FauxPas

Good point, but I don't own one of those mixers and probably won't acquire one, though I won't say "definitely won't". 🙂 I think I'll have enough space to spread things out a bit, if necessary. I admire @weinoo's kitchen a lot, but I'm not really at at his level of cooking and I don't have nearly as many toys. It's always great to have stronger shelves, but I don't know if I need more than what I'm considering. Maybe I'll regret that statement, though. Hahahahaha From the US IKEA site:

I love your kitchen! And you made such great choices. I've been told these drawers/shelves will support at least 25 kg so that's 55 lbs.

So I have a solution to those awkward closets with the bifold doors by the kitchen. We're going to treat them as a continuation of the kitchen cabinets. I got a couple of opinions on removing the centre wall and although it may be possible, it would create a lot of work. Instead, the cabinet guy drew up a plan to treat them as pantry space, just like the existing space beside the fridge. So, I'll end up with a mix of drawers and adjustable shelves and the doors will match exactly with the kitchen cabinets. It's not inexpensive but it's a clean and fairly easy solution and avoids the mess and uncertainty of removing that dividing wall. And I'm pretty sure I'll be happy with the results. The installers can do the work at the same time as the rest of the kitchen. They'll also add some storage and a countertop area in the laundry room. Here's the diagram. The pantries are on the left, the right side shows the little storage area that will be added to the laundry room. The bottom of that area has to be left free as that's the only place in the house that works for our kitty's litter box. 🙂

I do envy it in many ways though - it's so warm and inviting and so well organized for the way you live. And I really love that you have those custom touches from your husband. I think it's a lovely space and thank you so much for sharing! 🙂

it sounds like you customized your space really well to meet your needs!

I have someone coming over this morning, we'll chat about the possibilities. 🙂 There are a couple of other hall closets that store linen and vacuum and the mop and broom hang on hooks in the laundry room. That seems to be working ok so far. 🙂 Exactly! It could be better storage with a different door style. Do you have any plans to change yours?

Forgot to mention that we also have two more cupboards off the hallway in behind which are currently housing general cleaning and household supplies (along with masks and rapid test kits 😞 ), but which could be used for pantry-type storage once we add some storage to our laundry room and move some of this stuff over. The laundry room is one of those small walk-through rooms between the garage and the other hallway and the previous owners had a side-by-side W/D pair with a single tiny shelf. They were older appliances and I opted to replace them with a stacking set, so now we have room for some shelves beside them. This house isn't large, it's only 1500 sq ft plus an approx 400 sq ft garage. I do wish the laundry room were bigger.

Yes, thank you @heidih. Lighting would be a good addition. I will ask electrician and storage guy. 🙂

Kitchen pantry/storage. Some of the existing pantry storage is a tall cabinet next to the fridge with adjustable deep shelves on the top and pull-outs below. It's not a bad size but the pull-outs aren't working very well anymore, so looking forward to the new cabinet, which will be configured slightly differently. And, if you look at the left background in the first picture, you'll see there are two bifold doors. One of these is already configured as pantry storage (though the shelves are not great, they start to sag under too many canned/jarred goods, for example). Here are the interiors. The one on the left used to house the gas hot-water tank. It was the original and time to consider replacement anyway, so we opted for an on-demand tankless system installed in the garage, which frees up more kitchen storage options. The cabinet guy also does other storage and is coming over tomorrow and we'll see if he has any suggestions. I'm interested in a good solution for these two spaces, not sure if I will find a temporary solution for the left side and leave the right for now, or what. And I'm thinking I'd like to continue working with the existing space - no wall removal, etc. 🙂 But then again, I look at them and think if they were joined as one large space, get rid of that centre dividing wall, that might have some real benefits.... Arggghhh. What to do? 🙁

