Ikea Kitchen

So early on in the process, when designing my dream kitchen...I imagined custom cabinets. Oh, I had big dreams people, B I G. But I also had a tiny budget....so that left my researching Big Box store kitchen cabinets. After some relatively exhaustive research I decided on Ikea. For 3 reasons:

1. Cost - 'nuff said
2. Lifetime Warranty - I mean LIFETIME, who can beat that?
3. Stellar designer reviews

Turns out, most folks are doing Ikea Kitchens these days. Ikea makes a good, reliable product.  But I wanted my kitchen to still feel custom, not like an Ikea showroom. I decided that would be done with the details...more on that later. First some things you should know:
Ikea has this awesome kitchen planning tool. It's rad. It takes patience. I don't have any patience. You need patience for this process.

Ikea cabinets cannot be painted. So its a what you see is what you get see-chu-ashun. I wanted a bright white (because its small), modern kitchen. So, I was initially attracted to Adel which has the most modern lines.

But it turns out these are really an off white...that just looked dirty to me. So I ended up going with the Lindingo. Which I hope to modernize with my hardware and tile choices.

All in all, it took 3 trips to Ikea, 36 hours fooling around with that tool and many many Pinterest searches to get to the place where I was ready to order. Ordering the cabinets took 5 hours. That is not a typo. F I V E.

When they deliver them, this is what they look like:

God Bless the souls who put these together themselves. I get Agita just thinking about it. My guys are starting to put them together now. Yay! So excited.

But here's what you really want to know, cost right?  I got all my cabinets, moldings, hardware and sink, for less than 5k from Ikea during their kitchen sale. This is literally the only place I have come in under budget...I budgeted 5,500. Who's bad?!


xoxox,
Summer

Whoops a Daisy

So there's this thing called trust. It's kinda important in your relationships. Its never more important than between you and contractor. There's also this thing control...you like to think you have it, but trust is the thing that makes you feel kinda ok relinquishing it.

Ok, now that that's off my chest. After an exhaustive paint search, I gave the contractor my paint choices and because I have control issues, I also gave him the samples and emailed him the formulas and a fool proof listing of where they should be placed.

And because I have trust issues, I went by to check it out.

You can guess where this story is going....

So, while I talk myself down from the self righteous ledge where I am now firmly placed chanting, IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT DO IT YOURSELF...

I leave you a picture of my new glass back door. She's a beauty.

xoxoxo,
Summer

Let's talk about lights baby...

So when you're basically redoing a house there are all these little details to try and keep up with. For example, when you're redoing a bathroom to the studs there are the big things: tub, toilet, sink, shower, faucets, vanity. But also little things: interior plumbing for said shower and sink, fan, towel racks, TP holder. And don't even get me started on the kitchen, now I understand the saying everything but the kitchen sink, except in this case you need that to.

But lighting, ah, lighting is key. Right now my house has a bunch of these little boob lights. You can spot two of them here:

I HATE these!  The lights are builder grade 7.99 dollar lights that look, well like a big silver boob. I am replacing every single one! Well, all the fixtures really. Currently, I have a combination of low hanging ceiling fans like-a so...

These two are in the bedrooms which we no longer need because we added central air and heat.

This beast was in the living room - which I hit my head on EVERY time because the ceilings are so low. We replaced with recessed lighting.

This is the dining room chandy. There was nothing wrong with it, except the bulb was out and it was improperly installed, and it wasn't centered. So Install = Bad but Light = Functional. And as you saw, in the kitchen, more boob lights! We pulled those out and replaced with recessed. And BOTH hallways and the bathroom had a boob light. Dats a lot of boobs!

Now the good stuff - the replacements!

Hallways are getting these beauties:

I picked these up from Shades of Light, a lighting company I found on a DIY design blog called Young House Love. Now, I'm no DIY'er but I do like the idea of saving a buck and these two are masters at it. Their style is also super cute.

The dining room is getting this lovely:

West Elm...all day, er'y day. It'll be magic with the Benjamin Moore Wickham.

The new bath is getting recessed in the shower, over the tub and in the center and then this beauty for the modern vanity - also Shades of Light.

And Summer's bank account did hath command "Let there beeee liiiight!"

xoxoxo,

Summer

On the Floor

So, the next step in the kitchen was to add flooring. It was tile before:

But now we had a choice, choose a new tile or make it wood like the rest of the house. The whole purpose of taking that wall down was to make the space feel open...so we decided to go with wood for a seamless look and voila...

A seamless line from the kitchen through to the dining room.

This is the view from the living room to the kitchen:

We chose a darker stain because it seems elegant to me...although I was torn because this lighter one made it feel very open. But in the end we went with lucky #3.

