Emma - Our Em In The West

[ricepapergirl 21]

8 hours ago, stray said:

No no no, you've been a massive help! Thanks for taking time to respond thoughtfully. Glad to know I'm not the only one with reservations about using butcher's block, but do love the warmth of using wood for countertops. As for the magic eraser, it definitely works as advertised, so not surprised that it's removing the sealant off your laminate top in addition to the grit. Thanks for the heads up though, small things like that really slip the mind when going into a cleaning frenzy and too late when you've made a boo-boo, ha! 

Hi @stray!

No worries! Good luck with your Ikea kitchen, no matter what counter-top you go with! One thing I was toying with was getting the sink-area countertop in laminate but the hob area one in real wood... haha but worried about the change in texture. Another way is to have some sort of all-the-time towel barrier around your sink  hahaha. Cos really, it's just the splashing from the sink you should be worried about.

I would say that I really love my Ikea kitchen, after 2.5months I cannot complain! Everything is soft-close and everything works lovely. I particularly love how I can have all drawers under my countertop, and customize it to have like, 4 drawers when actually the outside looks like 2 large drawers!  And different depths of the drawers so that you can accommodate the sink pipe and LPG gas tubes!

[kingandbin 13]

@stray Love love the ikea butcherblock look but am concerned about maintenance too! So I decided to have kompacplus on the side of the kitchen with our sink and stove. And the other less heavy duty usage side with the ikea countertop. Hopefully there won't be any issues! But it's customized carpentry cabinets and not ikea ones 

@ricepapergirl Ooh didn't know ikea has laminate wood tops! Ekbacken or saljan right? Must check it out on the next trip to ikea. Glad to know that it's been holding up well so far! Your kitchen is gorgeous 

[stray 12]

@ricepapergirl @kingandbin So glad to have fellow fans to gush over... countertops! I am also super looking forward to over-doing my cabinets with drawers within drawers #inception like there is no tomorrow!!! Yes many things that sold me were the modular cutlery trays, organisational bins, corner lazy susan, pull-outs within drawers and the affordable blum soft-closures *gush gush gush* i know! and I'm just at the planning stage right now.

@kingandbin, just read through your blog, love that mood-board, especially using that grundtal series in the kitchen!  I'm gonna do that too! Hope it all goes super well for you.

I know @ricepapergirl's kitchen is on a flat piece of L-shapped wall. Mine will be against a recessed wall, and I know that the Metod cabinets are hung from a continuous top rail. Wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem and how do you resolve it? Do you simply "fill in" the recess to make the wall flat? I don't want to abandon Ikea cabinets for custom cabinetry, or do i have to?! 

[ricepapergirl 21]

2 hours ago, stray said:

@ricepapergirl @kingandbin So glad to have fellow fans to gush over... countertops! I am also super looking forward to over-doing my cabinets with drawers within drawers #inception like there is no tomorrow!!! Yes many things that sold me were the modular cutlery trays, organisational bins, corner lazy susan, pull-outs within drawers and the affordable blum soft-closures *gush gush gush* i know! and I'm just at the planning stage right now.

@kingandbin, just read through your blog, love that mood-board, especially using that grundtal series in the kitchen!  I'm gonna do that too! Hope it all goes super well for you.

I know @ricepapergirl's kitchen is on a flat piece of L-shapped wall. Mine will be against a recessed wall, and I know that the Metod cabinets are hung from a continuous top rail. Wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem and how do you resolve it? Do you simply "fill in" the recess to make the wall flat? I don't want to abandon Ikea cabinets for custom cabinetry, or do i have to?! 

Hi @stray

Hahaha gush away! I still adore my Ikea kitchen, no qualms there at all. One of these days I will take some photos of how I've been organizing my drawers and above-head cabinets maybe hahaha.

