From the moment I first saw the new IKEA Axstad cabinet face, I knew I would need to use it in a kitchen as soon as humanly possible.  IKEA has been stubborn and until now, hasn’t had a true white shaker style door. They’ve had some wood shaker styles. And some shaker-esque off white doors (grimslov – we actually used these in our first kitchen).

But now, they have finally done it! Axstad is truly the perfect white shaker. And to all you purists out there, no… it is not a “true” shaker door in that it has a minor decorative detail. As you can see it has a slight step-down profile. But I find that this actually elevates and differentiates the look, while still maintaining the clean straight lines of the shaker style.

In comparison to the Grimslov door, the Axstad is whiter and more matte. The Grimslov has a slight sheen to the finish (which probable aids in long-term durability) while the Axstad is a truer matte. This does give me some concerns about how it will hold up, but only time will tell. After the great disaster of the light gray Lerhytten door, I’m just praying that this won’t happen to my beloved Axstad.

I shared a little bit about the kitchen layout and design here. We opted to do a long island into the former eat-in kitchen area. And the rest of the footprint of the kitchen remained the same. I used the IKEA kitchen planner to plan out the different cabinets needed, and the process was super smooth. Ideally, we would like to get the IKEA kitchen sale discount on these cabinets. We’ve heard from an associate that the sale should be starting end of June.

HOT TIP: if you buy your cabinets before the sale with your IKEA family card, you can go back and get the sale price if it happens within 90 days after you purchase. OR: if the sale is now and you aren’t ready to buy, order the IKEA measuring service (which is credited towards the future purchase) and this will lock in your sale pricing.

We plan to go back and get the sale price retroactively when it happens (hopefully end of June). Although doing this way is a bit of a gamble, because who knows if there will even be a sale or for how much, it made it much more pleasant to order when there aren’t hundreds of people clamoring in to get their kitchen on sale.

Putting together the base cabinets was a breeze. We finished assembling them all in one afternoon. So, we got cocky… Actually hanging them and installing the doors, cover panels, and drawers still took a decent amount of time. You have to double check all your measurements, check for level, and then cut around any obstructions such as gas and water lines, or exhaust vents.

Nevertheless, I would say that we got this kitchen together relatively painlessly. This is our third kitchen renovation, and I definitely think it is getting easier each time.

We are waiting for the flooring to go down before we install the cover panels, so they can sit flush on the ground. Next we will be adding the hardware. It just came in the mail and I am ecstatically excited to see how they turn out!!!

I went with a very modern sleek pull that has a finger ledge. It’s called the Hickory Hardware Streamline Flat Onyx Cabinet Door/Drawer Pull. I chose some shorter ones for the wall cabinets, medium for the lower doors, and longer ones for the island drawers.

The appliances were all ordered during the Memorial Day sales, and are ready to go in after the flooring. And we went countertop shopping this week as well, we are close to deciding and ordering. Right now we are thinking of going with this white quartz with delicate gray veining. I would consider a more dramatic veining, but none of those have quite fit the budget yet… So for now, I’m pretty happy with this one. It’s $45 a square foot right now at our favorite countertop supplier: Factory Plaza.

Our electrician should be coming in next week to install the can lights and position the pendants. I also got the pendant lights in the mail this week, and I am equally pumped to see them go up. They were on a phenomenal sale at West Elm.

I feel like they are going to add some class and sophistication and play well with the ‘white-grounded-with-black’ look I am going for. Plus they are HUGE, which I feel like will add some oomph to the grandeur of the island (wow I am using some crazy words today!!).

And then finally, in an unexpected turn of events…. Someone planted the idea that we should consider removing the railing between the kitchen and family room.

Honestly, I hadn’t given it much thought and chalked it up to safety concerns. But for fun, I did a poll on Instagram to see if any of you would prefer to have it or remove it…. And holy moly, 90% of you said remove it!!! I was shocked at the overwhelming consensus. After talking to a few more people about it and finding no one who had safety concerns, so last night we followed your advice and took that sucker down!

I do think the space feels a lot more open now and easier to navigate. I’m excited to check it out in the day time though…

See the full kitchen reveal here!

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You can do so many neat, ‘look for less’ projects with things from IKEA.  Lately, I’ve been on the hunt for a floor lamp for our den.  With no overhead lighting, it gets pretty dark in there during the evenings.  Floor lamps can be tricky for some reason, and I don’t feel like there is a predominant trend right now to guide you on what is and isn’t cool about them.

On a recent trip to IKEA I spotted the ASTORP lamp, and I knew it was meant to be.  At only $25 for the base, it was definitely priced right.  The style kind of mimicks the popular ‘tripod’ floor lamp and its clean geometric lines really appealed to me.  So I snatched it up!  I have plans to hide the cord a bit and spray paint the legs gold (don’t you think that will give it that extra special touch?)

