A Very Mueller Kitchen: There's no turning back now

It has begun. Hammer has hit drywall and hammer has been victorious! Today we begin our new kitchen! whoo-hooo! We are going to do as much as possible ourselves. The upper cabinets came down very easily, just an electric drill and zipped the screws out (while standing on old countertop) And speaking of countertop I don't care what anybody says, formica stinks! Mine is white and granted 15 years old - but I can't get it clean, only less dirty! But anyway, the upper cabinets came right down, the range hood was hard wired, but E threw the breaker and cut the wires.

A little about our plan: We are DIY of course, so we're thinking IKEA for the cabinets. My only nagging concern is the "IKEA factor" - when someone walks in and says "Oh, you got that from IKEA!" Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I mean they have incredibly flexible cabinets and configurations, the drawer organizers are the best and all the addons you can get would be available to the next owners of our condo if they wanted to change stuff around. Still, I wasn't very happy with any of the door fronts. The style that I liked, Hallarum, was discontinued early (they said there were quality issues). But it was a flat-front door style in a eucalytis wood (veneer). All the others are raised panel styles, and my second choice was a shaker-style cabinet. But I couldn't get past putting something so traditional in a loft in downtown Chicago. We also didn't want to go too far the opposite and do a laquer red or black - we thought it would turn too many people off when we sell in a couple years.

So the new plan is IKEA cabinets and fittings with custom cabinet doors! I got the idea from a designer on http://www.ikeafans.com. Now, I just have to find a cabinet maker I can afford! I think in the end it'll be gorgeous though, so it's worth a little extra running around.

Here's the original kitchen - your last look!