As for the recessed wall, if you look carefully, the wall where I have my hood has a overhanging beam, which is similar to your problem of a recessed wall. (Basically, if you hang the rail on the overhanging beam the cabinet will have a gap behind and less structural integrity, and you cannot "cut-away" the top bit of the cabinet to conform to the shape of your beam). What I did for that eventually was just not hang any top-hung cabinets on that wall, but another possibility is definitely to fill in the recess (and you can use that "fill-in" bit to put your gas pipes and water pipes and hide electrical cabling even).

Not sure whether your issue with the recessed wall is just with the overhanging beam bit, or with the wall getting recessed halfway along your bottom cabinets? If it's the latter, it's not an issue for the bottom cabinets usually. Sorry a bit hard to explain without drawing. Another way is to take your floorplan and go down with your contractor to the Ikea kitchen people (they sit downstairs on the first floor at Ikea Alexandra) and get their advice!

[stray 12]

On 19 August 2016 at 2:19 PM, ricepapergirl said:

Hi @stray

Hahaha gush away! I still adore my Ikea kitchen, no qualms there at all. One of these days I will take some photos of how I've been organizing my drawers and above-head cabinets maybe hahaha.

As for the recessed wall, if you look carefully, the wall where I have my hood has a overhanging beam, which is similar to your problem of a recessed wall. (Basically, if you hang the rail on the overhanging beam the cabinet will have a gap behind and less structural integrity, and you cannot "cut-away" the top bit of the cabinet to conform to the shape of your beam). What I did for that eventually was just not hang any top-hung cabinets on that wall, but another possibility is definitely to fill in the recess (and you can use that "fill-in" bit to put your gas pipes and water pipes and hide electrical cabling even).

Not sure whether your issue with the recessed wall is just with the overhanging beam bit, or with the wall getting recessed halfway along your bottom cabinets? If it's the latter, it's not an issue for the bottom cabinets usually. Sorry a bit hard to explain without drawing. Another way is to take your floorplan and go down with your contractor to the Ikea kitchen people (they sit downstairs on the first floor at Ikea Alexandra) and get their advice!

Heya @ricepapergirl

I've already scrutinised how you resolved that top beam problem with your tall boy cabinet in your earlier posts, haha! You're right, I'm actually just doing bottom cabinets and this is how the recess in the kitchen wall looks.

I thought it would be big issue because it would mean having to truncate the rail and I won't get to have a continuous straight line of bottom cabinets, if you know what I mean. Thanks for the advice so far, definitely I should be talking in depth to the Ikea peeps.

But PLEASE, do post how you organise your drawers and such, heh! Not the neatest freak around but love seeing organisational hacks and what people have in their kitchen cabinets! 

 

[ricepapergirl 21]

On 8/21/2016 at 0:53 AM, stray said:

Heya @ricepapergirl

I've already scrutinised how you resolved that top beam problem with your tall boy cabinet in your earlier posts, haha! You're right, I'm actually just doing bottom cabinets and this is how the recess in the kitchen wall looks.

I thought it would be big issue because it would mean having to truncate the rail and I won't get to have a continuous straight line of bottom cabinets, if you know what I mean. Thanks for the advice so far, definitely I should be talking in depth to the Ikea peeps.

But PLEASE, do post how you organise your drawers and such, heh! Not the neatest freak around but love seeing organisational hacks and what people have in their kitchen cabinets! 

 

Okay wow that is one heck of a recessed wall. I personally feel you might be happier just getting someone to "fill in the recess" if you know what I mean, though it might cost a bit more and you lose what looks like 5cm(??) of space. Having non-continuous bottom cabinets is not impossible (it's much easier than the overhead beam problem) but you might have to pay a bit more for installation when it comes to them doing the cover panels for the exposed jutting out bits... thus, maybe just fill in the recess area?? >_< Jiayou!!

Hahaha after your little encouragement I did go and take pictures of all my kitchen drawers etc... and then when I got to my last two drawers underneath the oven, I noticed that my baking tray had some black stuff on it. And was like, hweh? Dirt? Lifted it up, more black droppings or something on the tray below.... and then lo and behold, a behemoth of a flying adult cockroach appeared round the side. Cue long scream for husband to come and deal with the cockroach!

