Kitchen Reveal

At long last, here is my kitchen reveal:

The doors next to the fridge lead to my office (on the left) and my walk-in pantry (on the right). I love having my office right off the kitchen - I'm in the heart of it all and I get so much more done having my own space.  If it gets messy, I just close the door.

 Here you can get a better idea of how we faked a counter depth fridge.  The cabinets along the stove wall are set out from the wall 4 inches making the counter 29 inches deep rather than 25.  This gives the illusion of having a counter depth fridge. If we didn't do it, you'd see four inches more of the side of the fridge.  It also gives us a nice little space between the back of the stove and the wall.

We also had to cut down the cabinet above the fridge - Ron Fritz and John Laurie installed the kitchen and did all the finishing work inside as well as the siding on the outside.  They did a fabulous job - we could not have done this job without them.  They are exceedingly patient and easy to get along with. I love them. If you want a local referral, email me and I'll give you their deets.

Because the fridge is such a monster, it wasn't going to fit under the standard 16 inch cabinet we bought from Ikea.  So Ron cut it down to 12 inches high and I had two custom doors made locally to match.  You can't even tell.

Source List: 

Ikea's Tidaholm oak shaker-style door (custom sprayed)

Cabinet spraying by Christone Finishing in Vancouver

Luftig Hood Fan from Ikea

Caesarstone polished counters in 'Concrete'

White subway tiles from Lowe's

Price Pfister Hanover faucet

Appliances

I bought my appliances long before I planned my kitchen layout. I lucked out and everything worked out fine, but because I was working with Ikea kitchen cabinets that only come in standard sizes, I probably should have waited to buy my appliances. As it was, they went into a storage unit for six months before the kitchen was ready.  How naive of me to think that I would need them that early in the game.

Anyway, I needed four appliances: a dishwasher, stove, hood fan and fridge. I wanted them to match, I wanted stainless and other than specifying a counter depth fridge and dual fuel stove, I wasn't too fussed.  I opted for the Frigidaire Professional Series because I was able to buy the previous year's model of stove for a smoking deal.

I picked this Price Pfister faucet (from the Hanover collection) to go with my stainless appliances. I think it blends traditional and contemporary very nicely.

I realized pretty quickly that counter depth fridges are expensive. I opted instead to build out my lower cabinets four inches from the wall to give the illusion that the fridge was counter depth (29 inches instead of the standard 25).  It didn't cost me anything to do that, and it also gave me a deeper counter which I love.

I bought the Luftig Hood Fan from Ikea - and because I bought an appliance at the same time as I ordered my cabinets during their kitchen event, I got 20% back in gift cards - to the tune of almost $1300.

Kitchen Inspiration

I love Ikea. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Ikea saved me from mom burnout on more than one occasion.  When I was a new Mom with four little kids, we had just moved to Vancouver and Ikea became my haven. It was where I went to have forty-five minutes to myself - Ikea has free babysitting!  I would wander around, basking in the quiet, gloriously alone and would just look at the displays - the only things I ever remembering buying were toy storage, tea lights and big packages of napkins. 

Fast forward a number of years, and Ikea's free childcare paid off for them in spades.

Before deciding which direction to go with my own kitchen, I did A LOT of research. Our kitchen was the part of the reno that I looked forward to the most. Being a design show junkie, I had watched with interest as Colin and Justin and Sarah Richardson and others used Ikea kitchen cabinets to create beautiful and functional kitchens.

Sarah's House on HGTV

I found some great resources on other blogs as well.  Vanessa from Decor Happy has some great pics of Ikea kitchens.  I've also seen a recent post on Aubrey & Linday's blog too.

And if you are looking for a great how-to on navigating the Ikea kitchen experience, Carol Reed from Creed has two excellent posts here and here. I couldn't have done my kitchen without Carol's tips - in fact, I followed her guides pretty much exactly. I also found a fantastic Vancouver sprayer/painter and a paint supplier through a comment posted on Carol's second Ikea post.

It was a bit of a process and certainly a lot more work than hiring a kitchen designer.  But using Ikea saved me a ton of money and that allowed me to splurge on some other items that I probably wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise (like beautiful Caesarstone counters) and stainless appliances.

I couldn't be more thrilled with the end result.
Stay tuned for more pictures.