ikea Archives - Storefront Life

Focus on the Journey, not the Destination.

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it. -Greg Anderson

That is crappy advice. Cause sometimes the journey SUCKS.

Case in point: Gathering supplies for an industrial chandelier project in mid January in Canada without a car.

This is how our weekend went:

Friday after work I took three buses and a shuttle to get to Ikea North York (aka the Ikea in the opposite end of Toronto from where we live.) Getting two lights (which have been sold out at my local Ikea for months). Then taking a shuttle, three subways and a bus to get home. Three and a half hours later I had my lights, and fro-yo. So there’s that saving grace.

Saturday El Granto, myself and the dog headed out to the lumber yard. We took our favorite route along the West Toronto Railpath only to find halfway along our route the path turned into 2″ of solid ice covered in water. AKA the most slippery walk ever. Then it started to rain. We proceeded on city streets, which weren’t much better. Why cant people with corner lots SHOVEL THEIR SIDEWALKS?! Insert blood pressure rising. We got our needed lumber, and El Granto carried it home while I wrangled the bags of supplies and the pooch.

El Granto carrying home a 4x4 8 foot post. — El Granto carrying home a 4×4 8 foot post.

Next we dropped off the dog at home, and took the bus & streetcar to Home Depot to get everything else we needed.

Our menagerie of weird supplies for this project.

I then braved the skating rink which is our backyard, and headed into the garage to spray paint while the weather was warm enough. (It had reached +6 in Toronto, and with the heater on in the garage I could get it to +10, which is the minimum temperature for my spray paint to cure.) I set up my drop cloth and painted three light coats on all my lights & supplies, and left it to dry.

Sunday I went to check on my paint, and discovered that the drop cloth had fallen onto the lights and f@#ked up my paint job. Insert string of expletives. I conquered my anger, sanded down my newly painted lights, and painted another two coats of paint. I then marched them inside to safely dry in the basement. Where no big mean drop cloths could fall on them and make me cry.

Our light(s) after 6 coats of paint. Three would have done it except for the damn drop cloth that decided to fall on it and wreck everything. — Our light(s) after 5 coats of paint. Three would have done it except for the damn drop cloth that decided to fall on it and wreck everything.

SO three days of journey, very little accomplished, and no actual “industrial chandelier” made.

Eff you Journey. I will stop believing.

Grow Peninsula Grow!

Our “U” shaped kitchen was a bit short on one end. Our peninsula oddly only came out 4 feet from the wall, and perpetually looked a bit “off”. He was just too short, too stumpy, and because of such he wasn’t that much use*. He wasn’t really a good prep space, nor did he have enough room to use as a service area for the dining room.

When preping for new countertops, we knew that we wanted to make Mr. Peninsula a bit bigger for function and to balance the space better. However as our house is tiny (12 feet wide!) we didn’t have a ton of room to play with, without risking/impeding the traffic flow through the main floor.

The peninsula was actually an area of great debate in our house. We agreed on the countertop finish, colour, the coffee bar, the shelving and dining table choice, but we had trouble coming to a happy place with our peninsula. Ideally we would have ripped out all the skinny cabinets and put in full depth cabinets with a wine/beer fridge. BUT we just didn’t have the room (if we wanted to keep a dining table that seats 6-8). I wanted to add some more open shelving or potentially a wine bottle holder, El Granto thought that would look dated and tacky (after some thought I believe he was right about that). In the end, we decided to add a 12″ matching Ikea Adel cabinet, and seamlessly make the peninsula a foot longer. Not a huge gain, but that 12″ made the peninsula come out to the same length as the dishwasher side of the kitchen, and it will add some more prep and serving space.

So off to Ikea I went, for the second Saturday in a row (sink pick-up the week before), and braved the kitchen department yet again. This time I saved El Granto the trip because he enjoys Ikea about as much as I like perusing the video game isle at Best Buy.

The Ikea Kitchen Department. Come in with a happy marriage, and leave on non speaking terms.