Lol. I hate cockroaches, especially the adult flying types. In the end my poor husband had to spend another 20 minutes in the kitchen trying to catch that **** flying cockroach with a plastic bag on his hand, because we didn't have bug spray at home (he didn't allow, cos I'm pregnant right now). We tossed the two baking trays (they were quite old anyway) and disinfected the drawers and everything else in it. Fortunately the Ikea drawers are quite easy to clean and to take out and see whether there's been any infestation elsewhere. Hopefully it was a once-off problem! >_<

[stray 12]

Glad to get your opinion on this! Yes, that recess wall has been the bane of my headache and it was either custom carpentry to get around it, or really just fill in that **** wall and get Ikea in there!

OMG HATE ROACHES!!! FLYING ONES ARE THE WORST! Seriously those insects are the devil's incarnate. I once came out of the shower, was changing in my room, a FLYING ROACH LANDED ON MY BACK. WTF it was gigantic as well and on my bare skin?!? *Freak out* You're a lucky lady that your husband is gallant and able to catch cockroaches with his semi-bare hands! What a knight! Don't think there can be an infestation so quickly since you've only just moved in? He it was probably just scooting around, looking for delicious butter smells on baking trays to feed on. Oh wait, is your garbage disposal chute indoors?

[ricepapergirl 21]

Ikea Kitchen - 2.75 months later

Some photos of what lies behind those grey (Bobyn) doors of my Ikea kitchen. This is after 2.75 months of relatively constant use. Fortunately, I still have space!  

Starting with my beautiful Hitachi fridge. The front glass is so polished you can see my living room in the reflection lol!

Top compartment - Yakult, Vitagen, japanese jelly, yogurt, packet drinks, condensed milk in a jar. The vacuum compartment is really useful for raw foodstuff I'm going to cook within the day.

The door. All sorts of condiments, cornflakes, eggs, butter in airtight container, juice, milk (just finished!) and medicine. The only problem with this fridge? I can't fit the Meiji 2L bottle anywhere! So we buy 1L bottles instead.

Skip the ice tray and the other small fast-freeze compartment (we use it for meats but nothing inside right now) - freezer compartment! Ice cream, frozen food, growing collection of cold-packs. Still so much space.

Finally, vegetable drawer. Shallow tray very useful for chillis and ginger nubs, side pocket oddly fits Ayataka bottles but coke 1.5L bottles are a bit too tall (this fridge obviously made for japanese groceries), and the crisper drawer does seem to keep veges fresher for longer?!

The front of the fridge is actually glass, so we use the side for the magnets. Love my magnetic organiser rack, cookbooks on top, kitchen towel, dish-drying cloth, hooks for rubber bands and oven gloves.

Hanging below my top cabinets (it slots in to the bottom of the top cabinet) is my handy hook rack. Kitchen scissors, brush for washing long bottles, sieve, soup ladle and wooden spoon. Underneath that I have my knife rack for my santoku knife, my vege knife, a small fruit knife, my chopping board and chopping board cover. I really like this style of knife rack because it's relatively sanitary for the knife blades!

The dish drainer above my sink! We took out the tray under the dish drainer which catches the water and just let the water drip directly into the sink.  This way we can also hang hooks on the underside of the dish drainer for my frying pans to dry off before I put them away. There is actually space for another shelf above the dish drainer (and we have it) but for now we're just leaving it empty for better circulation + we have nothing to put there yet. 

Next to the dish drainer is my 20cm wide shelf. I got some Daiso "shoebox" plastic boxes to use as trays, otherwise I would never be able to reach what I put at the back of it! Mostly extra dry breakfast stuff like milo packs, tea bags and nutella.

Pull-out section with breakfast drinks on top shelf (tea bags in tupperware, milo in packs, liang cha at the back) and root vegetables at the bottom (potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, shallots).

Under-sink drawers. This might be a big reason why I was never satisfied with other "custom" kitchens cos most of them charge me an arm and a leg to give me very unusable drawers under the sink. Ikea's solution: slightly shorter (in depth) high drawer right at the bottom to accommodate the water pipe, and a short medium drawer on the top to accommodate the sink pipe. With some handy organising boxes from NTUC I managed to fit most of our cleaning supplies in those two drawers with ease!

