modifying the IKEA cabs to fit my plan.
designenvy - what doesn't show is the drawers on the working side of the island, where I've just tried to fit in as much as possible and given up the two drawer line. Of course those cabinets aren't built yet, I could still change my mind...
eva - that "plain cabinet" over the stove hood will in reality be just a wooden box, with a backlit stained glass window mounted there. We thought about painting the area, but decided the wood grain was a better balance for the one upper cabinet.
laurie - yes, it's huge and the wonderful thing is that often I'll be taking fewer steps than in my present kitchen. I'll have the trash can right in the work area (pullout next to sink), won't have to go the garage for next roll of paper towels or the crockpot, etc. Best of all, I won't have to get down on the floor to get something out of the blind corner cabinets that make up 2 of the 3 lower cabinets in the whole kitchen.:shock: My present kitchen is 1/3 the size, with poorly laid out cabinets and cut off from the rest of the house. After 25 years, I'm ready for the new one!
kelly - we are going to rig some type of drawers under the sink, hopefully a 12" deep at the bottom and whatever there is room for at the top. IKEA doesn't make a 2 drawer unit, but I think it's possible to convert the 30" unit to a 3 drawer cabinet which would make for very nice lines as well. (This entails changing out the two 15" drawers at the top for one 30" drawer.)
elan - the lot is 4/10 of an acre (100' x 180') in a 50 year old subdivision that is very heavily wooded with a lot of steep hills. We love that it feels like it's out in the woods. We're building the house "upside down", with the main rooms upstairs just so we'll be in the trees. A great kitchen and lots of light were my 2 main requirements for the house.
Liz, it looks great! I look forward to following your progress. Congrats on a gorgeous lot and a wonderful plan.
Susan
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The outside base cabinets are in place, though the corner area needs some readjustment to allow for handles. We need to cut down the cabinet to the right of the stove opening. One option is to just narrow it by 3 inches, which would require cutting down the drawers to 27". The other option is to cut it down to 24" wide, letting us use 24" drawers with no modification. I would use the extra few inches as a cubbyhole for baking sheets.
The counter guy came in to do a preliminary measurement yesterday. He thought he may be able to find a remnant for our master vanity. I hope so - then maybe I won't faint at the price of the kitchen counters.
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Thanks to everyone for helping me work out the kinks of modifying the IKEA cabs to fit my plan.
