The Wits

Kitchen Reno Update with Continued Ikea Experience Talk

by Annie Posted on May 7, 2014

Guys, I’m getting more and more excited. The kitchen is slowly coming along. Can’t tell you how much I love taking something ugly and inefficient down. Demo is the best.

I’ll show you through photo ~~and while I sing you a song~~.

Hold up.

For those following our Ikea-using journey for the kitchen reno I’ll tell you that we ordered the cabinets and whatnot on a Monday at the store (see that link for the Ikea experience we had), scheduled delivery for Sunday (Easter even), they called and said they were going to be in our area Wednesday (2 days after ordering) so we said sure, bring it on over that day. Ich bin impressed.

Ikea hires the delivery part out, so what I’m about to say isn’t completely reflecting poorly upon them. That sounds bad, huh? I mean sure they use the company and you expect them to be responsible for who they choose, but again, I’ve read a number of horror stories regarding people receiving their Ikea kitchen from a lousy shipper even though they had nothing but great customer service from Ikea.

And looking back, this wasn’t awful at all-not even close to the other stories-and the delivery guys were very nice, even wanted to hire us since we actually helped unload. Guess we were only the second people they’ve ever met that assisted…sounds pathetic to me. Help them out, people.

The bad part was that, okay we said bring it on Wednesday and set up a timeframe from 5 to 9 for delivery…at 2ish they called and said they were 40 minutes away. Uhh, what? Greg had to leave work early to meet them and he was about the same distance away.

I bet the guy I spoke with on the phone the day before, who had me on speakerphone and I hate…which is why I imagine him for some reason leaning back in his chair with his arms behind his head, just chillin’, making the daily customer calls when I said we won’t be home until 5. Surely he made some rude gesture like yeah right, lady, 5 to 9 then winked at someone in the office then went ahead and stamped the paperwork with a 1 to 5 timeframe and hung up after assuring me that would be fine. The next day, same guy left me a voicemail that said they were on their way (early) and if we couldn’t be there or weren’t there we’d have to schedule another day and time….which had me yelling at the voicemail “you mean like Sunday? our original delivery day?” Good thing we were on the ball and had the house fairly organized to even get it stored. Now the pictures. (There’s more info about our Ikea kitchen after the pics.)

Ikea cabinets arrived like this

Checklist

Putting them together. Does not involve a yellow squeaky ball…unless you have a dog or two that think “mom and dad are trying to do something so I must be all over the place to help”

Together!

Flooring arrived shortly after the cabinets

We’ll test that.

That hole…

produced this mess for the new pendant light.

This side came down, a few weeks after the other side of the kitchen

Yoink

Greg extended the doorway so we can put in our built-in for the fridge

As it looks today…like 2 minutes ago today

The opening went from 55″ (remember we had a pocket door here) to 48″ which is still a good size and looks better with the scale of the house

Pocket door-to jog your memory. See this post from the past about what we’ve done to the kitchen before the big reno.

We were told we had a small load by the delivery guys compared to the Ikea kitchens they usually haul. We do have a small galley kitchen and our design lacks upper cabinets on one side (except the one above the fridge). As soon as the delivery truck was gone, I began checking to make sure we had everything. The delivery guys said we had 5 days to go over everything and underlined the number to call if there were any problems. That whole check-everything-before-the-truck-leaves bit was false in our case. Phew. Everything was there and no damage. There might even be a few things we can return if we don’t open them. We shall see.

It took us 3 evenings and 6 hours to put together a 36″ x 39″ upper cabinet, 15″ x 39″ upper cabinet, a tall 24″ x 88″ pantry cabinet, and 5 base cabinets of varying sizes. Greg was very impressed with the process and quality. If you pour the contents out in a certain way from the box they practically put themselves together. Due to the numerous other bloggers whose posts I read about putting together Ikea kitchens, I thought it would take longer. 6 hours and 90% is done. Nice! One very helpful tip would be to have a screw gun so you aren’t doing it all by hand. I could see how that would take forever. It’s great to have in general anyway. We use it for every.single.project around here….yep, every one.