Top drawer has two NTUC boxes (the height is just nice and doesn't hit the sink) and holds swiffer refills (wet and dry), magic eraser, Cif, all sorts of cleaning clothes, rubber gloves, ant and roach combat, extra sponges, squeegee, extra spray bottle.

Bottom drawer has a lot of kitchen towels, extra dettol, extra dishwashing liquid, large ziplock bags (A4 or gallon size) and extra mop head!

Time for some drawer-inception! Looks like 2 big drawers from the front/outside, actually 4 drawers inside.

Top drawer - bamboo cutlery tray from Ikea, with cutlery, utensils, and for now, ziplock bags, aluminium foil and cling wrap.

Second drawer - extra small cutting board, coasters, soy sauce dishes, plastic bowls, plates and plastic cups (super chapalang drawer, basically anything crockery-like that we don't use often)

Third drawer - mixing bowl, steamer rack, measuring jug, extra cups, teapot, extra ziplocks and extra glass tupperware

I need to do something about that massive stack of very big plates - "wedding present" from my mom, some of them dating from her wedding. O-o. Rest of the crockery we use relatively often, collection of Corelle plates and bowls.

Above this 4-drawer unit are my dry pantry supplies in the overhead cabinet. I find the Daiso pull-out trays super useful when you have overhead cabinets and also want to make full use of the height of the shelf. There's instant noodles, soba, pasta, pancake mix, sugar in a jar, chicken stock cubes, breadcrumbs, extra cans of condensed milk and baked beans and chilli tuna, japanese curry packs, cup noodles etc. We also keep a supply of disposable plates and bowls and cups nicely corralled in one of the trays, and behind the pack of maple cream cookies is a set of wine glasses from Ikea. We really don't use those often or I would have gotten some sort of under cabinet rack to hang them.

Very underpopulated top cabinet next to the dry pantry one has tupperware, empty jars, empty bento boxes and thermos, with "decorative" crockery on top (mostly wedding gifts).

Even more underpopulated is almost-empty 20cm top cabinet at the end of the row. I'm sure it will fill up eventually but for now, it's empty.

The reason why I don't have a "corner unit" for my kitchen even though it is L-shaped: the cabinets for my LPG tanks. The one on the left is connected to my hob, the right one is extra. On the counter-top I have my kettle, rice cooker, hot water thermos and 2 water jugs.

3 drawers under the hob, all shorter in depth than the usual to accommodate the hob gas connections, and not 4 drawers because the top one would hit the hob. Again, still very good use of space.

Top drawer - cooking utensils. The grey divider comes from Ikea and I have things like a miso muddler, corkscrew, can opener, thermometer, peeler in it. The bigger stuff like my hand blender, oroshi maker, microplane, steel tongs, cheese grater, pasta tongs and steamer "claws" sit outside the divider.

Smaller pots and pans in the second drawer!

Bigger pots and pans at the bottom, including a frying-pan-wok.

Another drawer-inception set, 4 drawers with the appearance of 2. This time at 40cm width.

Top drawer still mostly empty. Just holds my spices in small baggies and my vanilla pods for now.

Second and third drawers hold baby stuff for now. Most of it are gifts from my sis!

Last drawer holds our rice (in a tupperware) and extra aluminium foil.

I actually still have 2 drawers under my oven next to this, the bottom holds unused appliances (steriliser, small rice cooker, crockpot) and the top holds baking stuff together with the overhead cabinet, but as I mentioned in my previous post, certain cockroach encounter prevented me from taking photos...

Also, a shot of my condiment racks. I really love them. 

Heh heh this was vaguely fun. Probably most useful only for people interested to see how some people organise their Ikea kitchens though, like @stray...

Edited August 22, 2016 by ricepapergirl
Reuploaded photos!

