Planning ahead for renovations!

So, we've been working on planning what remodeling we want to get done before we move all of our new stuff into the house. We've decided to redo the kitchen and floors and do some painting. Above is the flooring we think we've decided on (we're still waiting for a few samples to come in the mail before we make our final decision). It's a click laminate so it will be easy to install and at $2.39/square foot it's a great price and it comes with a 30 year warranty. We looked at hard woods, bamboo, cork and everything else and were surprised that the one we liked the best was a laminate. I was against laminate at first but consumer reports had good things to say of them.

We've been designing our new kitchen with the ikea kitchen planner. We decided to go with them because it's cheap and we can do it ourselves. Also, consumer reports had good things to say about the quality and again, a great warranty. We are going with the Liljestad doors which are solid wood and look great. Here are some pics. The first is someone else's install and the second and third are basic pics from the ikea site. We are planning on going with black appliances, lighter on the counter tops and back splash.



I also plan on using the Utby open shelving unit which I will top with a matching counter top to create a baking station in the area of the kitchen where there is currently a bar top and stools. I want to put shelves above it to store flour, sugar, etc in jars. It will be my mad scientist baking area and I can store my pots and pans on the open shelving underneath.

Really the only hard part of all of this is going to be knocking out part of a wall and putting in a support beam, which we will need to hire someone to do because I'm afraid to mess with a load bearing wall myself. Everything else will be time consuming but within our capabilities.