As you saw, the cabinets are just sitting in our master bedroom waiting to go, some cover panels are leaning against the wall in the living room (by the flooring) and the tall pantry cabinet, as you also saw, is by the fridge in the dining room. That photo is misleading because that’s the clean version. The now (dirty) version is full of food and everyday items we had in the kitchen along with a shelf we brought up housing our cookware and dinnerware. It’s a mess like I said last post. It’s been this way for weeks and will most likely be that way for weeks to come. We’re on drywall repair now, folks.

Speaking of flooring, we got the lovely maple…which I guess meant we also bought a pallet because the guy said it was ours since he wasn’t waiting for us to unload all of the flooring. It took us 5 minutes to get the 246 sq ft in the house. Oh no, not 5 whole minutes!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue scraping off old glue and wallpaper. Because this 1952 kitchen has seen at least 2 paint colors and 2 wallpaper motifs, perhaps 3, in its time and the previous owner painted over the wallpaper. Also, the cabinets were a pain to take down. Also, also, do you like the salmon pink shade and the now very open layout? I’m digging it. The kitchen has never been so big and open.

Organized Mess

by Annie Posted on April 16, 2014

Well, ladies and gents, we did it. Greg and I started tackling the kitchen/dining room renovation over the weekend.

The carpet and pad were removed in the dining room. The laminate flooring was removed in the kitchen. All in prep for the new maple flooring.

We moved the fridge into the dining room, organized what we won’t be using in the kitchen into bins, and took out one side of the old cabinets. We kept the sink side in place so it’s still a functioning kitchen. I am a home cook that needs her work space. The stove was put back into place after laying down some contractor paper and rugs in both rooms. And that’s where we stand. Organized mess.

The following day we went to Ikea to order the kitchen cabinets. I’m amazed because they arrive tonight. It was an easy process-much like going to the store for assistance with the design. See this link for more information and tips on the Ikea kitchen planning thus far. The previous arrival date was for Easter Sunday, but Ikea’s delivery department called to say they would be in our area. 2 days after ordering. *Update on that: whoever Ikea had delivering our items put us in a 5 to 9 time slot so we could both be home then they called to say they were 35 minutes away at 2:45…first complaint so far.

By the way, the kitchen rep at Ikea told us we have 3 days to go over our order once it’s delivered which means that issue where you have to do that before the delivery truck leaves is incorrect. Phew.

I have the master bedroom set up for storage and assembly. I’ll be working towards getting most of it put together in there while Greg focuses on drywall work.

The flooring arrives Monday or Tuesday. It’s going very fast, people. We’re feeling that rush (although Greg is also feeling pressure and stress since his day job suddenly asked him to be involved in other areas…he gets to work this Saturday and is not thrilled).

Seattle is coming!

Before any of this happened, we found out we had big car issues with our Subaru Forester. Rebuilding the engine kind of problems that might be worth fixing for someone else with time and money, but for us, we need a reliable vehicle that will get us across the country and safely about when we get there until we get settled. We heart our Subarus, but also considered a Volvo. Something wagon to haul our furniture and pups.

The search for a new used vehicle began weeks ago. All the while we decided not to drive any farther than around town which meant Greg got a ride to work for a couple weeks. Before we ran errands we sang “car don’t fail us now, car don’t fail us now.” That was stressful. Things looked bleak.

We kept trying to find anything without luck…until last Thursday. It all just came together.

The dealership was within a distance we were willing to take our broken vehicle, so we kept calling until they finally got it Monday after they purchased it at a New York auction. We watched it roll up on a trailer, get unloaded then we jumped out towards the office door. This Forester is 4 years newer than our last and will have come from Rochester, New York to Minnesota to Seattle, Washington. Maybe we’ re just dorks that think that’s something special. Can you tell we have love for a good Subaru?

So, Greg worked from home that morning, we bought our Ikea cabinets, that car, and an antique dining table and bistro chair set from a craigslister in one day (I’ll show you the chairs later…I’m really digging the sanded look). We actually had the set with us when we traded vehicles. It went from the old to the new Ru which made it the first craigslist item in the car under our ownership. Maybe ever. It should get used to that with us. The dealer asked if the dining set was part of the trade in. Funny man.

