Kitchen Progress...

We are very lucky to have an amazing cabinet maker who shares our love of Hamptons/French Provincial style kitchens, and last week we met with him to begin the process of "tarting" up our IKEA kitchen carcass that we bought and installed earlier in the year.

Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with an actual Ikea Kitchen - here's some pics of some that I think look amazing:

... we just have such a unique open space with extraordinary high ceilings and would prefer something a little more custom and our own.

So we purchased the Ikea cabinets and have since kitted them out with all the Ikea bells and whistles:

 

... and are now up to the part where we need to choose a style of door/drawer profile.  After much deliberation we have decided to go quite simple here's our inspiration pics and plans:

We have also been shopping and researching Kitchen Aapliances like crazy.  I had a hard time deciding between the Smeg 90cm stand alone and the Ilve:

They were both around the same price so finally decided to go with the Ilve T906.  I was going to buy the floor stock model from the Brisbane showroom on sale for $3500 from $5000 but ended up finding E&S Trading had it for the same price and we got a $950 kitchen gift with purchase pack - love getting stuff for free! Here's the link if you are in the market: http://www.estrading.com.au/ilve-90cm-electric-oven-with-gas-cooktop-t906lmp/w1/i1059448/ and here's the link to the redemption promo flyer http://www.ilve.com.au/pdfs/93-ILVE%20Gourmet%20Pack%20promo%20May%202013%2060-90%20Landscape.pdf

So we now have an oven - very happy lady!

Next we started looking at dishwashers.  I was adamant I wanted a fully integrated dishwasher so you couldn't see it was there, I am not keen on them looking like a feature unless it is a super duper fancy one.  Last night we finally settled on the Ikea integrated dishwasher, it was $800 and is made by Whirlpool.  I must admit the main reason I purchased it was the standard 5 year warranty it came with, I joked with the lady when we bought it and said I should just tell my employer to start paying my pay direct into their accounts! feels like that at the moment.  Anyhow here's the Ikea dishwasher:

So as you can imagine all of the above has kept us super busy at the moment but whilst doing this we have also been working on our walk in wardrobe, fence for the herb garden, front batwing doors and fixing the cladding on the exterior of the house! So busy...I'll leave with some final pics of what else we have been up to, sleep when your dead so they say...

The house survived our first official play date with Mummies Group

Huddy fishing for a prize at my old school fete last weekend

New Silver Tray and coral from the Highgate House sale

Mandarins from our Mandarin Tree

Lenny our fur baby has claimed this as his new bed - not sure how I think about that :-/

This amazing buffet from Rylo Interiors - I would love to have one of everything in the photo please :-)