3D Photos of the Kitchen

Last night Jimmee helped me put the kitchen design into the 3D planner tool, and I think it turned out pretty well.  At least it’s a good start, and I’m feeling more confident about starting this project.  The only thing we couldn’t include in the planner was the breakfast nook, but it will be across from the floor to ceiling pantry and fridge.   Let me know what you guys think…

The wall behind the bar (the thing sticking out next to the fridge) will be taken out so the kitchen will be open to the dining room.  I didn’t know how to show that in the program…

This view is looking in from the dining room, but the wall will only be open from the cabinets on the left to the fridge.

That’s the plan, what do you think?  I’m really excited about it, and I was even more excited when I found a gorgeous kitchen designed by Jonathan Adler that uses the same Adel white cabinets that we picked out.  I love the green print fabric he used on the lamp, well actually I love everything about it.   It’s actually very similar to our layout so I’m going to add this to our idea notebook.  :)

** photo from Odietamo.blogspot.com

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Kitchen Plans

I’m back from Tulsa and once again hard at work on another remodel.  It was such a great weekend, but as soon as I got home I knew it was time to get back to work.  I made a list of all the things I want to get done before classes start on August 19th, and it’s really really long and includes lots of gallons of paint.

I thought that today I would try to explain the kitchen plans that the interior designer drew for us (while I finish the work in the bathroom).  She came by last week to give me some tips and to help me with the monstrosity that is our kitchen.  I’m not 100% sure what that word means, but it seems to fit our kitchen (although things are a little better without the yellow paint).  It was really helpful to have a professionals opinion, especially due to the amount of time and money that will be going into this kitchen.  I want to get things right the first time because we are NOT going to be doing this again anytime soon.  I’ve already been warned to expect tears and frustration and to double whatever time-frame you come up with.  I’m trying to think of the positives so I’m focusing on the fact that we will have to eat out more.  :)

I’m going to post the sketches from the interior designer, and they’re very rough and my photography skills are not the best so it may be difficult to put it all together.  I’ll do my best to explain the details with the photos….  Really my plan was to put it into the the IKEA 3D planner, but I haven’t been able to because it doesn’t work on Mac.  I will be able to use Jimmee’s laptop later this week so if this doesn’t make sense, check back in a couple days.

This drawing is looking East from inside the kitchen… where there currently is a large wall.  That wall will be taken out up to the point where the fridge is in the drawing.  The fridge will be near the corner with a floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinet in the corner.

Here is a photo of the wall (the wall where the desk is) that we will rip out.  I say “we” meaning I’ll watch Phil, the handyman, take the wall out.  I am not even going to try to do that myself.

The next sketch is of the corner with two windows where there will be a corner window seat with cushions and pillows and a round table.  My inspiration for this idea came from a beautiful kitchen in Metropolitan Home which I’ll include below.

After I saw this photo, I changed the route of our kitchen remodel a bit because I love the white cabinets.  I also love those chairs and have been searching for a reasonably priced set online.

The sitting area will be here in our actual kitchen.

The cabinet/sink/stove area will stay pretty much the way it is, except everything will get an update.  Oh, and we are going to add open shelving instead of upper cabinets to the right of the window above the sink.  We’ll also get a new stove/oven combo!!!  The oven we have right now doesn’t really heat to particular temperatures- it’s more of an open fire inside the oven that has two settings, hot and hotter.

Here are the drawings of those areas, but once again they’re a little rough.

We are still deciding on the countertop and floor, but I think we’re going to use the Akrum (in Adel white) kitchen cabinets from IKEA.

I don’t know exactly how much sense this post made or how well I am explaining this kitchen plan, but I have been scrubbing the entire bathroom from floor to ceiling with bleach water for a good part of the morning so maybe I have an excuse.  I better get back in there and get the last of the painting and cleaning done while I my motivation is still going strong.   The hot green paint and green floral wallpaper are almost completely gone, and I should have photos up in the next couple of days of our freshly painted and scrubbed bathroom.