Anyway…I’m on the ball with this organizing thing even though the house looks a mess. I spent some time putting things we can get by without until the move into bins. Our closet now has spring/summer wardrobe with the colder season clothing packed away. I have items to donate in one area, ready to go, have been giving away and selling a few things around the house to craigslisters and the storage areas in the basement have been updated into house reno supplies, moving with us, sell/donate and use for staging. I’m feeling pretty good right now.

Before I go, here’s a cute bench a craigslister was kind enough to drop by our house yesterday. Love it! Obviously Vivi does too. I’m also collecting pieces I want to bring with us-the bench falls into that category.

We did an interview…

by Annie Posted on April 10, 2014

Yo, Greg and I recently did an interview with Goedekers-a trusted appliance, furniture and home lighting company. To find out how we answered why we started blogging, what fuels our passion for woodworking, what our favorite DIY projects are, what sparked our interest in reselling vintage and antique items, where we’re at with the progress on our house/what’s left, what our renovation status and timeline is for our move to Seattle, AND what we envision for our lives in 5 years-check it out here.

Two Dresser Reveals: Milk Paint & Wallpaper + Birch

by Annie Posted on April 1, 2014

Recently we finished the two dressers below. Surprise!

*This one was featured on Apartment Therapy (!) in July*

I know we said we were waiting until we moved and were taking the 3 we have collected with us to Seattle, but our timeline shifted and we won’t be going out until sometime in summer. Greg is needed on several projects at work here. We’re taking advantage of this time and putting more effort into the kitchen using new cabinets and custom details. This was not on the original home improvement list for resale. We’re going to be very very busy in a few weeks. I think it will look great in the end.

On to these two pieces though.

These are dressers we picked up and didn’t even share beyond putting it on our “working on” page. Oops. Actually I might have shared one.

This dresser came from a source we’ve used before, Empty the Nest. Highly recommend them if you’re in the Minneapolis metro. It was in rough shape. Definitely had potential though.

The birch dresser was from an older gentleman who listed it on craigslist. It belonged to his father and is in amazing shape beyond a veneer chip on the top. That allowed us to leave the awesome wood to shine. Except it isn’t so shiny because we sanded the old finish off and put an oil finish on it. Absolutely beautiful and more natural looking. We love when we find a piece we don’t have to paint. It’s rare. Very very rare. Both pieces were finished in about a day minus dry time for the finish coats. A full day dedicated to each one and nothing else.

The dresser with the wallpaper required some body and drawer work. Quite the opposite of the birch piece.

Gluing, screwing, vigorous sanding, and drawer glide work to be exact.

The first coat of paint didn’t satisfy the image I had in mind, so I mixed a custom blue that turned out nearly identical to the idea I’ve had for this piece since Thanksgiving.

I found the wallpaper before the holidays and began my vision for the dresser. That image kept popping up in my mind which was another reason I decided to go ahead and make it a reality before we moved. I get antsy.

The wallpaper is hand-painted with watercolor marks and washes. It reminded me of a quilt (it is called Tapestry) which invokes thoughts about my family. My mom makes quilts, they’ve always been a part of my life, and we appreciate the art form.

All of our pieces are special, but this one has an even more personal side that easily makes it one of my favorites. Both are listed in our etsy shop or you can contact me below.

Ikea Kitchen Planning

by Annie Posted on March 26, 2014

We went to Ikea Friday. 40 minutes from our home. Smack-dab in the middle of their kitchen sale.

Greg and I planned on being there for hours of kitchen design ~~hell~~ help after reading experiences from other bloggers. The truth is that it is much easier than I thought.

I’m not going into why we chose Ikea cabinets because there are plenty of others who have written about their decision regarding the quality and such. The facts are that we’re renovating our home for resale, are on a tight budget, a lot of designers choose Ikea then make custom choices in other areas of the kitchen-moulding, hardware, built-ins, etc..

And that’s exactly what we’re doing. Only using Ikea cabinets and adding different moulding, hardware, appliances (the ones already here), and fixtures. We went over the numbers and it looks like we’ll be able to renovate the kitchen for about $5000 ($2600 in cabinetry). Everything but the flooring.

