Our IKEA Cottage

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about the kitchen. We’re not planning to renovate the kitchen until either the fall or maybe even as late as spring of 2009. But I still want to have as much of it planned as possible while working with our contractors so that I don’t have to undo any of their work later on. It’s an odd little kitchen. The ceilings are so slanted that it’s not going to be easy to have wall cabinets above the base cabinets. Plus the placement of doors and windows restricts us somewhat.

I love the fact that this cottage was built in the late 30s. I wish I could redo the kitchen in a really retro design. But that would require either custom cabinetry or very expensive cabinetry. Either way, that doesn’t work on Kev’s budget. So I’m sticking with IKEA kitchen cabinets with Stat doors. At least I think that’s the plan. I have time to figure it all out and - who knows? - maybe by fall, IKEA will have some new doors. I plan to paint most of the walls in the cottage white and have a very white-on-white decorating scheme - similar to what Jane Coslick is doing with her Tybee Island renovations in Georgia.

I really did want to keep the kitchen true to its era… and I wanted to use an old table in Kevin’s dad’s basement with a porcelain top. It’s one of those old black and white table tops with chrome legs. But I don’t think that I’ll have enough room for it. It would fit but then our guests would be squeezing into their chairs! Plus, there’s so little storage space in the cottage as it is that Kevin suggested that we make an island out of cabinets and a countertop. I tried to lay out all of the rooms last night using Adobe Illustrator. (Hey! I’m a graphic designer and a web designer, not an architect. I used the tools of my trade!) I made a photo gallery of each layout below… outlining where the IKEA furniture will be placed in each room. Of course, things could change. We’re still working on the bathroom and will tackle these other rooms later on… so anything can happen between now and then.

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Last year, my landlord had some minor electrical work done on the house that I live in. He hired Pat Testa, a local electrician. I knew that Kevin and I would be shopping for an electrician come spring and I asked Pat for his business card. I’m so glad that I found Pat. We interviewed two electricians for this job. It was a tough decision because I liked and trusted both of them so much. But Pat is local. He lives only a short distance away in the Mulberry Point section of Guilford. We realized that he’d be only a quick phone call away if we had an emergency.

Pat met me at the cottage in mid-March. I told him – roughly – what we wanted done. The woman who owned this cottage previously shared this space with her mother – who was wheelchair-bound. The light switches and the switch for the air conditioning were in odd places, low to the ground, so that her mom could reach them. We decided to remove some of the switches and to raise up a few of the others. We also had to lower some of the outlets. And we wanted to add some accent lighting in various places. Pat was fabulous… very flexible and accommodating.

So… in the bathroom, we’re adding lights around the mirror. Pat wired those lights for us. I’m still deciding what lights to buy. I’m leaning toward this sconce – below – but haven’t made a final decision yet. It’s available at The Light Shop.

Pat also added a switch for these sconces as well. Plus we added an outlet next to the sink for blow dryers, curling irons, electric razors… whatever. We removed the overhead light from the bathroom because the ceiling is rather low and we didn’t want tall people bumping into the light in the middle of the night. OUCH! We wanted so very much to add recessed lighting in its place but it looks like it’s going to be tough. We don’t have enough room in the ceiling for recessed lighting. We bought Blixt recessed spotlights from IKEA but even they were too deep for our ceiling. Pat is trying to find us some puck lights but it doesn’t look promising.

In addition to the electrical work Pat did in the bathroom, he removed a very strange light switch from the bedroom. I called it “the lightswitch to nowhere” because it didn’t work. We had no idea what it was ever used for.

Kev ended up hiring Pat to put in a new service. We went from a 60 amp service to a 100 amp service. Our friend Pasquale took care of everything… getting the permit from the town… adding the service in only one day. It was – and still is – a pleasure to work with him. He’ll be coming back in a few weeks to install the outlets and switches.