Shopping for a New Kitchen

Most of the materials have now been ordered! Cabinets and handles, counters, backsplash tile, the sink and faucet, and the flooring. It took lots of looking around to pick out just what I wanted, but at least I had years of collected kitchen remodel magazines and books to help shape my style.

The first task was to find the cabinets. Brian really recommended Ikea cabinets, for their style, ease of installation, and value. I asked around and it turned out that nearly everyone I knew had put in Ikea cabinets. One friend mentioned that Ikea's cabinets had been rated second by Consumer Reports, after an expensive custom cabinetry manufacturer. After a day of scoping at Ikea, I decided that I really loved the Euro styling and all the in-cabinet organizers. I particularly loved their giant pull-out pantry cabinets--you can get all the way to the back of the cabinet!

Originally I'd wanted cherry cabinets. I ended up with a somewhat lighter cabinet called Akurum Adel Medium Brown (that's Ikea for you). You can see what they look like here in one of Ikea's vignette photos. I'm not doing as many glass doors above the counter, just a couple as accents.

I did shop around a little for cabinets, but really liked the Ikea styling a lot better than everywhere else I looked, within a somewhat comparable price range. One thing I really like about Ikea cabinets is that the entire cabinet space is taken up with the drawers and shelves, which is apparently considered Euro style. It is much more efficient than the American style, where you see drawers and cabinets inset, leaving a border of sometimes several inches on all sides of each part of the cabinet--lots of wasted space! Also, Ikea cabinets have the really nice soft-close feature, and they roll really smoothly too.

For handles, I wanted something simple, modern, and stainless steel. I tend to really like more angular design, so I instantly loved the Lansa handles. The size I wanted was only $6.99 for two, which was a crazy low price when I looked at similar handles at Home Depot for $20.

If you can see the rails on the backsplash of the Ikea vignette photo, I also got two of those to go above the large windows in the sunroom, plus a bunch of S hooks. I'll be able to hang a lot of my cookware here, instead of take up room in drawers. This was an exciting little brainstorm!

I shopped around a little to understand the pricing of quartz and granite countertops. I really wanted a countertop that maintained a cool surface, so, ideally, I could do pastry work (like rolling pie crusts) directly on the countertop. Great for tempering chocolate too! Other countertops like Corian and Paperstone were very attractive, but held warmth. Ikea (through a partner vendor) had good prices on quartz, so I chose a new recycled line of Caesarstone in the Smoky Ash color. Unfortunately although the square-foot price was good, the total price was very high due to the level of waste of a new, nonstocked color. I ended up saving $1,700 by switching to granite in the Uba Tuba color.

The backsplash tile was one of the first things I picked out. Because I love art glass, I'd wanted to incorporate glass into my kitchen. I also love the beach, being from Hawaii originally. So, I'd wanted a glass tile in dusty blues and greens, reminiscent of beach glass. Brian pointed me to Ecohaus, a great local distributor of environmentally friendly building supplies. Pretty quickly I found this great tile called Shire from Oceanside Glasstile, made of recycled glass. It has kind of a bronzey iridescent sheen, but you don't see that much when it's vertical.

I also picked out my flooring at Ecohaus. I'd originally intended to get Marmoleum, but none of the colors seemed to be "the one." Instead, I started looking at cork flooring, which I'd dismissed several years ago because I didn't like the look. Now they have many more styles, and I found this one called Bamboo that added a bit of Asian accent to the kitchen (again, with the Hawaii thing). Initially I'd been very interested in cork because it's very easy on the feet and joints when standing on it for many hours, as I tend to do. It also retains warmth, so no more cold ceramic tile!

I picked up a really basic one-basin stainless-steel sink from the countertop distributor at Ikea, and just yesterday ordered a new faucet. I really like the one-handle faucets--easy to maneuver and less to clean! I also wanted one that had both rinse and spray functions, plus a pull-down or pull-out spout. The Moen Medora faucet in stainless steel seemed to fit all my needs, plus it looks pretty and modern too!

I still have to finalize the paint choices, though I'm close! I'm sure a few other materials decisions will pop up too, but we're mostly there, and I'm super excited to see it all come together in the next month or so!

Of course, this has all been about the kitchen, and Ray's designs also entail moving the stairway to the basement so it's in the hall instead of the kitchen--making the kitchen a little less "Grand Central Station," as he says. Matt came up with a great idea to open up the hall area by making the wall more open, with a small banister, instead of it just being a door you open and close. There actually won't be a door at all, just a doorway, plus extra space to the left of the door. The stairs will curve down in a small L-shape, to the left. The bottom half of the stairs will be the original stairs. Brian also had this fantastic idea to install a Solatube in the stairwell, since we had to take out the old chimney there anyway. I love this idea--it will bring natural light into the center of the house. You can see the concept in this photo here (not our house, not our dog!). The whole stair and hall project will help unite the two floors so it feels more like one big house, rather than a one-floor house with a basement. I'm looking forward to this new outlook!