What we’re working with currently…that is a rare photo with me in it…enjoy

The original 1952 kitchen is still intact with pink paint inside the cabinets, poorly constructed “shelves”, weird residue that will not come off, sticking drawers, a weird plaid liner in some of the cabinets, and the hardware keeps falling off because parts are rusting away and we can’t fix them completely without replacing them. It’s past time for an update.

Using the Ikea kitchen planner is easy-ish. Sometimes it’s rather frustrating trying to place items and it takes some finagling. (Right now I can’t log in to it, but that’s because our computer is being ridic since updating to Maverick…issues, Apple.) You aren’t supposed to rely fully on the planner when it comes to having the exact parts (plinth/toe kick/panels/legs,etc.)-that’s why going to Ikea and meeting with an employee is necessary. They will make those adjustments and recommendations.

Not from Ikea-our own rendering

Go with all of your measurements-room dimensions, windows, appliances, etc., know the cabinets you want (we’re doing Adel off-white…the famous shaker-style), have your plan as exact as you can get on your own with their online planner and bring your questions.

Once at Ikea, you will be seated at a computer where you log in to your online design. You will have to do most of it on your own if you haven’t already-employees are there to help. There are some affordable options if you want to hire that part out. Some specifically design Ikea kitchens.

Back to our trip. It was one of those moments where we swooped in, were helped to a computer immediately and everything just went smoothly. We were out before the arguing couples next to us had even decided on the size of one of the base cabinets. We high-fived (yes we still do that) and were on our merry way to the housewares section where I got a step stool for the newly finished bathroom. Bing bang boom.

We’ll see about the ease of our self-installation though.

New layout…kind of (it’s missing some components)

Delivery seems to be one of the tricky parts. It is affordable. I believe they said ours would be $99 and they hire delivery out. You then assemble all the parts yourself from lots and lots of boxes.

However, I am hesitant after reading some nightmare delivery situations. It takes a long time to mark all of the boxes to be sure you have everything. If they don’t have something you’ve ordered and you miss it, you might have to purchase it again. That’s what I’ve read anyway. Same goes if you order your kitchen and load your own truck at the store and miss something. Pressure making sure all of the parts are there in hundreds of boxes does not appeal to me nor does having to purchase something again. Keeping a delivery truck at your house long enough to get a good count of your materials sounds nightmare enough. The type of drivers we’ve had here didn’t even want to wait just to let me see if a single cast iron sink arrived without damage. I can’t imagine the shipping companies giving someone an hour to check their items. By the way, if you don’t open the boxes, you can return most things to Ikea. There are mixed tales of Ikea taking something back or letting you have a part that was missing without paying again. I’m not 100% on their customer service in this area. Contact Ikea for this.

We’re hoping to avoid that by picking up the items during a few trips ourselves. Greg going by after work helps a ton too since he works close to the store. We’re lucky like that in this case and it helps our budget. We can break it into parts. I can store it in the other bedroom.

Greg and I are also somewhat lucky our kitchen isn’t very big and that the design looked a lot better without upper cabinets on one side (besides the one above the fridge).

We designed, re-designed and re-re-designed with Ikea’s online kitchen planner at home. I took a few afternoons over a few weeks dedicated to going over our layout options then we took an entire Sunday to go over it with one another to get the final design.

The MLS pic of part of our kitchen…aka the dopes of the kitchen

We do not want to keep the kitchen layout as-is with new cabinets. Oh no, we’re adding a tall pantry cabinet, bringing in the doorway a smidge to accommodate a built-in for our standard fridge (that could be the hardest part because this will be a custom job with plenty of its own plans), getting rid of the upper cabinets by the stove because we’re putting in a wall range hood, and best of all, we’re adding base cabinets on either side of the stove so the stove and fridge aren’t just sitting out in the open like dopes. I can’t stand when there’s no counter space or storage and the fridge and stove just stand by each other in the open. I believe this will revolutionize this kitchen. Revolutionize, ha.

