Kitchen Remodel

It's about time we remodeled the kitchen. We've been waiting years to do this and we're finally in a position where it financially makes sense to do this. We've got the plans (courtesy of my step-dad, dated 8/24/06) and I've been working on the Ikea kitchen planner. We're also hitting Home Depot and getting prices there. We're getting a really good idea of what we want and what the final project will look like.

I thought I'd list the frustrations with our kitchen, but really, pictures will tell the story so much better.

Here's our counter space:

Yeah, that's it. If you just did dishes and then fix something to eat, your entire counterspace is now taken. We often use the stove to set things or the edge of the sink.

Also notice that the cabinets are so low that very little fits under them:

Ever knock over a bottle of wine when trying to open your cabinet door? Thank God it wasn't open.

The other problem with things not fitting under the cabinets is that when you try to use them, you either have to keep putting them away or create space on other surfaces. So the toaster and the coffee maker are on top of the microwave (which is on a microwave cart). And the Kitchenaid Mixer and knife block are on top of a butcher block kitchen cart. There are extension cords everywhere so that everything can be plugged in. This not only looks cluttered, it's probably also a fire hazard.

Which leads me to another complaint. If you do have anything "too tall" on your countertop, you have to set it by the wall so that you can get the cabinet doors open. But obviously they can't be opened all the way.

Please note in the last picture the dings in the cabinet doors - from hitting all the objects set on counters.

Other ugliness in the kitchen includes the brown carpet (brown when clean, brown when dirty), the lack of storage, and the plaster walls cracking behind the cabinets that are built right onto the walls. Makes me a bit nervous.

We plan on taking down the wall with the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. (The wall to the right of the blender.) This will open up the kitchen quite a bit and create more usable space for cooking, baking, and eating.

In the picture above, it's not the wall with the arch-shaped opening, but the one beyond that with the door frame. (Photo taken by our realtor when we had the house for sale last year. Obviously we decided to stay a bit longer.)

Here's the Ikea layout - so far. I'm a bit frustrated with the software, so there's a few things I gave up on and will tweak when we're back at the store.

Here's one of our inspirations - the cabinets are the same as the ones we want to get. (Knobs are different though.)

I'll post updates as we go. We still need to go to Home Depot, decide on what we want, find a renter for Jason's house/cabin in Kentucky, measure the kitchen again, go to Ikea to place the order, have a professional come out and measure again for the countertops, tear up all the carpet in the house, take down all the cabinets in the kitchen, the tear down the plaster wall between the kitchen & dining room... THEN we'll get around to putting together the new kitchen. :)