Building Our Kitchen Cabinets – A Hybrid

Building Our Kitchen Cabinets – A Hybrid

ikea kitchen planner mission:diy our design layout

Building Our Kitchen Cabinets – A Hybrid

We want real wood cabinets. We want modular-ness. We want to make our own cabinets. We don’t want to build the inside guts. Mix together and we get a hybrid!

This is the ultimate Ikea kitchen hack.

We like the endless possibilities Ikea offers for creating a ‘custom’ kitchen, and the price fits our budget too. What we don’t like is the white, or dark brown caucuses, and their melamine finish. We also want the look of a higher end kitchen. But, with no moolah to drop at a kitchen boutique, it is time to grin and bear the fact that we are going to do it ourselves. Well, that is kinda who we are now isn’t it?

First we started out by using the 3D kitchen planner on Ikea’s website to design our kitchen. It helped to get an idea of the size cabinets we wanted and the overall dimensions. After himming and hawing for a long time we finally decided on the below layout for our kitchen. And now we have the sizing for each cabinet we’ll need as well.

ikea kitchen planner mission:diy our design layout

It is kinda cool that you can put in some furniture as well to get a feel for the size and how the space will function. (There are some things incomplete like the hole in the center of the island, but not important to finalize in our case).

We love the idea of having the sink in the island prep area. What we don’t love is the thought of having our dishes drying out in the open. Foresight predicts that splayed out dishes would take up a lot of that beautiful counter space and would be an enormous and frustrating battle of needing to air dry dishes but not wanting to see them. We came up with the best idea for eliminating the problem!

Cool Stuff We Have in Our Design

Pull out drying rack to air dry stuff we have to hand wash (knives, non-stick pans, espresso cups)
Built in doggy area for Oscar’s food dishes, treats, and a basket for some of his stuff which is completely out of a water kick-zone!
A prep sink close to the cook top
A 36″ space between the cook top and the prepsink, so we can scrape scraps into the sink on one side and food into a pan on the other side
A sandwich-makin-station right next to the fridge
Outlet plugs all around the island (perfect for our annual soup party)
40″ tall wall cabinets (good for us tall people)
Neat interior cabinet organization for everything we need to store and then some
Huge ginormous island with 5 stools
A hidden lair inside the island (complete with moat, no ‘gaters though)
37″ high base cabinets including the counter top (good height for taller folks)
Under cabinet drawers just like the ones Maria built in the last house as seen here.
Plus the usuals like a dishwasher and all the normal appliances.

Please let us know if we are missing any other cool stuff in our design. What do you have in your kitchen that you can’t live without? Let us know in the comments below!

Time to get crack-a-lackin’ on those cabinets. Stay tuned for upcoming build posts and free Hybrid Hack plans!

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