Ikea Changed My (Kitchen) Life

Ok, as I've indicated in earlier posts, I got swallowed by the kitchen renovation, which also overlapped with my trying to start a new business PLUS dealing with an extended illness of my husband. If these sound like excuses for why I'm blogging about redoing our 1970s kitchen well after it's (mostly) done, they are. But, pretty good ones. I think. So today I take you back in time, to the magical day when I realized that our new Ikea cabinets would change our lives. Back in "the old days," pre-Ikea, I spent a lot time giving tours of the kitchen--to my children and husband:

Male House Members: "There's nothing to eat."
Me: "Have you looked in the pantry? There's 20 of that soup you like."
MHM: "Nah-ah. I looked. There's only organic food I hate." 
Me (opening the door and pointing to the bright red cans taking up a full shelf): "Right here. Tons."
MHM: "Oh." (In the case of my husband, the "oh" would be followed by thanks. He is a gentleman.)

Now that conversation goes like...nothing. It doesn't happen. Even my teen MHM can find what they want with the pull-out shelves in our new Lindingo gray pantry (so pretty, too!).

Boo. Yah. I keep most of the organic stuff in its own drawer now, so it doesn't get contaminated by the guys' food and to cause them less confusion. And, oh yeah, because I have SO MUCH STORAGE now!!!

Another example of the handy-dandy organizing is this upper corner cabinet with lazy susan. No more things getting buried in dark, forgotten spaces. No joke, everybody started drinking way more tea. It's easy to see and oddly enjoyable to spin the carousel around to find something tasty. 

I'm now replacing teas that sat around since last season, but I consider that a good thing. And nobody asks what kind of tea we have any more. So, yes, the pull-out drawers and lazy susan options are a little spendier. But it is worth it. I can honestly say it changes the way we eat, interact and use our kitchen. Not to mention, we saved so much by going the Ikea route, it wasn't too painful. Now, if only we hadn't decided to remove that load bearing wall. Ugh. 

One day I will write about the long, bumpy road to my DIY planning, and how those HGTV shows are more accurate than we'd like to think. Something always goes awry. Like the first three contractors tell you the wrong wall is load bearing...........Make sure to add a contingency to your budget, and don't secretly think in your head it's not part of your "real" budget, and that you'll never spend it. You will. And if you don't, celebrate by buying a lottery ticket. Because you are one lucky SOB. Just sayin'. 

Let There Be (Super Pretty) Light

I need to go away more often. This weekend I joined some old friends for our annual trip to The Festy, a music festival at Devil's Backbone brewery near Charlottesville. The downside was two nights of sleeping in the rain and a second wind for the cold that's been haunting me for two weeks.

But the PLUS side was coming home to:

(Thanks honey!) The Harlowe Wire pendant lights I ordered from Pottery Barn are even prettier in real life! (Tip, look on Ebay for people selling Pottery Barn coupons. Worth it for bigger purchases.) These lights add just the right amount of sparkle. Now we can see Edison bulbs peaking through without being blinded by the light. Crud, now I have Manford Mann stuck in my head...and you can too:

Sorry, back on track. Glad I did a little bit of extra shopping around and decided to fudge the budget the tiniest bit. These are the first thing you see when looking at the kitchen and one of the first ones when walking in our home, and they totally dress the place up. Woo and hoo. 

Victories of Frugality

Ah, that moment of pure joy and smug satisfaction when you realize just how good of a deal you got. In this case, while shopping for appliance pulls, I came across the style of cup pulls (who knew there were so many types of pulls!) that I'd purchased at a yard sale and will be using on our new cabinets.

It turns out they are Hickory brand "Charleston" pulls, selling from $4 to $5 each, and the knobs can be had for about $3 each. So I'm feeling pretty darn good about buying a bag of 12 pulls and 16 knobs for a grand total of...$4. Victory!

Time to go list the knobs, which we are not using, on Ebay and recoup some money towards the kitchen fund. I only need 100 more discoveries like this to offset the cost of that silly load bearing wall! Baby steps.

Knobs! Mismatched Matching

Because I planned to change blogging platforms, I've put off blogging about our Ikea kitchen remodel. Unless you count posts composed in my head. There are like 30 of those.

Anyway, as a result, I still plan to chronicle our DIY remodeling adventures, but it will now be out of order and a bit willy nilly. So, let's start near the end with cabinet hardware. I'd set a low budget ($70) for this considering that we need 12 pulls, 16 knobs and 6 appliance pulls. It meant scouring for deals and some creativity.

I'd picked up this pull and knob set for $4 at a yard sale over the summer, originally for another project, but ended up not using them. While the knobs were a little flowerly, I decided that, for my budget, I could learn to love the cup pulls. The catch was trying to find knobs that would match. Until I thought of a much better idea. NOT matching.

Especially since I was shopping on Amazon and Ebay looking for deals, it was impossible to determine if I'd end up ordering something that would prove useless. Glass became the work around. Last night I ordered 18 of the oval glass knobs pictured at right. For...drum roll...$2.35 each, on Ebay. This is a savings of several dollars per knob, compared to retail prices. With shipping + yard sale pulls, that brings me to about $53 total on cabinet hardware. And I have faith that I'll find those last few appliance pulls at a yard sale this weekend. Stranger things have happened.

At least some parts of this project are coming in under budget. Finally!