Final Kitchen Pics

The kitchen is quasi-finished!
We still have a few lights to hang, but all in all...we are done!
Can you believe it?

Check out that hood! Woohoo!

I still have to put some things on the shelves, but I have to find just the "right" items first.

Mmhmm. Still loving the sink.
Also, take a look at the tile while you are looking at this picture...that's good looking.

Just look at all that countertop! It's a beaut...

I just picked this little gem up. I love the way it looks on the wall.

Look! You too can spend money at IKEA and have organized drawers!
I love this more than I probably should.

The Lazy Susan for the pots and pans comes in a close second.
Maybe I love it the best.

Oooh wait. I love this DRAWER. It is so big and fun to open.
Maybe I love this one the best.

Just kidding. This drawer is a little more fun than everything else.
Look at all of the pot lids in here!!
Also...I can fit our waffle iron in here.
Seriously? It's a little more than I can handle.

I will not be sad to say good-bye to all the drywall dust, the little tiny screws everywhere, the five-thousand pounds of cardboard boxes, eating out every meal, the appliances on our porch.
It hasn't been too bad.
I would do it again in a heart beat.
In fact, we will gladly offer our IKEA expertise to anyone who is interested.

For a small Swedish Consulting Fee.

Not a Happy Camper

We had an unbelievable rain storm around here last night.

How unbelievable?

It brought over 1/2 an inch of rain into my basement and onto my beautful IKEA kitchen.

THAT'S RIGHT.
I think that the damage is minimized and hopefully, all we have to do is buy a few cabinets, not the most expensive part; which is cabinet doors.

But if you thought putting together IKEA furniture was liking a jigsaw puzzle before, try it after you take everything OUT of the boxes and mix it all together.

Anybody wanna come help? Didn't think so.

Notice to everyone: Wind has officially been taken out of the sails.

Sanfu #1 of 85670

Matt and I got to have an IKEA date on Wednesday and ended up BUYING our IKEA kitchen. It was a nerve wracking experience to say the least...
to make double sure of all the measurements, the cabinet choices, the countertops etc. It was entirely too overwhelming to take too much advantage of the sale, because we weren't totally prepared for the purchase. Like we didn't know what drawer organizers we wanted or what faucet exactly would be right. But the big stuff? We got ALL the big stuff out of the way.

We ordered 20 cabinets, countertops, hood and sink. We sort of freaked about getting it all back home but thankfully they offer home delivery since they are in state for only $99 and so we took them up on it.
It was about 9:30 when we finished up and set up the home delivery. The customer service rep was extremely vague on what we had to do next but he kept saying we had to "check it all out" which to us meant that we had to make sure that all the items were there before they got loaded.

We were not excited to have to wait around IKEA until 10:30pm to check and make sure all 16 boxes of drawer slides were there.

After 30 minutes of waiting, the warehouse people told us that they triple check everything and we could just go on home. "No need to worry!" they said. We wiped our brows from the effort of waiting and went home.




Today we accepted the delivery of our new IKEA kitchen. Yes, this is it.

MINUS 40 ITEMS.

Things that would be easy to overlook too:
Like nine foot long sections of countertops.
And a double sink.

My favorite part of the day was the delivery man showing me the invoice where everything was checked off. He told me "It must be in a box or something."

Like you put a sink together. Out of a flat box of MDF.
I mean, IKEA is good. But not that good.

Also, he didn't want to go back over the list and make sure that everything was there. All I noticed that was missing was the sink.
I asked him if we could go over the inventory and he said,
"Ma'am, there are 145 items here. We checked it all in our warehouse. I have to be on the other side of town in 30 minutes. If we can through it in 15 minutes, then I can help you out."

Ummm. What?
I don't really care where you have to be.
I HAVE A KITCHEN IN 145 BOXES. Let's go ahead and check it out, kay?

I know that picture is overwhelming.
Imagine what it is going to look like when 40 more things get delivered.
Truthfully, I thought it was going to be worse.

Please ignore all the crap in the background.
Thanks.

Yes we are insane

One of the reasons why our life has been pure chaos for the past week has been because we have had to make a lot of decisions about whether or not to engage in a kitchen renovation this summer.

You see, a Home Depot cabinet sale ended on Sunday. So we needed to make a decision on our kitchen and either order the frickin' cabinets or move on. So lots of debates and whathaveyou had us paying a babysitter so we could go and sit with a designer again and have her rework our design on Friday night. We got really excited until she came back with it costing another $1,000 more than the previous design. Yikes.

So we came home. And opened the IKEA kitchen catalog.
And came up with a design based on the one we just had done at Home Depot.
For 1/2 the cost. But for about 150 times the headache.
Guess who's buying a headache for the summer?

Here's how the debate goes:
What do you have more of, time or money?
Sometimes you have more money.
Sometimes you have more time.

Apparently we have more time. For now.
I was really sad that we made this decision on Saturday though because a HUGE IKEA Kitchen sale ended on Sunday. One that has been going on since March. Ugh. But guess what I just got in my inbox? The IKEA kitchen sale has been extended until Sunday, May 10th!
So I guess we are heading to Charlotte sometime in the next four days to BUY A FREAKING KITCHEN IN BOXES. Seriously. Or some would call it a divorce in a box. I am choosing to not think about it in those terms and I am keeping my eyes on the prize.

THIS.

Which is what I hope my kitchen will look like sometime in the next five years.

Yep, that is Lucy in the picture and yes, those are the cabinets we are buying. But we ordered stainless appliances and we will not have a bar. Do your best to imagine away!

Closing Was Terrible

We jut went through an ordeal yesterday that I can't really get into. But we had a to do a "dry closing" and hope that we get paid for our house on Monday and then we can buy Sandy's house. All the papers are signed, just waiting on the money now.

I am exhausted.
But I am also in New Jersey! I planned to visit my sister for her birthday about two months ago and so I escaped the insane asylum for someone else's insane asylum in New Jersey! It is so fun to be here and have no distractions and just get to love on my sister for a few days.

I landed in Newark at 11:40 and was in the Newark Ikea at noon. Is life great or what???

Traveling Again Tomorrow

I am heading out in the morning with Mrs. Natalie Knauer to make a pilgrimmage to IKEA in Atlanta. We will be picking up Slappy from the Grandparents on the way. But the main point of the trip is IKEA. Of course. I hope to get some do dads, thingamajigs and whatzits. But because they come from IKEA, they will be called; okem, ursavi and wibnaaam.

Oh and Buddy and Kathie Odom stopped by our house tonight while Robin Plemmons was visiting because they are taking their baby girl to college. Sniff. I knew her when she was in the 6th grade. I am now old.

We took a bunch of pictures with my photobooth. Check it out:







And because my neice Maggie asked to see the pictures that she, Watts and Nate took earlier in the summer, here they are:
Happy High School Musical 2 Maggie!