Our kitchen is still unfinished … no backsplash, no central light fixture, no window treatment. I’ve been having fun with Mosaic Tile Supplies‘ “Mosaic Maximizer” and have come up with some tile blends that might work for our kitchen backsplash. I’m also trying to decide what to do about the walls in the adjacent mud room. For the past year, I’ve been planning on painting the walls either the same blue as in the kitchen or some sort of orange. But then I saw this wallpaper, “Stem,” from Orla Kiely at Anthropologie and am reconsidering. I’ve mocked it up in Google Sketchup, as you can see in 2 of the 3 pictures below. I like it, and I don’t think the pattern is too much when paired with the checkerboard floor. But I worry that it competes too much with the pattern in the backsplash - especially if I go with a rainbow of colors for the backsplash. Sometimes I think I should just stick to Google Sketchup, because I’m just too afraid of commitment!

Take a look at this fantastic kitchen (from Flickr user zuess) using IKEA’s red and white Abstrakt fronts. Reminds me of my own kitchen with the VCT floor and formica countertops.

The kitchen is just about finished … all that’s left is the mosaic tile backsplash, getting the floor polished, installing the wood open shelving and finding a ceiling light fixture.

To see the complete set of pictures taken yesterday, see my Flickr page.

The area above the Kitchenaid mixer is where the shelves will be installed. We’re using 2 48″x15″ IKEA birch countertop pieces with hidden supports. They’ll wrap around the wall bump-out as well. The trim around the window needs to be painted and I’m still trying to decide what to do about curtains.

Those are 2 Target placemats serving as the backsplash behind the cooktop right now. My mom had the brilliant idea of placing them there. I went out and bought enough of them to do the entire kitchen backsplash with these placemats until we get the tile backsplash done. I’m hoping I’ll get to that project sometime soon. The doors in the background are the same yellow as the old kitchen … gotta paint those when we get to the trim.

We LOVE our new Electrolux induction cooktop. It boils water in the blink of an eye and wipes up so easily. In fact, I’m able to place a silicone potholder under my cookware to help keep the cooktop from getting scratched or dirty.

Here’s our mixer with the potential placemat backsplash.

Our new faucet is the Grohe “Minta” and the sink is the Kohler “Verse.” The faucet is beautiful, but I don’t recommend it. The lever is placed so far out that it blocks the 3rd hole of the sink, so we had to swing it out over the sink. The water stream falls short of the sink’s drain - I’m not sure if this is a flaw with the design of the faucet or the sink, but it has the unhappy consequence of creating a horrific splash when the faucet is centered and hits the rim of the drain.

The rope lighting you see peeking out at the top of the cabinets is our over-cabinet lighting. It still needs to be secured to the cabinets.

For the past 3 months we’ve lived with our new IKEA Ulriksdal kitchen, still in its packaging, in our garage as our kitchen renovation blossomed into a half-house renovation with new plumbing, wiring, central vac, etc. In the meantime, I’ve had ample time to play with Google’s free 3D program, Sketchup, and get the satisfaction of a completed kitchen if only on my computer. And with the help of Sketchup, I’ve come to realize that the Ulriksdal style was all wrong for our kitchen. While it’s a handsome style, its vertical lines were too distracting when combined with our checkerboard floor and future dazzling backsplash. So Andrew and I discussed it and came to the conclusion we should attempt to return the Ulriksdal doors and cover panels to IKEA (Stoughton, MA) and exchange the for Abstrakt. Amazingly, they accpeted our return (we were WELL over their 45-day return policy) and were able to exchange everything. With the price difference between the two styles, we were even able to buy a new sofa:

This is IKEA’s “Arild” sofa in white leather. I never thought I’d go for a white leather sofa, but this one is quite beautiful. It has a pebbled texture and I think it’ll hold up well. It’s being delivered this Friday along with our new kitchen cabinet doors.

Here are my Sketchup images of the new kitchen - hopefully to be finished in April:

All that’s there in reality right now is the floor and the walls (Benjamin Moore’s “Tropicana Cabana”). Andrew, Bingo and I decided to pose for some pictures while the walls are still bare:

And with the new floor:

Now that the kitchen has been demolished and we’ve learned a thing or two about what we’ll have to deal with through this process, we’re going to have to consider some changes (errr, an expansion) in the scope of our remodeling project. It turns out our range and range hood were connected to the fuse box, which we’ll have to change over to the circuit panel for our handy-dandy new Electrolux induction cooktop and Bosch wall oven. And of course, the panel has no more room … which means a new panel, and pretty much also means having to upgrade from 60 amp service to 200 amps. It looks like we may be pulling off all the drywall in the kitchen so we can go ahead and rewire all our outlets and bring the whole kitchen up to code.

The old asbestos linoleum floor under the white peel & stick tiles doesn’t look very good. It’s crumbling where the dishwasher stood and the plywood subfloor beneath it doesn’t look so good either. It’s got to be just as bad if not worse in our bathroom. So we’re back to considering asbestos abatement, which doesn’t come cheap. I might do a little research on how to accomplish this ourselves (it’s legal in NH if you’re the homeowner, you don’t rent to anybody, and you don’t plan to sell your house within the next 6 months):

From http://www.des.state.nh.us/factsheets/asb/asb-6.htm:

The removal of non-friable materials including siding, shingles, and roofing can be legally performed by homeowners, regular contractors, or licensed asbestos abatement contractors as long as each does not violate the NESHAP regulations, and work complies with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations as delineated in 29CFR 1926.1101. The health risk involved in handling non-friable non-regulated asbestos material is very small as long as the integrity of the material is maintained. Sufficient fiber concentrations to cause health problems are hard to generate, unless you are drilling, sanding, or sawing such material. The Department Environmental Services (Department) recommends, however, that one wear a disposable tyvek suit, gloves, and if medically fit a half mask respirator with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters when working with asbestos. The Department maintains a list of local suppliers of asbestos related safety equipment. See Fact Sheet ASB-12. The key element to the removal process should be wet removal with “no visible emissions”.

The removal of friable/regulated materials in workplaces, schools, public facilities, and dwellings can only be done by licensed asbestos abatement contractors. The one exception to this is the individual homeowner with no tenants doing the work at his own residence. This type of removal, if undertaken by the homeowner, should be done only after thorough preparation from an informational, educational, and equipment standpoint. However, the homeowner may not do this removal in preparation of selling the home. A cutoff point of six months shall be used to determine if the work was preparatory to selling the home (Refer to the NH Code of Administrative Rules Env-C 407.02). A listing of licensed asbestos contractors can be obtained by contacting the N.H. Division of Public Health Services at 603-271-4609.

The yucky asbestos floor under the peel & stick tiles.

Walls: Spectra Blue from Benjamin Moore:

Countertop: Formica black - in either matte or sparkle finish:

Floor: Mannington VCT in night black and oyster white:

Andrew demolished the kitchen in less than 24 hours, with some much-needed help from my dad (plumbing) and brother (truck and transportation to the dump). Exciting photos of the event have been posted to Flickr.

It was interesting to see how rotted the old Formica backsplash located behind the sink had become:

I never actually used this crowbar for anything else but scratching my back. But Andrew used it to its full potential on the cabinets.

Ignore placement of the dishwasher - this is a montage of images from our current kitchen and a display kitchen from the IKEA store in Stoughton.