This jaunt to Ikea didn’t go as smoothly as my last, and my round trip took almost 4 hours (including subway and shuttle bus). Ouch. The only saving grace was my froyo treat as I wanted at the full service pick-up.

After getting home El Granto quickly assembled the cabinet while I removed the toe kicks and cover panel on the existing peninsula. In short order we had the new cabinet installed, and we leveled the whole peninsula, as apparently the previous owners couldn’t grasp the concept of Ikea’s easy level legs, and the whole thing was about as level as the Tower of Pisa. As a side note I think they may not had a grasp on the concept of level at all.

This was the first step in our prepping for Project Concrete Countertops and it was only the start of demo to come.

We were left without toe kicks, an uncovered back of a cabinet, no end cover panel, and a countertop that was now 12″ too short. The chaos was minimal and contained, wait till you see how long this lasted!

*If you have a dirty mind, and thought that this post was at all dirty sounding, then that just proves that you don’t read carefully enough. PENINSULA’s people. Get your head out of the gutter.

A Step Up

I’m not a short girl. My Danish heritage has afforded a rather large frame of 5’10” however I am still completely unable to reach the top cabinet in our kitchen without standing on something. We have tall ceilings, and 39″ upper cabinets and those things are tall! For two years I have dragged over a kitchen chair, or straight up hopped up on the countertop to reach that top shelf.

I know what you’re thinking, why on earth have I not bought a kitchen step stool yet? You know those things MEANT for standing on to reach a cupboard?! Well, I just never thought about it when I was someplace that sold step stools.

That was until last week, when I was stuck at the Ikea kichen lineup, and noticed their basic Bekvam step stools situated behind the counter. For a whopping $16.99 I decided then and there that I would cure my inability to reach the top shelf! I wrote down the isle and bin number and when I (finally) reached the warehouse I added the stool to my cart, and was on my way to being able to reach whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. (It’s the small things people.)

I brought home my new prize, named him Sultan* and assembled it.

Hrm, its okay, but its a bit boring right?

So I got out the cabinet paint, and gave Sultan a couple coats of Thai Teal, then a couple coats of poly.

Isn’t he more handsome now?

He matches the cabinet backs, so he fits right in. For now I have made beside the coffee bar his new home, where he can quickly be accessed to reach a cookbook or a casserole dish.

Not bad for a $17 stool and a bit of sample paint, eh?

* For those of you who don’t get the Sultan reference, clearly you didn’t watch enough Beauty and the Beast in your childhood. Sultan is the pet pooch who was turned into a foot stool. Now I am off to watch Beauty and the Beast, and maybe a bit of Aladdin…

We have a sink!

Thanks everyone for your help in the great sink debate of 2013. We finally made up our minds, and headed out to Ikea to pick up our sink this past weekend. Or should I say we coerced a good friend to drive us to Ikea using Swedish meatballs as a bribe.

I have to say he should have been rewarded with more than meatballs, as braving Ikea on a Saturday is torture. As we shuffled past strollers, overflowing carts and bright blue bags, parents dragging children, and domestic arguments over duvets we managed to weave our way to the kitchen department and put our name on a list for help. While Ikea is essentialy self serve, that stops at the kitchen department. Each and every kitchen item from bases to doors, appliances to sinks needs to be ordered through an Ikea associate. They type in your item, and print you out an order form, that you take to the cash register and scan. You pay for your items, then head to (another line) to pick up your items from the warehouse. So for our single sink, we had to wait in the same line as the people ordering a whole kitchen. Surprisingly, it wasnt that bad. For a month the sink had been sold out at all GTA Ikea’s (Etobicoke, North York and Vaughan) and only (far away) Burlington had a few. In a twist of good fate, Etibicoke got 4 in on Friday, and we hustled to make one of them our sink. We got our precious order form, and waited through the lineups to finally procure our sink.

So which sink did we choose? Did we go for the farmhouse sink or the square stainless?

Drumroll please….

FARMHOUSE BABY!

