I am absolutely overflowing with happiness. Our kitchen is finally finished. In my previous post I wrote about how we were about to move in and would have to live with a temporary kitchen for a while. In the meantime the moment finally arrived when the real kitchen was delivered and installed.
Designing the Kitchen
The planning for this kitchen actually started already when we were designing the house. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted a large island because I love hosting people. I have a very big family and we all enjoy getting together often and eating together. Almost every Sunday we also have lunch with my extended family. This means that somewhere between twenty and fifty people need to fit into the space somehow.
Of course I did not design my home specifically for fifty people, but I knew that when we have larger gatherings the big kitchen island would work perfectly as a serving table. At first planning such a large kitchen felt almost like an unnecessary luxury. But considering how much I love cooking and hosting, and the fact that we already have quite a large family ourselves, the decision made perfect sense to me.
Choosing the Cabinets
Since we needed to keep an eye on costs, I initially thought I could put together the kitchen cabinets from IKEA. I quickly realized that while I could probably make something work, the measurements were not quite right and I would have had to modify too many things myself. We also would have wasted a lot of space. So I asked for quotes from a few other companies and discovered that the price difference was not actually that big.
The company I eventually chose was very accommodating. For example, I wanted glass cabinet doors with cross patterns instead of square grids. They had never made anything like that before, but together with their engineer we managed to design glass cabinet doors with exactly the kind of cross pattern I had imagined.
The Sink, Appliances and Island
I also knew that I wanted a large ceramic sink and a bridge faucet. That was meant to be the statement piece of the kitchen. Since none of the companies here offered that combination, I had to order both the sink and the faucet from England. Fortunately the price and the shipping were not too bad. I am incredibly happy that I decided to go for it.
The sink and all the kitchen appliances had to arrive before the kitchen installation could begin. For a while our home looked more like a storage warehouse. Refrigerators, the oven, the stove and various other appliances were sitting in corners waiting for the cabinets they would eventually be built into.
The island I ordered is quite massive and the countertop is made of stone. For both visual and practical reasons it needed three support posts. Since the kitchen company did not offer posts like the ones I wanted, I had to build them myself before the countertop could be installed. In the end I think they turned out very fitting and beautiful.
Getting the final kitchen drawings completely right took several weeks. The cabinets themselves took about ten weeks to make, but the result was absolutely worth the wait.
Installation time
When the cabinet parts finally started arriving at our home and installation day came closer, I could barely contain my excitement. I kept peeking into the boxes, holding my breath, wondering if such a big investment would actually be worth it. Would it turn out beautiful or would I regret something? My mind was full of a million thoughts and my only wish was that it would all come together nicely.
I seem to have this feeling every time I plan something. In my mind and on the drawings everything looks perfect and I feel confident about my choices. But once the installation starts and the real pieces begin moving into place, the nerves always appear. What if it does not turn out as good as I imagined?
Installing the cabinets took a couple of days. As time passed and more of the kitchen came together, it became clearer and clearer that the investment had absolutely paid off. There was not a single thing I was unhappy with or that looked worse than I had imagined. If anything, it looked even better.
Big Surprise
Once the cabinets were installed, the countertop installers came to measure everything. Then we had to wait another couple of weeks for the countertop to be made. I had spent days walking around the city with samples, trying to find the perfect material. I knew it would be a big investment and I wanted to make the right decision. In the end I chose a white countertop with warm veins running through it. I wanted it to bring a bit of warmth and texture into the kitchen.
When the countertop finally arrived I got a small shock. I started looking for the veins, but no matter how closely I looked the surface was completely white. I contacted the kitchen company immediately and after a bit of discussion they realized that a mistake had been made in the order. The wrong countertop had been produced.
At that point we had two options. Either we could wait for a new countertop to be made, which would take four to six weeks since it was summer and holiday season, or we could keep the one we had and receive a significant discount. We decided to go with the second option. The plain white countertop was not exactly what I had planned, but it did not ruin the overall look either. The good part was that the discount was so large that our stone countertop ended up costing almost the same as a much cheaper standard one.
Finishing the Range Hood
Once the installers had finished their work, it was my turn again. Another thing the kitchen company unfortunately did not offer was a cabinet for the range hood, so I had to build that myself as well. At first it felt a bit intimidating because the rest of the kitchen looked so beautiful and I was not sure if I could continue at the same level of quality.
Mr. Right helped me build the structure from plywood and I finished it with decorative mouldings, filler, paint and chalk. In my opinion the result turned out very nice and it fits our kitchen perfectly.
Enjoying the Finished Kitchen
There are still a few things left to do. We need lights above the island, tiles for the backsplash and some cornice mouldings.
But overall I am extremely happy with our kitchen. The very first thing we did was give our little prince a bath in the sink and enjoy our new kitchen to the fullest.