(image via Stylebook Closet App)

After finding such a great deal, of course I had to look around and see how it compared.  I found these lamps that are very similar to the ASTORP IKEA floor lamp, but cost considerably more… So I would say this is a very successful ‘look for less’ purchase!

 1  //  2  //  3  //  4

What are your favorite IKEA products?  Do you ever struggle when picking out floor lamps?

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My mom and I went to the Schaumburg location to check out the changes in person.  IKEA kept many features of the new kitchen line the same as their former one, but made several crucial tweaks.

Let’s go through some of the most exciting changes.  First, the new SEKTION kitchen is very modular and allows more size combination options.  This means, less IKEA hacks, and more options for customized dimensions.

Not only will the drawers and cabinets dimensions be customizable, their insides will as well.  Meaning more options for drawers inside of drawers.  Yes, you heard that right!  They have also expanded their in-cabinet storage features for optimal space usage.

On the door front (pun intended), most faces remain the same with new names, but several more are added.  I would have liked to seen a few more options in the ‘classic-traditional’ style, but I guess they already have some pretty great picks.

Price-wise, you’ll be happy to know that most lines are remaining the same as AKURUM with only several increasing.  So, I’m hearing more customization, for little-to-no more money!

Overall, I’m impressed with the options offered by IKEA’s new SEKTION kitchen system.  I would have liked to see a few more ‘classic traditional’ door options added, but I can’t complain, they still have some great ones available.

Are you planning a kitchen remodel in the near future? What do you think of the SEKTION cabinet line?  My favorite door at the moment is the GRIMSLOV (formerly ADEL).

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I was inspired by these gorgeous curtains from Design Manifest.  I loved the pop of color and how incredibly subtle it was!  Mine didn’t turn out quite as subtle, but I did try and fold my ribbon around the bottom edge for that effect like in the pic below.

So I started by cutting down some of the plywood I had leftover from the workbench.  Then I attempted to screw/nail the pieces together (I think they are 10″ tall and the side pieces are 8″).  When I say attempted… I failed to screw them together as the wood kept splitting.  Then, I managed to kinda nail them together.. they still wobble a little.  I definitely regret not recruiting Jake to help with this part!

I was going to buy batting to uphoslter the box with, but during an IKEA trip I spied a twin duvet is the AS-IS section for only $3, so I decided to use that.

I stapled on my duvet batting with my handy dandy staple gun.  One of these days I’m going to figure out how to use our pneumatic stapler and make my hands a lot happier with me.

I bought the standard white IKEA curtains and got one extra set to upholster the pelmet boxes with.  Word to the wise: iron the fabric before you staple it onto the box….  I missed that one.

Once the boxes were upholstered I hot glued my kelly green ribbon to the top and bottom making sure I had enough to fold over and cover the edges.

I did recruit Jake to assist me in installing the curtains and pelmet box.  Turns out they were much more difficult than anticipated… Isn’t funny how flooring seems like a breeze to us now, but installing curtains, now that’s a tough one!

After they were hung, I hemmed the curtains and glued on the ribbon. Any suggestions for a good craft/fabric glue??  The one I got was awful and took 24 hours to dry and still shows some…. Frustrating. (notice there are no pics of the other window?  shhh..  that’s because I haven’t figured out how to glue the ribbon to those curtains yet without making another mess)

I think they pop nicely against our gray walls.  I can’t wait to get that sectional upholstered in navy.  Then we’ll have some really fun jewel tones going on in there.  You can notice above, we still to install baseboard, and then this room will be finished! (Well, the shell at least, there always plenty of decorating to do )

Little by little we are putting the human touches onto our fixer upper, and it’s going to be a beautiful home  I already have a few more ideas for this room floating around in my head.  But, right now the focus shifts back to our half bath, because we finished tiling it last weekend!!!  What a relief, I can’t wait to finish everything up and reveal the space to you  Until next time, happy Thursday!

Linking up at: Think and Make Thursday, the Handmade Hangout, Found & Foraged, Your Designs This Time, Frugal Crafty Blog Hop, Work it Wednesday, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, The Inspiration Gallery, Tutorials & Tips

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At the same time I knew I didn’t want a cream or anything that read beige.  I think this bedroom kind of inspired the color choice.  Do you see what I’m trying to describe?

Well, at any rate, I ended up picking Irish Mist by Behr, and I think it turned out fabulous!  My mom made a special trip to come and help us paint several weekends ago which was super fun and helpful.  We had to prime both rooms completely because one was such a bright orange and the other was basically covered in spackle. As you can see below, they both needed some work….