I was also going to say something about all the talk about I and Me in this story. I guess it's clear that I'm basically the "general contractor" on these jobs. Initially we tried to find someone to manage all our jobs, but it's a crazy time and people are busy. We do know a couple of good contractors but they are in-demand and working on much bigger jobs than this! They did throw us some bones of advice here and there, a couple of recommendations, etc. We installed a whole-house heat pump, which meant removing the electric baseboard heaters, getting sheet metal guys to create ductwork in our crawl-space and electrican to clean up the panel and wire the compressor/air handler units. That was completed two weeks ago. We also had a multi-zone irrigation system installed which also required a bit of electric work and a bit of plumbing above and beyond all the trenching and pipe-laying. And we had a landscaper do a major clean-up on our garden beds and create some new ones and add some new plants. Plus, we have a lawn maintenance guy liming and punching the lawn and he'll be doing some top-dressing/seeding when appropriate. All of that also happened within the last couple of weeks because our landscaper had a gap in her schedule and wanted to fill it, our irrigation guy decided we fit in better than a bigger job he had to do, etc. We had a traffic jam in our crawl space some days, almost. Ha. Someone discovered we had some carpenter ants, so we had to get the pest guy here to deal with that (fortunately, not advanced and easily dealt with at this stage). And so many decisions. How should the garden beds be shaped, how many, which plants and trees and where, are they deer-resistant? Which mulch? Back and forth questions about irrigation vs landscaping. And then the kitchen cabinets, countertops, backsplash, etc. And flooring. And painting, because the whole house needs painting. Plus, I made the decision to paint the garage interior at the same time, because we get a break on the price, if we do it at the same time. But of course, we have a ton of stuff stored in our garage right now, because we didn't want to bring it inside while other stuff is going on. Also, storage in extra pantry/laundry cabinets, which is still a goal I am working on. Meeting with someone Monday morning to optimize those spaces. Pics to come. My husband has an amazing amount of confidence in my ability to manage some of this stuff. He does help, but he wants me to take the lead because, as he says, he never wants to move again and so he bloody well wants me to happy. Hahahahaha 🙂 Early next month, I have hired someone to remove and transport the old kitchen cabinets. He's also going to help remove the backsplash and flooring. Everything else should follow soon after. One of my biggest things now is running around to lumber yards to try and match some of our existing baseboard and moulding trim. And then I have to talk to flooring people and painter about how best to organize stuff. Right now I am estimating for the flooring people to remove and replace the trim and the painter to finish. But, if we can't match the trims, that opens up a can of worms. We have gaps where the electric baseboard heaters were located, plus some of the kitchen trim will need to be replaced after the cabinet guys are done. Some of you may have done this work yourself, some may feel it's not that bad to organize. But I have to say that it's been quite a lot to take on and I'm still feeling a bit stressed. Though I have to say we have connected with some amazing tradespeople over the 10 years we have lived here in the Valley and they have all come through for us when we have needed them. They have been patient with me and willing to explain and flexible in their scheduling, trying to find some time for when we need something done. My husband, bless his heart, will be the first to say he's not good with some of this stuff. How many people know the Red Green show? "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy." 🙂

We had an induction range in the last house here as well, which was purchased back in 2014 or so (the range). It was pretty amazing, actually. Great temp control on the stovetop and the oven racks were porcelain-coated so you could leave them in during a high-heat oven clean. I already have mostly induction-friendly cookware. I wanted an induction range in the Arizona house also when we bought new appliances in 2010 and I don't know why I let a salesperson talk me out of it. She thought they were too pricey, but some models would have fit into our budget. I ended up using portable ones quite a bit because I hate those ceramic-top electric models that burn every spill on to the surface.

Yes! I actually quite like the existing layout. It will be new kitchen materials but the same basic footprint. Did I say the cabinets are white IKEA ones, actually the same ones we put into our last place. And the same pulls and handles, because I never got tired of them. 🙂 I can't reach the upper cabinets even in the existing kitchen without a step-stool, so I'm ok with high 3rd shelves. My (tall) husband uses them to hide things from me, hahahaaha. The new MW has 500 CFM venting, compared to 300 or 400 in other OTR MWs and some hood vents, so I hope it handles things ok. It should be ok for my style of cooking. Maybe that time, but he still chose it to sit on several other times. 😺 I can still talk to the quartz people and see about extending it up to the MW, but if it meant another slab purchase, that would only make sense if we wanted it up to the cabinets all the way around. And that would be a signifcant jump in cost and would depend on availablility as stock was getting low. The owner is the main fabricator and likes doing custom work so they seem very happy to work with me on this and they made it clear they are happy to modify if changes fit the existing slabs. When they come to do the final measure after the cabinets are in, we can still make changes. So I can shape that section behind the range however I want, within reason. I liked the idea of a curve there, because the kitchen itself is going to be very white and grey and I thought a bit of a curve would give some kind of design element that was perhaps lacking in other ways. But I could take it up higher, I think, looking at the fabrication layout. Looks like another 2 to 4", maybe. Would you start the curve outside the width of the range or stay within the 30" range width? Or would you do a curve at all? It really is annoying. If we donated it, we would check with either the food bank or the wildlife rescue people. We have donated appliances to both before and they really appreciate them. But in this case, we also have friends who keep eyeing the fridge when they come over. They recently bought a 45 year old home with some gorgeous views, but the kitchen really needs work. They are buying our old cabinets from us, because they are a big step up from the ones they currrently have and will mostly work in their space. They might want the fridge as well. Edited to add: We would also offer our cabinets to Habitat for Humanity's Restore shop, if we didn't have friends who really wanted them. They will often offer to remove them for you, if they have the necessary labour available to do it. We offered old cabinets in our last house to them.

