Kitchen Reno - Part 3

The contractor came over last Wednesday. He built all the showrooms at the Ikea store in Calgary (which gives me confidence). He quickly measured up our kitchen and gave us some suggestions. He agreed to do our flooring install, but doesn’t do plumbing, electrical (for the dishwasher hookup), painting, or tiling. He does haul all the crap away, which is awesome.

We booked our install for Aug. 31 through Sept. 2 (3 days). He figures it will only take 2 days but put another in to be safe. He noticed we don’t have valves on our sink faucet lines. He said if we have a plumber come in and put the valves in, he can install our sink. We’ll need the plumber to come in the next day so he can attach the drain (and dishwasher).

We got confirmation of our “pre-measure” from the contractor the next day. We need this to bring to Ikea so they can process our order. On Friday, we went to Ikea to actually buy everything.

They have discontinued the SOLAR white wall cabinet doors (which sucks because they don’t require hardware), but they do have the SOLAR beech base cabinet doors. We chose APPLÅD instead, which look exactly the same. The girl helping us was great, even when she screwed up and gave us LIDINGÖ instead of APPLÅD wall cabinet doors. (I think it was because her hyperactive coworker kept talking to her while she was trying to enter our order: DUDE, you can show her how far a pencil goes up your nose later!) Karen discovered this before we left the store but after we paid. So we had to go back upstairs, get a new order with the right doors, go to returns and have them void the transaction, and then have them ring in our new order. It wasn’t too bad; it gave us a chance to pay for home delivery.

So the total bill was $2800 and we got $400 in Ikea gift cards (which should cover the flooring). The only question left is: where do you store 800 lbs of cabinets and countertops in our little home?