Kitchen assembly
Alas we did not meet our deadline for finishing the kitchen by Christmas, although it had actually arrived and the Ikea flat packs were all piled up like Christmas presents waiting to be un-wrapped. After a couple of weeks off over Christmas we were back to it in the New Year and raring to go. We opted for under counter drawers and 4 large wall cabinets over head. Having fitted better branded kitchens in the past, Ikea is now tried and tested as the best design for fitting yourself. We had a bit of a production line going and it all got assembled very quickly. All drawer and cupboard fronts are white and with all that natural light coming in we opted for white paint on walls and ceiling to really enhance the brightness of the space.
The worktops were sourced separately from an online company and we opted for beech. They are a bit of a faff to oil properly in advance of fitting but that is the key to keeping wooden worktops in good condition. They arrived on the back of a massive lorry in 4 metre lengths and are extremely heavy. Because of the narrow country lanes here we’ve had quite a lot of fun and games with delivery drivers and lorries. The closest this lorry could get was 20m from the front door and so we had to carry each one through the yard and round to the back door. There were 4 of them and did I mention they were really heavy?! We don’t actually have 16m of worktop but had ordered 7m extra to use as window sills. They look fantastic and it worked out a lot cheaper than buying the same quantity / quality of wood.
Kitchen taking shape
As a bit of extra functionality, very thin stainless steel sheets were ordered and fitted onto 2 sections of worktop. One section on the sink / dishwasher area so as to prevent water damage and the other was fitted onto a lowered section of kitchen unit which will be used for rolling out dough and pastry. It’s been really great to customise our kitchen in this way and has been the real benefit or doing it all ourselves. Come the end of January our kitchen was pretty much finished, bar a bit of tiling and window paint.