So I have been lurking on this forum for a long time for our
kitchen remodel ideas. I'm sure as a lot of you know, the vast amount of
choices for flooring, cabinets, countertops, hardware, appliances, lighting,
etc can become overwhelming and it absolutely was for us too. We found the best
way to make our kitchen really stand out and make it look as glamorous as
possible without breaking the bank too bad was to do IKEA after reading all the
reviews on here.

Our kitchen was super old, from the 70’s and by old I mean
dated. Lemon yellow and white, it was pretty badddd and non-functioning. We
hired a contractor to do all the demo, remove the wall to the living room,
reframe the ceiling to move the load path of the roof, do all the plumbing,
electrical etc and put a new subfloor down. We then hired a coworker
recommended flooring contractor to lay red oak that matched with the rest of
our house and stain with white ash Rubio monocoat (also in the rest of our
house) to be in the whole kitchen. This was suchhh a hard decision to go wood
or tile. We decided on wood because of the continuous nature with the rest of
the house and the fear of mixing too many materials when we wanted to have a
more minimalist and blended appearance to the rest of the house.

We used the new Sketion line IKEA and ordered the week it
came out, luckily I worked fast on the planning software and knew almost
exactly what we wanted because of the spoilers on the web with dimensions and
such. We were able to order before the stock was out which seems to be
everyone's gripe right now. Once we got the IKEA box design we sent the design
to several aftermarket front fabricators (Scherr's, Semihandmade, Kokoena and
Dendra Doors). We ended up going with Scherr’s for many reasons: quality,
pricing, customer service and ease of install (predrilled holes, etc). The
price of the fronts from Scherrs compared to the others was a no brainer, we
are talking at least 50% less. We also got the doors painted which was a pretty
penny but we got quotes out here in LA and it was going to be the same cost.
I’m happy we had Scherrs do it since the doors got done over there and if we
had issues they would fix. We picked Sherwin Williams Grayish for our color.

We hired a local IKEA installer who was amazing! He works
with one other guy and they knocked out our whole kitchen in 2.5 days. He came
up with a ton of creative solutions including the pantry door sizes. I have to
tell you one of the best ideas was to get him involved before ordering from
IKEA and Scherrs because he helped us “hack” some cabinets such as our pantry,
BEST idea! He gave us dimensions of the doors to buy and they fit like a glove!

Once we had the cabinets installed we had the countertops
installed and boy was that a “wow” moment! Once those were on it made the whole
kitchen come together! We had picked out the stone first back in January and
bought two bookends on the spot and designed the kitchen around the
countertops, those were our statement piece. Hint-pick one awesome thing you
“have to have” or design feature and design around that so you don’t have too
many ideas or too many statement pieces to make the room look cluttered. We
picked a leathered finish Luce de Luna quartzite for the tops with a 3” miter edge.
The slabs were pricey, but it was worth it!! We have a true piece of art in the
kitchen! I would make the same decision again if I had too. The stone yard we
bought the stones at has a list of recommended installers depending on the
stone bought (ie experts that specialize in marble, granite, quartzite, etc)
and they take the liability if the stone gets damaged in install or
fabrication. They also gave us a quote on the spot for the work when we bought
the stone so we knew what it would cost upfront. The installers we great and
spent a ton of time to complete the install since we wanted a mitered edge
(more of a high end look instead of gluing two edges together with a seam to
make it look thicker) and waterfall to
the ground.

Once the countertop was in we did the plumbing and back
splash ourselves. We chose a Delta Trinsic Touch faucet and it’s amazing!! I
would highly recommend it for a functional splurge. The under cabinet light was
super easy too, we bought the strip lights from Home Depot that stick to your
cabinet and you connect to the existing wire coming out of the wall. When our
contractor took the room down to the studs we had him run low voltage wires to
the locations for our undercabinet light and wire the transformer to the garage
so we didn’t have to deal with hiding a transformer taking up valuable cabinet
space.

So far, we love the kitchen! The slow close drawers and
doors are the best thing! To price out the same kitchen with Kraftmade at HD
would have been around 19k with all the bells and whistles we got at IKEA for
around 2k (doesn’t include fronts since we went to Scherrs). We live in a nice
area and home values are rather high so I was worried at first putting an IKEA
kitchen in might look “cheap”, but this has blown away any expectations I had.
It gets said on here time and time again, but make sure you blend high end
items with lower cost items. Don’t go all cheap, or it most likely will look
cheap, but blending items like Ikea boxes with beautifully custom painted
fronts from Scherrs for a fraction of the Home Depot bottom line prices was
wayyy worth it.

I’m happy to answer any questions about details and such,
because I know how happy I was to have everyone on here talking about their
kitchens when I was planning!

Living room looking towards the kitchen and front door on the left
{{attachment:1310238}}
Welcome to the 70's! I'm not going to lie, I miss the lemon yellow just a little bit. I twas so cheerful :]
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Looking back towards the living room area{{attachment:1310240}}
Demo day 2 or 3! So fast how everything comes down, but it takes foorrrreverrrr to get back together haha{{attachment:1310241}}{{attachment:1310242}}
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We have walls again! {{attachment:1310244}}
After the weave in of the new red oak with the old red oak with rubio monocoat finish!{{attachment:1310245}}

Scherrs fronts and panels were delivered!{{attachment:1310246}}

...More photos in the next post....

78 St. Johns, FL Flooring Contractors