See all that paneling?  They attached it with adhesive.  PLEASE!!! Never glue your paneling!  Removing it caused many large tears in the drywall that took significant effort to patch…

We finished up the last coat in the former paneled room and just need to do one more in the former Illini room.  I’m toying with the idea of crown molding and I think that will help tie the ceiling and wall color together.  Overall, I’m excited about how it turned out!  It’s the perfect blank slate (since I’m no where near ready to make decorating decisions for those rooms yet) without being cold or sterile.

Jake says it looks tan to him, but I prefer to say it has taupe undertones.  The ‘taupe’ is key since it refers to a gray-beige color, and I’d like the think the undertone tends on the gray side.

And… we now have lights in both bedrooms!  This is another huge accomplishment, considering we still only have one lamp in the house…  We went with the IKEA Melodi pendant light for the guest bedroom, I may swap out the shade with a diy later on.  And, we got the Alang flush mount for the office bedroom, it’s such a pretty and understated fixture.

Also, floor laying has begun!  If you follow me on instagram (yes, I recently joined the world of social media, and now have a twitter account too, believe it or not! ), you may have glimpsed the beginning of the process.  We finished up one room last weekend (this stuff takes some major time commitment, folks!) with the help and guidance of Jake’s parents, and hope to keep chipping away at the first floor for a while.  Stay tuned for the reveal soon!!!

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When a moment like that comes a long and hits you in the face, you gotta act!  And that is exactly what I did last Tuesday, when-out of the blue-my eyes spotted the double bowl Domsjo Ikea farmhouse sink sitting all by it’s lonesome in the As-Is section.

Let me back up a bit…

I always (*ALWAYS*) stop in the As-Is section on any Ikea trip.  Why?  I’m a sucker for good deals, even ones I have no intention of buying.  Do you ever get tingly just from knowing there are deals out there?  Like the satisfaction that comes from knowing that when you do have a little jangle in your pockets you should be able to make it go a looooong way because you just saw something that was like 99% off.

When I first entered the clearance section, I spotted this stainless steel fridge for half off.  I texted Jake a picture for fun, fully knowing that there is no way I was going to spend $700 that day for a new fridge.  Especially since we are many months away from any kind of kitchen reno…

After sending the text (and sharing the satisfaction of a bargain find, even if it’s not mine), I wandered deeper into the As-Is section of goodies.  And that’s when it happened. Minding my own business looking at the weird bathroom sink they had by the random cabinet doors and… WOAH!  Is that a DOMSJO sink??  Like the one I mentioned I WANTED in my Kitchen Dreams post???  That’s been on backorder for like the WHOLE YEAR????????  And it’s HALF OFF????????????????????   (I’m trying to convey my excitement with excessive use of punctuation, is it too much?? )

Instantly I whipped out my phone to tell Jake the great news.  Ok, so I’m at Ikea, this is a little crazy, but I found a GREAT deal.  The key to doing this is to remain calm as you relay the news, in my experience husbands don’t often respond well to shrieks of *Can I get it? Can I get it??*

He was skeptical at first, rightly so, because he thought I was asking to buy a fridge… which would have been actually crazy.  But I quickly explained how my most favoritest dream sink was on sale for half off and it was just missing a few plumbing parts which are available at our local Ace.  And, I had known forever that this was the exact sink I wanted someday and had done extensive research on it.  Then, he was on board

So, I asked for someone to help me lift it out of the rack (that thing is a beast!)… and horror of horrors… the corner was CRACKED.

I was so so bummed, and tried to come up with some way that it could be ok.  But, then I felt the responsibility of wife-hood kick in and I thought to myself, would Jake purchase this if a whole chunk of corner had been broken off and glued back on? I should be representing both of us in this decision.  So, I texted him the horrific news and said I put it back and am not getting it.

Then, my phone rings.  Jake for the win!  Apparently you can repair ceramic sinks  So, back I went to my beloved find to snap a pic for Jake’s review.  When the manager saw that I was once again considering buying the sink, she offered to lower the price from $150 to $100.  This sink is normally $300!!!

Once Jake re-approved the purchase and suggested we offer $90 for negotiation’s sake, we sealed the deal and wonder of wonders!  I am now the proud owner of an apron front farmhouse sink.  For only 30% of the retail price.

I know it will be a while before I can fully appreciate it as a functioning sink.  But, for now my head is still spinning from this amazing find.  I don’t even mind that it will sit in our basement indefinitely.  Also, it’s actually our first purchase for our new house (besides those two candles in the cart above)!  Really, we’ve bought nothing yet for it, can you believe that??   In an effort to reduce the amount of work flooring will be we had abstained from any fun purchases, knowing they would have to be moved into the basement.  But now this beautiful sink will pave the way for many more steals and deals that will grace the rooms of our home

Have you had any crazy thrifter moments lately??   I love to hear those stories! They always give me hope for deals of the future.

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