We ended up going with the farmhouse as we thought it would be the most appropriate in our home. We have strayed towards the traditional in our decor, with our moldings, styling and trim work. So we felt the more modern sink may be a smidge out of place. We heard some great comments from you wonderful readers, and the things that pushed us over the edge were that we did in fact already have a whole lotta stainless going on with our appliances, and the nice contrast that the sink would give with our (soon to be) dark grey counters. Your complete love of the farmhouse also made us feel a lot more comfortable with our decision.

We loaded the (very large) sink into the (small) hatchback of Chris’ car, and headed home. Now the sink is currently hanging out in the dining room, waiting install after our new counters are built!

sink trunk — An Ikea Domsjo sink will fit in the back of a Mazda 3

Speaking of counters, we’re hoping to get started work on them next weekend. We are super excited to get started, but a bit nervous as well. This project involves some kitchen demo, plumbing, and a lotta planning before we can even start.

I will speak a bit more next week about our planning and prep work, then expect quite a few posts as we work through the process from start to finish.

Painting Kitchen Cabinet Backs

Last weekend on a whim I decided to paint the backs of my glass door kitchen cabinets. I gathered miscellaneous paint cans and did some tests. Continue reading “Painting Kitchen Cabinet Backs”

Ikea As-Is Score

I went to Ikea in search of a plant. I left with kitchen cabinet drawers.

Every time I visit Ikea I take a look at the as-is section. Most of the time there’s nothing to be had, but sometimes, they might have the very thing you need.

Last you saw it, the coffee bar was still missing it’s drawer unit (bottom middle) as well as the upper glass doors. Why you ask? Cause that stuff was expensive… The drawer unit alone was $232 before hardware. Ouch.

That was until I walked into Ikea on a fateful Friday night, and spied this fellow happily sitting in the as-is department with an $85 price tag.

Why hello there sad little drawer unit without a kitchen to call home

It was a complete drawer unit EXACTLY the size that we needed for the coffee bar. In perfect condition, fully assembled. I don’t know how poor little drawer unit got to the as-is, he clearly wasn’t a floor model as he didn’t have any handles, nor had the cabinet ever been attached another cabinet (as it didn’t have any holes drilled through it). I frantically texted El Granto at home confirming that yes that was the size we needed, and then I ran to the check out, having my own “Start the car!” moment.

When I got home, we tried to figure out how to get the drawers OUT of the cabinet, as I actually already had the exact same cabinet frame already installed in the kitchen, and just needed the drawers. However they just wouldn’t come out! After goggling it, I finally discovered that there are two little tabs (one on either side) of the bottom of the drawer. If you press both tabs simultaneously towards the sides of the drawer and lift up and out, your drawer will come unattached from the drawer slide.

El Granto then removed the drawer slides from the cabinet frame and installed them in our coffee bar and slid the drawers back in place.

Using our cabinet handle template, El Granto attached matching handles, and our coffee bar was finally starting to look somewhat complete.

With the new drawers, open wood shelving and filler panels all complete, its looking pretty good. Progress baby!

Have you ever scored anything amazing in the as-is section?

Installing Ikea Kitchen Hardware

We needed to add hardware to the coffee bar that matches the rest of the kitchen. We found the hardware easily enough. The previous owners bought everything for the kitchen at Ikea, so its been super easy to add new cabinets etc. When we picked up the new hardware, we also purchased the Ikea Fixa Drill template. The template is supposed to make the placement and hole drilling of your cabinet hardware super simple. (I am all for making tasks simpler!) For the $3 price tag, we decided to give it a try.

We brought it home and checked the template against the current hardware in our kitchen to find that the old owners used the same template. Score! We marked on the template where the current hardware is hung, then transferred the template over to our new cabinets.

Using a small sharpie, El Granto marked the holes.

Then drilled them with a bit just slightly larger than the screws.

After El Granto drilled all the holes, he attached the handles in record time. For $3 Fixa Drill Template was well worth it, and we will definitely be using it next time we need to install hardware!