Lighter than what was there before, but dark enough to give us some contrast. Now we're on to the business of cabinets!

xoxox,
Summer

Grays Anatomy

This weekend I needed to choose paint for the front rooms of the house. Here's the thing, paint is the cheapest thing you put in your house but has the greatest impact. A paint is a tricky little devil. How it looks on the can, is not how it looks on the wall, how it looks in the sun, is not how it looks in the shade!

I knew I wanted shades of calming gray, I have a very specific design sensibility that has a lot to do with choosing one base color and layering on top of that. Gray is my base. Gray paint I found, was also the hardest to work with!

These are all Benjamin Moore grays for the living room. Smoke on the wall reads like lavender, Horizon a soft gray read almost white with a bit of blue. Wickham was more a true gray and Revere Pewter, almost a mauve.

 In the dining room we tried Wickham, Revere Pewter and Gray Owl. Revere Pewter is just pink. There. I said it.

 Sidewalk, which is advertises as a "concrete" gray is purple!!

All the lovelies all in a row.

So after much debate, drying, re-coating, coming back in different lights - we decided on Horizon in the living room - we want to keep it as bright in there as possible and Wickham in the dining room.

Whew, 2 rooms complete....the good news about paint is that you can always paint over it. :)


xoxox,
Summer

Every time I try to get out...they keep pulling me back in!

Guest Bath is GUTTED! I can NOT wait until everything goes back in.

This weekend, we get to pick paint colors, kitchen counters and fireplace tile. Rumor has it, front of the house will be ready in two weeks!! 

xoxox,

Summer

Rookie Mistake

So this bathroom has been the bane of my existence.

We didn't like it and although found it useable just hated the thought of it being the primary bathroom in the house as its in the hallway and the only other bathroom will be inside the master. So, I thought to myself, how expensive can it be? Just to replace the tile and make it pretty...um...ROOKIE MISTAKE. It can be very expensive, dummy. Once my contractor ripped out all the tile, he found all this shoddy work and horrible plumbing and dangerous wiring. So my surface remodel turned into a gut job. The reality is once we pulled everything out, we found out NONE of it was reusable and if we just put pretty on top of ugly, we would end up having to rip out the pretty. Or as my grandma used to say, we were putting Lipstick on a pig.  So, now we're too far down the rabbit hole to turn back. We're getting all new plumbing, new fixtures, a new fan (it didn't have one, before gross), new tile, new shower, new EVERYTHING. Sigh...learned this one the hard way!

So on to the design - I swear by Pinterest and some great blogs to help me narrow the millions of choices out there.  We decided to go with a more feminine zen look in here because I'm going pretty modern in the master bathroom. Without further ado the inspiration and the choices:

The inspiration is Sarah Richardson Design. She is bananas. I love the way this feels and I think it will make that dark bathroom airy and light. Can't wait to see the final result! And, I'll give you costs (high) and pain (medium) details once its all finished.

xoxo,
Summer

Demolition

Hi there! My contractor is not fooling around! This is what we have now...

Poor wall never stood a chance...GONE.

 And those weird doorways to nowhere also Hasta...

And all the materials are gone, cabinets, countertops, appliances. I'm working with a clean slate. It's daunting, well terrifying, really. I ripped out perfectly good stuff!  But its too late to second guess myself now. That mess is GONE. Plus, I sold it so its really gone. Hopefully, it's going to a new home where the owners appreciate it more than I did!

the tour

This is the house as it stood when I closed escrow...

 The living room is my favorite part of the house...those windows?!

 This view is from the front door through the dining room to the kitchen...pay close attention to that wall.

 This view is from the back of the house through the kitchen.

This one is the front of the kitchen to the back of the house where there is a tiny bathroom.

 
This is the only other bathroom...the tile. Sigh. The. TILE.

And the tiny vanity beneath the window.

In short, all this must GO. (Except my gorgeous front room). We started last week and this is what we're planning:

• The wall between the kitchen and the dining room must go 
• The galley kitchen will now be wide open (all those doorways are a thing of the past) 
• The door from the side of the house moves to the back  

I struggled with the bathroom - to leave it and deal with it later or just to gut it now.

It turns out gutting it now, while the workers are already there is less expensive. So, out it goes.

And that's all the work you can see...more on what you can't see later. Stay Tuned!

Hullabaloo @ Home

In my heart, I'm just a frustrated interior designer, obsessed with all things style. (I will not speak of my shopping obsession in print.) As an event designer, I definitely get to feed the beast, but alas my designs last no longer than six hours. I have been dreaming of buying my first house and being able to make it my own and I finally got my chance!

So this blog will be dedicated to all things new home ownership and design - the remodel, the plans, the design and how I keep my sanity (and one hopes my budget in tact.) 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - step one, COMPLETE!


xoxoxo,
Summer