The New Kitchen - Part 2: The Fitting

 

The units that I had previously assembled were sat into position then levelled and squared up as required.  The handy clamps are great for holding units together whist they are bolted together (cheers James)

 

The sink was a 'two man job' and had to be fitted in place before the worktops, which meant protecting it and a bit of careful working was required. 

 

You can see the wiring for the new sockets in this pic and if you look carefully you can see the pull out corner accessory which allows us to make full use of the previous 'dead space.'  The new wall units are 920mm high, giving an overall height of 2.4m from floor to ceiling, which increases the storage space considerably.

 

 

The under unit LED strip lights are also from IKEA and are the same type as the ones we fitted behind the cornice in the living room.

 

 

Doors fitted to the wall units and eye level microwave in place.  Still a bit of work to do, but it's starting to look like a kitchen now.

 

 

 

 

Double oven fitted in a high level larder unit.  This saves anyone having to bend over in the limited space to try get things out of a floor standing oven.  As with the left-hand corner you can see the pull out corner accessory which allows us to make full use of the previous 'dead space.'

 

We chose a double sized Belfast style sink to create a central feature in the narrow kitchen.  The corner pull-out accessories swing round then slide fully out, providing full access to the storage in the corner space.

 

 I have to say that i'm very impressed with the quality of the IKEA kitchen components for the price (e.g. solid wood framed doors, metal framed drawers with 15mm drawer bases and ball bearing drawer runners) and how easy the units and components were to assemble.  The appliances were also very good value for money (particularly with 25% off) with a good range of features on the oven and microwave.

 

I suppose time will tell how good the quality and VFM really is.

 

The kitchen installation is finished (in time for Christmas), but we've still to do the tiling and a wee it of painting and decorating.  Pictures of the fully finished article will be published in the new year. 

 

Have a happy Xmas and New Year and thanks for reading my blog.

 

 

 

The New Kitchen - Part 1: The Strip Out

Finally got round to ordering the new kitchen.  With a Christmas deadline for installation.

 

 

We chose an IKEA kitchen and when it was delivered I was pleasantly surprised to find that  every individual package was coded, which made it very easy to check against the order list and easy to keep track of which part goes with which when the units were being assembled. Not one thing was missing.  Well done IKEA.

 

 

 Our kitchen certainly isn't the biggest we've ever had, which made it even more important to make the most of the little space we had.  The washing machine was moved downstairs into the utility room to give us more room and open up the 'dead space' corner.

 

 



 

Whilst the kitchen is quite small, the ceilings are quite high, which meant we could go for relatively tall wall units to increase the storage space.  As with the right-hand side corner the left-hand corner was also 'dead space'.

 

 

 A final look at the kitchen as it was.

 

 

The strip out starts! 

Prior to starting the strip out at the weekend, I had been assembling the new units in another room during the week due to a general lack of space (did I mention that the kitchen is quite small) and to reduce the time we spent without a working kitchen as we were still living at home during the work.

 

 

You can see the amount of wasted space in the corner, it's pretty much the size of a whole 600mm unit and apart from poor planning, I don't really know why the previous designer/fitter didn't make use of it.  You can also see the former serving hatch through to the Dining Room..

 

 

Well, that's the strip out complete and yes, we did feel it necessary to take down the fake blind/fixed curtain thingy, and no, it won't be going back up.  Next step was for the electrician to come in and re-wire the kitchen, fitting new sockets, appliance isolation switches and upgrading the mains fuse box to take the necessary new 'ring main.'

 

It's amazing how big the room looks when it's empty........Not!