Kitchen : The Before Process

Now that we've seen the final kitchen product and how we budgeted for it...let's go back to the beginning. 

How did this whole process begin?

This alllll started because we wanted new countertops.

However, I refused to put new countertops on our, not so great, cabinets.  I knew better than to do that.  

We had grazed the idea of Ikea cabinetry in passing and finally decided to give it a go once they came out with their gray Bodbyn line.  We saw it in person and were in love.

Ikea offers a design process that involves a designer coming to your house, measuring, drawing your plans and placing the cabinets in said plan...all for a fee.  Being as I have a design degree and have experience with kitchens, we bypassed this and saved a few dollars.  

Ikea also offers a design program on their website where you can place your measurements, walls, windows etc and plop in their cabinets.  I will say, this is not the easiest program to use.  So Ikea if you're listening, it's time to work on that program.   It's doable but it is a little trying.  

Thankfully the Ikea staff at the store was very helpful when we pulled up our plans there.  Like with all kitchen designs, ours took a few revisions and advice from their staff on which exact cabinets to use in places.  But overall, it was a terribly painful process.

Once we were all set we headed off to Ikea and bought cabinets!!!

Proof that we actually did it!

We were scared but elated for the new project!

(Like I said, we staggered our costs and bought our countertops on a separate trip.)

A few weeks later they delivered all of our cabinets.

In one million, small, narrow boxes.

There's our kitchen!

The next step was to get rid of the old kitchen.

I used a company that operates as a job training program that teaches their employees how to carefully remove and reinstall cabinetry/tops/sinks, etc.  They also have a store front where you can purchase these goods for reuse.  I loved this concept and the company and was more than happy to use them.  Plus they were in and out in no time flat.

They literally took everything.

No seriously, everything.

And then we lived like this for almost a week...
The demo happened on a Friday and install was supposed to start that Monday.
The Thursday before I received a call that our local install team that Ikea partnered with and whom we had been communicating with, had severed ties.  They quickly followed that up with the fact that they were flying a team in from Florida to install our kitchen asap.  Regardless, we were delayed a few days which led to a few more delays which I will get in to next time.

So that's the before...next time we will venture into the during and then the after.  And a whole separate post focused on how it is truly possible (with some help) to live without a kitchen sink for two months.

Any questions, just ask!