[ricepapergirl 21]

48 minutes ago, stray said:

Glad to get your opinion on this! Yes, that recess wall has been the bane of my headache and it was either custom carpentry to get around it, or really just fill in that **** wall and get Ikea in there!

OMG HATE ROACHES!!! FLYING ONES ARE THE WORST! Seriously those insects are the devil's incarnate. I once came out of the shower, was changing in my room, a FLYING ROACH LANDED ON MY BACK. WTF it was gigantic as well and on my bare skin?!? *Freak out* You're a lucky lady that your husband is gallant and able to catch cockroaches with his semi-bare hands! What a knight! Don't think there can be an infestation so quickly since you've only just moved in? He it was probably just scooting around, looking for delicious butter smells on baking trays to feed on. Oh wait, is your garbage disposal chute indoors?

Have you checked how much it would cost to fill in the wall? Cos then you can at least figure out whether it's worth the price differential between ikea and custom?

Hahaha yeah I'm terrified of flying roaches. I used to be relatively fine with them but there was one time when I was in my maiden home (top floor of the building) and they were fumigating/cleaning the rooftop so all the cockroaches ran away and many came in through our forever-open kitchen windows, and I was washing dishes one night and saw around 11 flying cockroaches one after the other in the kitchen, kitchen toilet and living room. I got a phobia from that one occurrence and never really recovered. Now I freak out when I see big cockroaches. Usually I can still deal with them using bug spray (spray them when they are relatively far away from me) but I've been banned from using bug spray since I'm pregnant... Small ones I can still handle (tissue paper + squish). YEAH I think my husband is a hero ;_; for helping to catch that cockroach for me.

Yeah garbage chute is indoors ;_;. One of my conditions for our new place was that the chute needed to be outdoors, but long story cut short, not possible when combined with the other conditions we had, so am living with it indoors. The tall unit where the cockroach was IS the closest one to the chute and we keep the windows mostly closed, so most likely came from the chute. We put cockroach combat there though and hardly use it, but oh well. If I wasn't pregnant I would spray bug spray into the chute often! But oh well. ;_;

[stray 12]

@ricepapergirl i can't load your pictures! They're showing up with a grey stop icon! whyyyyy 

11?!  It's a total nightmare and I can attest to your pain. My contribution to this roach thread is that not too long ago, we stayed in this disgusting rental on the first floor of those old flats where each block has probably 10 of these chutes and it's right next to our kitchen. So fumigation day comes and boy was I glad because I thought they're bringing the detestable population down and little did I know that they would seek refuge in our kitchen — coming through the gap under the door and those window flaps on top. Yes I was goondu enough to not realise to seal any of these. For someone who used to shout for my mum to kill a roach whilst standing on a chair — that was my rude introduction to a mass of roaches (is that their collective noun). Seriously I was forced to spray at them anyway and anywhere I can and ended up with a mass grave of probably 20 roaches in the kitchen. Not fearless of them after, but I learnt that I have to finish the job on me own 'cause no MUMs to the rescue. Still brings out the hair on the back of my neck when recounting it! *pukes*

[ricepapergirl 21]

14 minutes ago, stray said:

@ricepapergirl i can't load your pictures! They're showing up with a grey stop icon! whyyyyy 

11?!  It's a total nightmare and I can attest to your pain. My contribution to this roach thread is that not too long ago, we stayed in this disgusting rental on the first floor of those old flats where each block has probably 10 of these chutes and it's right next to our kitchen. So fumigation day comes and boy was I glad because I thought they're bringing the detestable population down and little did I know that they would seek refuge in our kitchen — coming through the gap under the door and those window flaps on top. Yes I was goondu enough to not realise to seal any of these. For someone who used to shout for my mum to kill a roach whilst standing on a chair — that was my rude introduction to a mass of roaches (is that their collective noun). Seriously I was forced to spray at them anyway and anywhere I can and ended up with a mass grave of probably 20 roaches in the kitchen. Not fearless of them after, but I learnt that I have to finish the job on me own 'cause no MUMs to the rescue. Still brings out the hair on the back of my neck when recounting it! *pukes*

@stray I fixed the photo problem!! Haha fortunately someone else told me about it. Guess I can't hotlink from Google Photos how irritating.