Kitchen will have white cabinets and quartz countertop. Obviously, our kitchen won't look like this, but this is the quartz. The showroom samples had a few silvery sparkles in them, I am hoping that our slabs will also. It's a pretty basic/simple look, but I liked it. Some of the other samples with whites/creams in them just didn't look right with our white cabinets. I am not a fan of the existing backsplash so happy to be replacing it also. I decided to go with the same quartz for a backsplash, because I like fairly clean, simple lines. It will be 6" high and then curve up behind the range. I hate using this photo because the overall kitchen is so fugly, but this is the general idea. They can cut the quartz anyway we want and there is enough left over on the already-required slabs so that I have some leeway on the size. I'm looking for suggestions. I can start the curve on the outside of the range like this or maybe have the curve only above the range itself, maybe going straight up and then curving over the 30" width of the range. I'm thinking it needs to be at least 12" high to allow for splatter protection. Above the quartz will be painted drywall up to the cabinets. Anyway, this will give a rough idea despite the odd colours of the cabinets, walls, countertops, etc.

Fridge pics. The shelves are too close together, but to lose one would mean a lot less storage overall. It's tricky to fit in tall items, the door bins aren't separated enough either and although adjustable, I can't find positioning where it works for our storage needs. The lower left door has that odd extra bin for leafy greens. Why? The crispers are fairly decent in size. The deli drawer is useful but might be better to have left it out and allowed for more spacing between the higher shelves. Here's a closer shot of the top shelf folded back. Now there is even less height at the back of the second shelf. And you can see the seam on the second shelf, where it can also fold back. It's just awkward. That awkward bin again. I would much rather have another standard door bin there, but they won't fit into this spot at all. So no choice in that. I have tried to order an optional bin which I hope will replace this one and allow for a bit more condiment storage. We'll see if it works.

Is this too much detail, too much info? I was going to talk about our fridge, because it drives me crazy. It's this model. I could write out my complaints but someone already has said most of it on the Kitchenaid site: Another problem with this kitchen is that the cabinets were installed so that the maximum fridge height is about 68" and most decent-sized fridges are a bit taller than that. The previous owners of the home replaced the original fridge (probably quite recently as this fridge was only manufactured in 2020) and would have been limited in their choices. I don't care that much about the way the doors close, we got used to that fairly quickly. But the shelf/bin design really is awful. There's so little space in the door bin compartments, it's crazy to have French doors on a fridge that's only 30" wide. To put in any tall items (like milk, wine or juice) you have such limited space and you pretty much have to have one of the fold-back shelves folded back all the time to put things in the main fridge section. Once you have it folded back, you are blocking access to all the shorter items in behind and you have to pull things out to get to the smaller ones. We cooked a turkey for Xmas and it was quite the procedure to find room for even our moderately-sized turkey. So, another reason to be thankful for new cabinets, which will be installed up to the ceiling and will have a larger and taller fridge opening. In the meantime, I am wondering how long I can handle using the existing fridge. I hate to replace it when it's still so new, but it's been hard going from a 26 cu ft fridge down to a 20 cu ft model. Not sure what to do. On the plus side, the icemaker has been great!

It's a laminate flooring (with a manufactured wood base) installed as a floating floor over an underlay. This one has high water resistance and abrasion resistance so it should hold up pretty well. It's made in Europe. And it shouldn't require much for transitions at all so we can have a very smooth floor throughout the main part of the house. I think laminates have come a long way. They have really improved over the years, though of course some people would like real hardwood. The last time we did hardwood was in our townhouse in Victoria and I hated worrying about damaging it, to be honest. The laminate we have had held up really well.

The other thing I've already done is to replace the dishwasher and range. I really like this Whirlpool dishwasher, it's very quiet and has all the cycles I wanted and it was a surprisingly good price. I also really like that it doesn't have any big logo/label advvertising the brand (what are those things called on appliance fronts?), I like the clean front lines. The range is a Frigidaire induction with air-fry. To be honest, the temp controls were probably better on the Kenmore that I left behind in the old house. I was tempted to bring the Kenmore along, but it was about 8 years old. I still like this one, not sure about the Air Fry feature, as I've only used it once for cooking frozen fries and it didn't seem to add a lot. I should really try something else.