Trip to Ikea

On Saturday we made our way to Ikea bright and early (well not really since they open at 10), but we did get there right when they opened.  I thought we would beat the crowds by being the first ones in the door, but I was definitely wrong and there were a sea of other people with the same idea.  We made a beeline to the kitchen area to check out the options and get some help from one of the Ikea experts.

Their kitchen area starts with a bunch of sample kitchens that designers put together to help get ideas flowing and show you all the possibilities.  The cabinets that I am interested in were not displayed in one of the in-store models, but I did find a picture of them in their magazine.

I love these black cabinets with the white countertops and stainless steel appliances.

The sink that we both like was displayed in-store, but I forgot to take a picture of it so I’m going to have to borrow one from the Ikea website and from The Stately English Manor (a blog).  The sink name is Domsjo, and they have a large and small version.  We’re going to have to use the small version due to space limitations around the sink, but the larger version is beautiful.

Here it is in a kitchen…

We are going to buy the cabinets, sink, drawer organizers, and cabinet pulls from Ikea, but we are planning to get everything else from stores around OKC to make things easier.

When you go into the store, you need to bring all your kitchen measurements so they can map everything out on their computer program.  If you have a PC, you can do this easily at home, but for those of us with Macs you have to go into the store.  :(   The program is amazing, and it basically shows you all the pieces that they offer in your cabinet style and you can drag and drop them to the spot where you want them in the layout.  Then at the end it gives you the total price.

Here is the link to the kitchen planner tool, if you’re interested.

http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/rooms_ideas/splashplanners.html#lnk-3-2

Here are some photos of our kitchen plan and other printouts that you can get from the planner software.

This sheet may be a little hard to see, but it gives you the exact dimension of each component of the kitchen so you can double check your measurements.  It’s very helpful for an overview of everything.

I think those are the basics of the kitchen planning.  After you do the planning, then you can add on things like handles and organizers.  We chose the Lansa handles because they are sleek and modern looking and can be used on the cabinets and drawers.

Last, but not least, we bought a couple of other things while trekking through the store.  Here are a couple photos of our other purchases.

4 Cork Boards to go above the desk in a row- with the edges painted turquoise.

Pretty orange boxes for some extra color in the office.

Lots of lots of white Ritva curtains.  I’m convinced you can never have enough white curtains.

And some white office paper organizers.

And a clock.  We only have one clock in the house right now so maybe this will help me keep track of the day a little better.

Thanks for reading!  Hope this helps anyone thinking about an Ikea kitchen.  I’m sure I’ll have more tips as we go along.

Putting the Office Back Together

The furniture (that we have) is back in the office, and things are looking pretty good in there.  I have some ideas of ways that we can make the room more functional and beautiful, but for right now I think we’ll have to go with what we’ve got.

Jimmee put on the quarter round.  It seems like we’re really into this stuff lately, but I guess we’re doing a lot of the same projects over and over again.

The last thing that had to be done was to paint all the edges and doors.  I didn’t do this first because there was so much sanding and prep work that needed to be done.  The previous paint job literally peeled right off if you touched it.  I pulled a lot of it off with my fingers and then used the orbital sander to help take the rest of it off.

Okay so let’s get to the furniture…

(Little side note to this photo- we can’t find the hardware needed to put the legs back on that chair.  It’s supposed to have the silver legs that are laying beside it, and  I’m hoping we’ll come across the bolts when we clean the house??)

Ha!  I just realized that picture (the one on the desk) used to be in the living room, but I moved it because we’re going to try to find something bigger for over the couch.

The next wall is a little sparse right now- we need to do something about that.

I love this hanging picture holder that my sister gave me for a present.  Maybe I should call it a mobile, or are those just for babies?  I don’t know, but this thing is great and always interesting to look at.

This weekend we are headed to Dallas to go to Ikea to look at kitchen cabinets and pick up a few items for the house.  I plan on getting some white curtains for the office and some other organizational things to put on the desk.  Also maybe some wall shelves…   You never know what you’ll walk out of that store with.  Happy (early) Friday!

Polished up Living and Dining Room

After many many hours of sanding, painting, cleaning, and sweating, the living and dining room are finally done. Actually they are almost done, but if you know me, I am a little bit impatient and went ahead and put the furniture into place.  I was so excited to see the finished result, and I’m thinking we can do the last two things this weekend (quarter round and a new chandelier for over the dining room table).

