Boom! The kitchen lands!

I cannot remember if I mentioned that we went ahead and ordered our new kitchen. If not, we ordered our new kitchen!!

It was actually just over two weeks ago when we drove down to Ikea and just went for it.  I had been designing it using the online planner for a while but it hadn't really occurred to me that at some point we would be saying, YES, let's do this.  Or rather, it hadn't occurred to me that this was something we could do right now. I was a little scared when I sat down to talk to the guy in the shop and Neil occupied Nye.  Neil really hasn't had much input on the kitchen design or content, so if it's not right.  It is certainly my fault!

Yesterday the influx of boxes arrived and we currently have cardboard and polystyrene taking over the kitchen and dining room.  It looks a little something like this...

The whole design process was really easy, after measuring up and inputting the details we chose the units that we liked and tried to find a combination of draws and shelves that would work for us.  Compromises have been made as we know this isn't our 'forever' home so that's a no to the £1000 range cooker or even a double oven.  But we have managed to organise a built in microwave grill which will free up some much needed worktop space and a gorgeous ceramic sink.  The built in microwaves at Ikea are insanely expensive, I think because they have to have front ventilation.  So, on the day we ordered, we left off the microwave to see if our current one would fit, (no such luck).  However, we have  managed to find a second hand one on Ebay that appears brand new.  I couldn't be more thankful to the lovely lady who packaged it up so beautifully for me on it's travels from the south coast.

Last week we spent as much time as we could getting as much of the painting done as possible.  We first used a steam cleaner to give the walls and ceilings a thorough deep clean which instantly made such a difference.  Then, we used some leftover white paint to give the ceiling a bit of love.  It took us a few coats to really make it sparkle but that alone has refreshed the room.  Next we tackled the walls.  Whilst poking around for paint brushes we found a discarded pot of paint we initially bought for the bathroom and didn't like.  We thought it would be worth a try in the kitchen, as it wasn't doing anything sitting under the stairs, and even after a quick test patch we agreed that we thought it would work really well.  As I'd been dreaming of my white kitchen with pops of orange I spent a while sulking but we've since realised that using pops of orange kitchenware will still be possible and look brilliant.  So, we've already been out and bought up a few pieces of le creuset from our trusty TK Maxx. I really can't wait to see them in situ as I really think they will look ace.  So, the colour palette now looks like this:

Kitchen colours by jc on Polyvore.

The kitchen units themselves are an off white colour with a solid wood worktop, and the turquoise, Mountain Rain is being used only on the chimney breast to provide a bit of contrast. I'm also hoping to use some Margareta, wood look fabric to go in the alcoves.  The majority of the paint work is complete now, and we have started taking the tiles off the wall which wasn't too difficult.  Now we find ourselves in the position of trying to work out a good way of taking out the old kitchen, whilst balancing baby duties.  And you know that as soon as you take out the old one, we don't actually have a working kitchen, until we install the new one, yikes! 

So far we've both been googling anything we think will come in handy and have been out to buy a jigsaw to cut the worktops, purchased plastering equipment for the walls and working how we can get the best deal on ply wood for the floor.  It certainly feels like we are getting there, and I have no doubt it WILL be done by Christmas but oh boy is it a daunting task!