Our Home - Kitchen

We are finally moved in and slowly but surely make progress with the to do list we made.

To begin with, let me explain something about this home:
I shall call the previous owners JnK.
JnK bought this house a few years ago from some people who flipped it (which i shall just call "flippers" from now on). You can tell that JnK took good care of the house (there where a few dog pee stains on the carpet that we ripped out, but that's about all that was damaged, if you wanna call it so).
So really, this is NOT a fixer-upper as we first wanted to buy. This is a well working, upgrated home!
HOWEVER, JnK where just a young couple with two little dogs and no kids... we are FIVE people with a dog (and possibly a cat now too).
Our list mostly has projects that will create more storage. (And if you know me, you know that I've got this love for funky colors ;), so paint was on top of the list.)

So, for the first project to post: the Kitchen.
The flippers really made thier job easy here. They bought IKEA cabinets (beleive me, if there is anything to know about IKEA, i WILL know ;)
I love the IKEA cabinets, but the flippers where lazy and did not customize one bit. Which makes for some awkward gaps, an empty whole corner next to the stove (wich was just baricated in with another cabinet), and beleive it or not, cabinets that where not built to the ground, as they should have. And the most abvious, there where no cabinets next to the fridge one one side, because the window came down lower then the premade cabinets, so they figured, let's just leave it empty instead of putting in extra work and cut the boxes to size. It really took away lots of storage and made the kitchen look small and unfinished.

So, of course IKEA since discontinued the cabinet fronts for our kitchen. That's where we had to get a little creative:
We took the doors from the pantry that did not reach the ground, Markus shortened them (sounds easier than it is) and then put them to the newly added, shortened boxes below the window. The boxes we got from IKEA, but of course Markus had to cut them to size too.

Now we where left with a pantry without doors and doors that could not match since the kitchen was discontinued - but you know what, i knew even before we moved here that I wanted those doors to be full lenght and painted with black chalkboard paint. I love chalkboards ;)

We got matching grantite counters for the added cabinets... which including taxes cost us $250. (We installed it ourselves and man, i almost broke my back, granite is "freakin" heavy!!)
The whole project cost us just over $450 - well worth the investment for more storage!

 

Markus made a box and the doors out of high quality boards bought from home depot. Imagine, one large shelf moore - that's soo needed in my little home!!

The boys love the chalkboard cabinet... they color on it all the time ;)

See what we added? All the cabinets on the right side of the fridge where non-existing... who would do that? freaking flippers ;)

And here for more storage.. a few shelves and as always I love to hang my cooking utensiles. Also, we got that butcher block storagte unit for behind the door also from IKEA - of course. hahaha. (another area that was not thought through by the flippers)

;)

We are so happy our kitchen finally works and holds all my stuff and our food. Keep tuned for more projects...