Mijo also chose our new flooring. 😺 He always wanted to sit on this floor sample. Fortunately for him, it's also the one we like best. It's hard to know how true the colours of things come through. This is a nice light grey with bits of darker grey.

Here is what I mean about flooring heights and variations. The kitchen transition piece is too high but even if we smoothed it out, there is a slight height difference between kitchen and the other flooring. We are hoping we can rip out everything and start over fresh with the same height and same flooring and no transition strips. It's not that noticeable to some people (here is another of the original lisitng pics), but I can see the difference in the two floorings here. And as Mijo quite rightly points out, this transition piece is very dangerous for his humans. And a different flooring again in the hallways, den and bedrooms. They are all fairly well matched in colour but once you see the difference, you know it's there. And this is not a high quality flooring. So, all of this flooring will go and be replaced with one single product. We'll keep the bathrooms and laundry room flooring for now, it's not bad.

Yes, it does. It vents through the wall. It would be better in some ways if it had been vented up through the ceiling, since I want to install a low-profile over-the-range microwave and vent combo, like this: https://www.kitchenaid.ca/en_ca/major-appliances/hoods-and-vents/microwave-hood-combination/p.900-watt-low-profile-microwave-hood-combination.ykmls311hss.html Because we already have a hole in the wall and exterior siding and we didn't really want to try and patch those and make another hole, we will have a bit of a gap between the bottom of the upper cabinets and the top of the microwave, but it will have a filler made from the cabinet material. We had to do the same thing in the last house and I didn't mind it. We end up with a slightly indented space there which could be filled with some decorative tiles or something, but it's not all that noticeable even if left as-is. They promise decent air exchange and quiet operation with this M/W. Hard to tell in the showroom, but the specs are better than the last one I had, which wasn't too terrible.

Hahahaha, no I don't. 🙂 I was going to mention that little item. There are 3 different kinds of wood laminate (similar look, but I can see the differences) in the house and it is all being replaced. We just paid the deposit for the new flooring and there is some in stock in two different Canadian warehouses, but we don't know about shipping and delivery times yet. Also, the flooring in the kitchen is at a different height from the dining/living room areas and since it's such a basic open-plan house, it should have a smoother transition. It's currently a tripping hazard!

As suggested in my last posts in this thread, we did indeed go ahead and sell that house. There were some reasons why it just wasn't right for us anymore and there was a large home being built that was going to block some of the best ocean views we had, so we decided to move on. Our improvements went a long way toward getting us a strong selling price and it sold immediately. But, houses were in short supply (they still are) as demand is outstripping supply and lots of people are looking to move to this region, so finding a new house was not easy. I know it's happening in many regions and countries and it makes it tough to take the leap and list, you don't know what you will be able to find. Our last house was on a fairly busy street and we wanted something quieter. We didn't want to get into a bidding war on a property (we saw an older 1700 sq ft rancher sell for $250k over asking recently, final price over $1 million - in a meh neighbourhood and without many updates), so we knew we might do better looking for a property that needed a few updates. This is a lovely neighbourhood and met our needs perfectly. But the house seemed a tiny bit sad, it needed some love. Some people asked me why I was so determined to redo the kitchen as it looked decent. The house was built in 2006, so it's not that old. It had white cabinets and not a terrible layout. But while the basic layout is ok, the cabinets have that thermofoil surface, which is susceptible to peeling. This has begun in one small area and while it's not particularly visible now, it may well be more noticeable in a few years. One other thing is that there are too many cabinets without pull-outs. The kitchen needs more drawers to make me (and my husband) happy. We are past the point of wanting to dig things out of lower shelves in cabinets or the back of upper cabinets. More later.

Even your kitties may be interested in a bite or two. 🙂

Yes, also thinking of crustless quiche/egg muffins. Your earlier post in this thread was quite helpful, also! (And some other good ideas there, too.) Thx! 🙂

Do you like to freeze your lasagne before or after baking? I usually use smaller pans which make 4 or 6 servings, so never freeze it, just keep it in the fridge and M/W, so I am unexperienced, ha. I think it's tricky to separate unbaked portions (messy), so it makes sense to me to mostly bake it, then freeze and try to thaw before reheating.