For more Ikea Kitchen tips, check out our posts on filling shelf holes, and how we installed our upper cabinets.

Ikea Hack – Vittsjo Laptop Table

I was wandering through Ikea the other day, when I ended up in the office section. I didn’t need anything for the office (much less furniture!) but I browsed none the less. Out of nowhere, I spied this little table. Continue reading “Ikea Hack – Vittsjo Laptop Table”

DIY Tips – Fill Them Holes

***UPDATE! THESE DO NOT WORK WITH BILLY BOOKCASES***

So you know how Ikea (or any prefab) cabinets & bookcases have all those shelf holes for allowing you to move your shelves around willy nilly? They’re super useful, but they leave unsightly dark holes that clearly give your shelving unit away as not being custom built. I happen to hate these holes. So much so, that I painstakingly filled them all with paintable caulking in my Custom Ikea Billy Built-In Bookcase project. This took me 6 hours to do, but well worth it. At the time I thought there could be no easier way…

This past weekend, the clouds opened, angels sang, and I found the answer to all your shelf hole problems.

While waiting in the Ikea Kitchen infodesk line last Saturday night, I spied a basket full of strange little objects. I picked one package up and regarded it curiously, then a light bulb went off in my head!

Yes, brilliant brillant Ikea has made SHELF HOLE FILLERS! They’re little plastic pieces that you pop into your unused shelf holes. AWESOMESAUCE! These little guys come in packages of 100 for a whopping $1, and in either black or white.

I swiftly grabbed 4 packages, and then insisted on telling the helpfull (but probably slightly scared) Ikea sales rep about how amazing this invention was.

As soon as I got home I set to filling all the holes in my upper cabinets in the coffee bar & the rest of the glass door fronted cabinets in my kitchen.

YOUR MIND IS BLOWN, RIGHT?! (or am I the only person in the world who gets this excited about filled shelf holes…)

Total Cost: $3 ($1 per cabinet) my fingers did get a bit sore after pushing in 300 of these puppies, but a small price to pay for sexy looking cabinets.

Go pick some of these up at your local Ikea, then send me tearful letters about how they changed your life.

*UPDATE!* Variera Cover Cap’s are now available online at Ikea.ca

Ikea Kitchen Installation Tip

So last week we taught you how to open an Ikea box without ruining your marriage.

Now we’ll teach you how to install an Ikea upper cabinet without swearing at your spouse, or dropping a 30lbs cabinet on their head. You’re getting marriage counseling and DIY all in one. You should thank me.

So when installing an Ikea upper cabinet, you need to hold the cabinet up to the wall where you want it, then mark for where the rail is going to go. This can be a bit of an awkward process with two people. One person has to hold the cabinet over their head steady and level while the other person marks. This is the point where one of you is on a ladder wielding a level and a pencil, directing the other one who is trying to brace the cabinet on their shoulders and keep it steady while you tell them to move it “a little to the left, no your other left dumbass”. This is the point in time when things are about to go oh so wrong. So here’s what you need to do.

You installed your lower cabinets already, correct? They’re nice and level and secure and wonderful? (Level is the key here!)

Measure the distance between the top of your lower cabinet, and where the bottom of the upper cabinet should be. Now go to the garage and cut two 2×4’s to exactly that length (I am gonna call them stilts). Come back inside, and place them standing up straight on your lower cabinets.

Cabinet Stilts (although we ended up turning them sideways, see next picture)

Now lift your upper cabinet up and rest it on the stilts. You still have to hold on to the cabinet, but now the entire weight isn’t fully resting on your shoulders, and your cabinet is prolly pretty damn close to level. Mark your holes, then take the cabinet down and install your rail. Once you are ready to install the cabinet, use your stilts again to give the cabinet some support while you screw in all the bolts.

Yep, those two scrap pieces of wood just saved you from a black eye, dented cabinet and sleeping on the sofa.

You’re welcome.

And yes El Granto’s work pants are pink. He’s secure that way.