Palms Kitchen Reno - The Layout

Welcome back! 

If you missed my post last week, I talked about how we are doing a full renovation on our kitchen!  You can catch up here.  I’m so glad we are wiping the slate clean and starting our new kitchen from scratch. 

I’ve been a big fan of the Ikea Kitchen Sektion line ever since it debuted last year.  The line is a universal interior base with several styles of doors and cover panels.  Read more about it here.  I love the interior organization, soft close drawers, and the drawer-within-drawer options.  If you haven’t seen them in person, I recommend seeing a display.  I fell hard for the look of the Laxarby cabinet fronts.  I love how simple and traditional they are but have a beveled edge for added interest.  The color is black-brown (mostly black) which I loved for my lower cabinets to create a warm feeling and to better hide potential food stains and day-to-day use.  The problem I ran into was I didn’t want my upper cabinets to be dark.  I thought it would be too overwhelming and darken the space overall.  Laxarby is not available in white in the United States!  So I’m switching it up… I chose the Bodbyn style for my upper cabinets in creamy off-white.  I liked their glass-door option best and thought the beveled details would complement the Laxarby style.  So there you have it… I’m doing a “tuxedo-style” or “two-tone” kitchen.  Best of both worlds!

I did get bids from a couple other cabinet vendors but the price didn’t compare, the color options for dark cabinetry weren’t great, and in order to achieve the same level of organization, I would’ve had to spend much more money and purchase all of the extra organizers myself from another vendor.  So Ikea it is!

Last fall, I started designing layouts for our future kitchen with the hope that Ikea would have a spring sale and I would be ready to order.  However, I could never quite get everything to fit just right. {{I literally have 13 designs saved in my Ikea Kitchen Planner file.  THIRTEEN!  I know I’m crazy. (3 are not shown in the photo below)}}

I felt defeated and gave up on the idea and until this spring, with about two weeks before the sale ended (better late than never, right?) I decided I had to make it work!  My “ah-ha” moment finally happened when I decided to include an island rather than a peninsula.  I was so convinced that I would lose seating by having an island that I had never even bothered trying to layout the design in that way.  It ended up saving so much floor space in the living room footprint and it allowed us to have seating for 6 (when my goal was 4).  The other great advantages of this design are that I can have a full-size refrigerator, full-size pantry and full-size sink!  WOOO!  In every other design I created, I would’ve had to give up one of those items.  Win!  Win!  Win! 

Here is a look at my final design layout (pardon the crappy graphics):

There are some missing elements in these designs so you’ll have to use your imagination.  I am adding a light quartz counter and keeping my existing chrome hardware.  Three major elements will remain in the same locations as the previous layout:  the range, sink and dishwasher.  Everything else is different. 

I wanted to take advantage of my old pantry location.  I thought it would be great to open it up and recess the refrigerator into that area.  This allows us to have a full size refrigerator (coming soon) without it sticking out into the room, as most do.  To the right of the refrigerator I added two shallow base cabinets with drawers that will serve as our coffee bar area.  We plan to put some rustic wood shelves above the area to hold coffee mugs and décor.  I think it will be my favorite area!

The island is going to be pretty massive.  On each end we will have large drawer-base cabinets.  The counter will overhang 12” on each long end.  This allows us to have seating for 3 per side.  There will be 2-18” door cabinets in the center of each seating side.  I plan to store items that won’t be used on a daily basis in those little guys.  Since the counter-top will overhang on each side (I have yet to see an example of this… makes me nervous), I want to add posts to achieve a more balanced look.

We plan to build a custom range hood above the range (more on that later).  Above the range we will have glass cabinetry that will house our dishes and pretty things!  The not-so-pretty things will be hidden in pretty baskets/storage containers!  The glass cabinets allow us to have storage without the kitchen feeling so top heavy.  In the corner we will have a pull-out base cabinet to store all of our pots and pans.  We will eventually upgrade our range, but for now it stays!

To the right of the sink, I will have a full-size pantry cabinet and a brand-new Bosch dishwasher (coming soon)!  To the left of the sink will be the waste cabinet with room for trash and recycling.  The upper cabinets on this wall will not have glass fronts, so I can store all of our ugly things there!  I’m so excited to have a bigger, deeper sink base and an arched pull-down faucet.

For the wet bar, we are sticking with the “tuxedo-style” with dark lowers and white uppers.  We are removing the sink so it is technically a dry bar now.  We are adding glass-cabinet uppers to store our glassware.  We are also addressing the lighting situation in this area.

We placed our order on Saturday, April 16^th and paid the extra fee to have them pull everything for you and for delivery (totally worth it).  We received all of our cabinets Monday, April 18^th (talk about fast) with the exception of a couple minor items that were out of stock.

I forgot to take a picture of our house after delivery (bad blogger) but HOLY CABINETS!  They are literally scattered in almost every room of our home.

Next week I’ll talk about the other design elements of these spaces. 

Have a great week!
Emily