To recap: super easy in terms of going to the store (mid kitchen sale even at the Twin Cities store), logging in to our online plan, having an employee look quickly over it and answer all of our questions in literally one minute, then she quickly turned to print the entire thing out (took the longest). She then revised it since you can’t rely fully on the planner then gave us a comprehensive list of our kitchen where she said everything at this point was in the warehouse. Again, mid-kitchen sale…which we didn’t even qualify for because our Ikea kitchen total is about $2600 and it took $3500 to save 10%. No complaints there.

They DO NOT have financing like some will tell you. We were told the company they worked with-GE Capital from my research-wanted to boost the interest rate to 35% so Ikea told them where to stick it.

Anyone have an experience or two to share using Ikea cabinets?

Bathroom Before and After

by Annie Posted on March 20, 2014

I had a long post written with lots of words describing the bathroom reno. I talked about how it is our second bathroom project in 3 months (the first being the basement bathroom overhaul) and somewhat about how we got it to look this way. Then I trashed that idea.

Today I want the reveal to just be about the new space. Not many words. It’s a nice breather for me while I plan the kitchen and our impending move towards Seattle…even though those plans have been pushed to summer…more on that later.

I’ll try to come back with more info about this bathroom project soon. If you have questions, let ’em roll my way. Until then, here are the befores and afters.

P.S.-I really love this bathroom. Like a lot. Sometimes I just go in there and pet the marble. Sometimes Greg comes home and finds me doing this and gives me a “you’re my special weirdo” look. Oh, and all this was around $2000.

Do yourself a favor and watch/listen to this to get ready for the after shots. Or just have it playing while you scroll. I’ll dance.

Floating shelves, panel to reach plumbing

That’s where the stackable washer and dryer will go. Yay for not doing laundry in the basement!

Marble threshold and 1″marble hex tile with white/light gray grout

I couldn’t decide black and white or not…so both.

Widespread sink

Matte white subway tile, brushed nickel fixtures

Refinished tub

With a little staging…

Turkish towels and other goodies

You get the picture, but one more.

You like?

Kitchen Plans

by Annie Posted on January 30, 2014

*This post decided to post itself through Polyvore so I tossed in an explanation shorter than I had planned for this kitchen topic.

First, I want to know your thoughts about backsplash tile. Hence the 6 options. Which do you like best? What would you choose with oil rubbed bronze hardware/faucets, white cabinetry and butcher block counters? Keep in mind I’m continuing with a mix of high and low items as I’ve done throughout the house. I want to balance between warm and cool tones also-something continued throughout the house. That’s why I’m leaning towards a Calcatta gold marble mosaic of some sort. Neutral grays and creams. Tell me your thoughts.

Now for the explaining. The original plan was to use the cabinets we have and update them with paint. That began to sound like a lot of work and being one of our last projects to tackle before we put the house on the market. not satisfying. Plus, after doing that, it would not be on par with the rest of the house. I’m going for a good flow from room to room. The kitchen, dining and living room are kind of one space being fairly open.

The new plan is to go the Ikea Adel cabinet route (the white-ish shaker style) and gain a different layout.

The refrigerator is next to the stove and neither are built-in and one entire side of the small, galley kitchen has no counter space. The fridge is jutting into the space nice and awkward-like and since we opened up the kitchen to the dining room it looks, well, off. I’m not ready to share the layout. It’s most likely the case that it’s nothing spectacular to anyone else but us too. When my brain in not in multiple project mode I’ll go into detail.

I don’t believe I mentioned this, but when my parents came up for Thanksgiving (you might have seen on my Instagram account), they helped us get a maple butcher block counter from the builder’s outlet store. They paid for half making it an even better deal. Thank you again by the way! Another great score helping to keep our entire house reno on budget.

I recently started putting the design together using the Ikea Kitchen Planner and scheduling the project. Ikea has decent financing options and a 20% off sale that comes twice a year we hope to take advantage of soon. I’ve had the vibe of the design in my head for some time now and it feels more complete knowing we’ll be greatly improving the 1952 kitchen.

We have had some self-inflicted problems with the upstairs bathroom update, but hope to have that finished in less than a month. Then we’re on to the basement and up to the kitchen and flooring. I’ll share the finished bathroom soon and will, of course, keep you updated on the basement progress. Exciting things are happening around here!