OMG 20. I would CRY and hide in the corner. But bug spray is the best. I feel so helpless without it.

[stray 12]

@ricepapergirl i love the drawer-ceptions!!!  my faves are the 4-tiered galore! Thanks for the pictures, so gratifying, haha. Also, it seems like the drawers are more useful when they are 60cm or longer. It's like having a bigger space but segmenting it with containers like the ones you do with daiso is far more useful. The drawers under the sink is packed to the max - I can tell someone takes their cleaning seriously! Love it. 

Would you consider using natural deterrents like essence oil? Apparently, cockroaches hate Tea tree oil, mint, bay leaves, and cucumbers. Article has great suggestions like rubbing tea tree oil onto your cupboards, and these are au naturel too, will be safe for your baby.

 

[Lazyfatcat007 5]

Hi ricepapergirl! Love peeping into organised kitchens 

For roaches problem, can try one part dettol and one part water and spray at them - instant freeze and leave a nice smell... hahaha

[Catt 8]

@ricepapergirl seeing your beautiful Hitachi fridge makes me want to see mine soon too! Can't wait to polish it (haha enthusiastic for only the first few weeks).

if you see roach poo-grains you need to do a very VERY thorough cleaning of the cabinets and all surrounding areas, especially if you keep finding it in the same spots. That would probably mean it's living nearby or nesting there. I had cockroach infestation that started in my kitchen and spread into my bedroom (small 3-rm rental unit). Initially I'd just cleaned up the infestation in the kitchen- they ate through cling-film and had raised 3 generations of roaches in my sealed-up utensil box. A few days later, I was woken up in the middle of the night by a weird scratching/ gnawing noise, so I turned on the light to investigate. I found poo all over the bookcase at the foot of my bed, and slowly started taking boxes and books off the case and found another nest of roaches in my toiletry bag that I keep packed for quick work travel trips. They ate my toothpaste. As the bookcase was 4 'floors' of their private condominium, I took out all the contents and threw away anything that was covered in egg cases or poo. You need to be super duper thorough and paranoid. Clean anything and everything! A  friend of mine (cleanliness freak) living in the Tiong Bahru SIT houses had a similar infestation in her bookcase and kitchen.

[ricepapergirl 21]

On ‎22‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 6:59 PM, stray said:

@ricepapergirl i love the drawer-ceptions!!!  my faves are the 4-tiered galore! Thanks for the pictures, so gratifying, haha. Also, it seems like the drawers are more useful when they are 60cm or longer. It's like having a bigger space but segmenting it with containers like the ones you do with daiso is far more useful. The drawers under the sink is packed to the max - I can tell someone takes their cleaning seriously! Love it. 

Would you consider using natural deterrents like essence oil? Apparently, cockroaches hate Tea tree oil, mint, bay leaves, and cucumbers. Article has great suggestions like rubbing tea tree oil onto your cupboards, and these are au naturel too, will be safe for your baby.

 

Glad the drawer-inceptions were useful for you! I would have loved to peek into other people's drawers when I was designing my kitchen (had to learn the hard way about what depths work for under the hob and sink etc only at the point of working with the Ikea Kitchen Designers)! This is even though I had a lot of planning on what drawer would hold what things (I've followed it largely but some stuff has shifted cos of sizing etc).

I really love my containers especially when the drawer is big and also deep and the height is good. The lower-height drawers like the top 2 you get with 4-drawer-inception configurations are very shallow so you wouldn't need much dividers, I actually just cop out and get the ikea drawer liner (transparent silicon-ish layer with bumps which prevent things from sliding around too much) and used it on most of my drawers. I'm a huge follower of sites like iheartorganising but I find it difficult for now to do the amazing things she does with segmenting of drawers etc, kind of waiting till my kitchen "settles" down before I do something more permanent. But yeah, I love my cleaning drawers, my husband is constantly amazed at how much I can fit in there.