IKEA Kitchen and new dining room

You've seen plenty of photos of this area of the house, but I thought we should still run through it before and after style.

It's going to be a super photo heavy post, sorry if you are on dial up!

This part of the house underwent the most massive transformation (other than the garage addition).

Before:
The fireplace had prison gray brick from floor to ceiling all the way to the corner.
That was all torn down. The firebox itself is new and we went without a traditional hearth, putting the fireplace at floor level. It is surrounded by glass mosiac tiles now. Obviously I still need to paint the surround! (I do have an outlet above the mantel to plug in those chandelier lamps, but they need to be rewired.
Kitchen sink, dishwasher and fridge to the left.
The sink and the dishwasher are in the same place, but we did move the fridge.
Where the oven and microwave used to be. That is the old door to the garage.
The fridge is now where the oven was. (WAY back when my grandma had double ovens there.) It's impossible to tell in this photo but we moved the basement staircase as far forward as we could to open up the passage here. Opening the passage way there did away with what used to be the most awkward space in the house - a spot where both the basement door and garage door had to open in the same 36 inch opening. That passageway now leads to my main floor laundry and my huge pantry. (Photos of that next!)

That wall still needs paint from drywall work.
The old pantry used to sit above the stairwell. It was always really hard to squeeze yourself into that corner to get things into it. (And when we would bring food for Grandpa I used to make Jack put it in the pantry! LOL)
I now have a bank of free standing cabinets there with a spot for a bookshelf to hold cookbooks and Jack's nature tray stuff below my apron collection.
This was the view from the kitchen...
and the view now. You can see that we also opened up the doorway into the hallway to make that space wider and less cramped. ***I should add that this was the "family room", not the dining room. I really didn't see the point of having two living rooms.
With the halfwall and those spindly things gone we have plenty of room for a big peninsula now.
Jack calls it the "diner" and we eat there a lot. Someday that counter is going to be awesome for cutting fabric.
The old view into the kitchen.
The new view into the kitchen. I still need to paint the beadboard on the back of the peninsula.
We took out the old sliding glass doors.
And put in pretty french doors.
The spot where the fridge used to live.
It now houses more cabinets and countertops.

Whew. We made it!

Ok, onto the nitty gritty.

The cabinets, sink, faucet and countertops are from IKEA. I ended up buying the appliances at lowes because it wasn't much cheaper to use IKEA. The glass knobs are from Ebay of all places.

So how was it buying an IKEA kitchen? And how was it buying it from a state with no IKEA?

Actually, not too bad. Dave did all the kitchen planning himself using the home planner that IKEA provides via the internet. When you think you have the plan ready you can call the store and they have a kitchen specialist who will review your plan and tell you where any mistakes are, make suggestions for you, etc. The IKEA we used has a specialist who deals only with people who are not located near an IKEA, and that was pretty helpful. It does take a few phone calls and several weeks to get it all finalized, but in general it is a pretty smooth system.

Once you have everything ordered it's time to figure out how to get it to you. IKEA would have shipped our kitchen for about $500, but we wanted to buy couches and stuff so we picked the majority of it up. Picking it up was SUPER SUPER easy. They sent us to a distribution center where it was all shrink wrapped on pallets and they used a forklift to load it in the moving van.

That took about 7 minutes.

Not kidding.

If you've ever bought things in the store you know it is more difficult than that.

So, how about putting together an entire flat packed kitchen?

Actually, pretty easy again. Way easier than putting together their furniture. Dave and I did all the cabinet bases together in one day (about 8 hours), and I did all the drawers by myself in 3 or 4 hours.

How was installation?

Dave did the installation with the help of a more experienced carpenter and it went pretty quickly. IKEA really has figured out how to make it all go smoothly and once they were past the first cabinet or two it was pretty smooth sailing.

Are they sturdy? Does everything work? How does it "feel"?

Honestly it feels sturdier than the other kitchen I used to have. We have all the fancy dampers and drawer glides and stuff and it is pretty slick. I don't like that some of the drawer sides don't go all the way up (the deep drawers), but, if you aren't piling them full of crap it isn't an issue. It definitely feels solid and like it will last awhile.

How much did it cost?

We have a BIG kitchen and it was about $6000. (That is only the IKEA price, not the price of the other work that was involved: demo, floors, tile, paint, etc.) It is very cost efficient compared to everything else we did. If you watch those crazy kitchen shows on HGTV it is not uncommon for them to spend $40,000 on a kitchen!

What about the hardwood on the floors?

I had NO idea what else to put on the floors, where to stop a different type of flooring, etc. So I just went with wood. I might be sorry I did that in a year, but for now, it is ok.

Did I miss anything? Please feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

(Spell check won't work, so ignore any errors, too long of a post to check it all.)