Ikea Fiedltrip

So the biggest structural thing we're planning on doing with the kitchen is opening up the wall between the kitchen and the living room. See the wall with the TV on it? Picture that as a half wall with a bar. We'd also be removing that white built-in bookcase to open up the corner between the kitchen and the dining room.

So, uh, got that? It's ok if you don't, because thanks to some handy-dandy Ikea kitchen planning software you can see it for yourself!

Ikea, you say? Well, we were actually supposed to have an appointment with a contractor on Saturday to get an estimate for the drywalling/reframing work, but the appointment fell through. Well, we thought, what other projects can we get done today? Enter the Ikea fieldtrip.

After we got one bid on cabinets a couple weeks ago, we came home and did more research. Turns out, according to Consumer Reports, the Diamond cabinets we were considering rate only a little better in quality than Ikea cabinets (out of 14 basic and premium cabinet brands they tested, Diamond came in at #3 and Ikea came in at #4). And Ikea cabinets are about half the price. And Ikea is running a 20%-off-your-entire-kitchen special right now (when you buy three appliances with them). It was starting to sound a little too good to pass up...

So we went on a little Ikea fieldtrip, played around with their model kitchens, and got some great ideas.

Those would be the cabinets we'd purchase if we go with Ikea. 

Then we made an appointment for an Ikea kitchen planner to come out to our house to make sure the options we chose will work in our space. Robert rocks the Ikea planning software, by the way. We'll keep you posted on all the cabinet selection fun.