I’m going to start out with the before photos for a quick reminder of what we had on our hands at the beginning.

When we looked at the house, I knew that the room had a lot of potential, but it was really hard to see it through all the nasty carpet, 20 year old blue and silver wallpaper, and rot iron decorations hanging from the ceiling.  After pulling out the carpet, wallpaper, and rot iron, replacing some of the wood floor and refinishing all the rest, and painting everything, I think we have finally made the living and dining room livable!

Here is the final result:

Side note: eventually, the small windows will have two panels, but somehow when we went to IKEA a Lenda curtain snuck in with our Ritvas (they have such crazy names for their brands) so we had to make do with three packs instead of four.  We’ll just have to make another trek down to IKEA, I guess.

Our new dining room.

Hydrangeas from the garden- they are blooming despite the hail damage.

The living room, complete with our new Ikea rug.

More hydrangeas, along with some of our helpful remodeling books.

Hope you all enjoyed following the makeover, and I’m hoping we’ll have the finishing touches done by next week.  It seems like every time we get one thing done, there’s another huge project following right on it’s heels.  Now that the rooms off the kitchen look good, it makes me antsy to get going on that space.  For now though, we’ll just enjoy relaxing on the couch and maybe catch up on some reading.

Whirlwind Trip Down South

Whew!  We got back late last night from a great trip to Houston and Austin!  I had a great time with my family in Houston, and then Jimmee joined me in Austin for our friend’s wedding.  The wedding was absolutely beautiful and so much fun, and we were able to fit in some delicious restaurants and some fun activities while we were there.  I’m going to do a quick recap of the highlights…  My camera battery died on our first night in town, and I didn’t have the charger so I’ll try to find some pictures of the places we went.  If you’re ever in Austin you should check them out!

Our first stop was Barton Springs, which is a manmade pool with spring water in it so it’s clear blue and best of all, has no chlorine.  The only problem for me is that it’s freezing cold, and I’m a pretty big wimp when it comes to jumping or even wading into 60 degree water.

We went to lunch at a delicious restaurant called Shady Grove, which has a large outside patio with huge trees shading the entire area.  They have great sandwiches and hamburgers – not that I tried them but I have personal testimony.  We relaxed, had a margarita, and lounged on the patio for awhile with some friends, which was very relaxing.

Saturday we did mainly wedding activities, and since my camera died I don’t have any photos of that day.   Wish I had some pictures of the flowers and the wedding site because it was overlooking Lake Travis, and we had a gorgeous view of the lake.  I found a picture of the area where Erin got married on the venue’s site (www.vintagevillas.com/photos)

On Sunday we went to brunch at The Blue Dahlia, which has a cute patio in the front and delicious open-faced sandwiches.  The atmosphere was great, and we ordered a hummus plate for an appetizer that really hit the spot.

These are some of their delicious homemade breads.  They had a nice selection of white, wheat, and olive breads, not to mention all the choices of pastries and other goodies up at the counter.  I wish I had a camera to capture all the desserts- my personal favorite part of the meal.

Our last stop on the way out of town was IKEA!!  I love this store and was so excited to pick up a couple of much-needed items for the living room.  We had Kitty and Striper with us in the car and lots of other things from Hallie’s apartment so Jimmee had to wait in the car while I did a quick sweep of the store.  I was out of there in record time considering the number of square feet I had to cover to find the curtains and rug (and other various things I threw into the cart along the way).  We had planned to look at their kitchen options while we were in town, but it really wasn’t possible with our animal travel partners and with the time crunch to get home.  Here is the rug I picked up for the living room.  Pretty simple, but I think it will look good with the red couches.

I also picked up some more of the white curtains that we used in the bedroom.  We have plans to hang these tonight on the 4 living room windows.  It will be nice to finally have some privacy in that room!

We got back just in time for a huge storm in Oklahoma City- thankfully we just had a little bit of rain on the drive since we were carrying lots of furniture in the bed of the truck.  Hopefully I’ll have pictures up within the next couple days of a furnished living and dining room.

Hope you all had a great memorial day weekend!