My Boyfriend Has OCD

My boyfriend has a mild to heavy case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Maybe it's his military background, or perhaps his upbringing, but the fact of the matter is, this guy needs things in rigid order. This goes way beyond typical cleanliness. I'm pretty sure he has a robot mind that maps visual data in lines and numbers and he extends his robot arms to correct flaws. The other day, for example, I caught him evenly spacing the folds between the opened drapes.  He opens them with a long dowel rod, then pops it between each grommet to get the drapes just right. Now I know why he insists that I don't do it. 

Peter's best friend, Jerry, the Roomba. When I'm away, they reminisce over epic cleanup stories.

My style couldn't be further from showing signs of OCD. I'm much more laid back about the way my space looks and in fact, prefer a touch of disarray (Mess Compulsive Disorder = MCD?). To me, too much order looks forced. Who has time to clean all day long? Rigid cleanliness should be saved for Red Eye photo shoots and visits from Grandma. Needless to say, our disparate housekeeping styles are a source of tension every now and then, but we're both working to meet in the middle.

Last night my boyfriend told me he was working on "curing" his OCD. When I asked what he meant he directed my attention to our knife magnet. "See how that knife on the left is turned the wrong way? I'm going to see how long I can leave it there," he says.

I smiled to myself wondering how long he'd be able to stand it.  I wish I could have recorded the turmoil that went down in his robot mind every time he passed that backwards knife and had to leave it that way.  (ERROR! ERROR! Disarray detected in knife department!)

Or maybe he fixed it the very next minute.  I failed to watch to see how long his experiment lasted. (He told me he had already been looking at it all day.) This was how the knife rack looked the next time I came upon it:

 

Peter had cleared the counters last night for their monthly oiling, so the righted knife was actually the last thing I noticed.  I was too busy staring at the gorgeous display of our temporarily displaced kitchen accessories.  Just look at those neat lines and well categorized objects. 

So much for working on that cure.  Hello to a lucrative career in shelf stocking. Does anyone else do this? Any tips for living with a type A or someone of opposing style?

Kitchen Madness, pt. 3.

The kitchen is finished!  We had to wait a week for IKEA to restock some of the wall cabinet doors.  They called this morning, I picked them up, installed them and we can finally cross the first project off the list.

The original:

New and improved:

All in all, I don't think I'll ever go anywhere else except IKEA for a kitchen.  For the price, you can't even come close to the vast amount of styles, options, accessories, or customization available there.  The quality is truly top notch, it may not be solid wood, but it's tough as nails.  We loaded the cabinets up with plates, glasses, pots, pans, etc. and the shelves don't even try to bow.  The counter tops are solid beech wood butcher block.  Best of all, the whole kitchen has a 25 year warranty, which we will probably never have to utilize, but future tenants may find useful.

The biggest downside I see in getting a kitchen from IKEA is that all the work has to be done by you, the customer.  When I purchased the kitchen, quite a few pieces were out of stock, so I spent a lot of time driving multiple trips to both Chicagoland IKEA stores over the course of 2 weeks to pick up various parts as they were restocked.  In typical IKEA fashion, every part comes flat packed and needs to be completely assembled which is extremely time consuming.  Then, because the kitchen is modular, certain parts have to be custom cut and fit to your specific space.  I would never attempt to install an IKEA kitchen without at least 2 experienced people and a bevy of power tools.  (Table saw, drills, nail gun, and reciprocating saw at the very least.)

You have to weigh your options, but when it comes to that bottom line, IKEA takes the cake by a long shot.

ABT! Lightining Bolt!

We bought appliances today and we are VERY HAPPY.  For those of you that don't know about Abt.com, you need to get acquainted stat.  Unlike the rest of our projects which we designed and were funded by the building management, they insisted on selecting and buying the appliances themselves.  Unacceptable.

I made them a deal.  If I could find a set we liked at Abt for less than they had budgeted from their supplier, we could go with our choice.

Long story short, I made out like a mob boss at Abt.  Tim, our sales associate initially laughed at the situation, but then started working his magic.  After viewing a few choices, Tim bent a few rules, and knocked the prices of a Whirlpool fridge, stove, and dishwasher down to a ridiculously good deal.  What can I say, we're a cute couple and people want to give us stuff.

Turns out, the number was so good, that I managed to finagle a Microwave Hood in the deal from the management office.  At that point, I peed a little.

 Yep, more black.  Everyone's nervous for us, but we know black is sexy.

Kitchen Madness, pt. 2.

The last few days have been spent losing our minds over the kitchen.  We visited Home Depot, Community Home Supply, a couple independent design centers, and IKEA.  I'll save you the suspense, we're going with IKEA.  Everyone else laughed at the combination of our budget and ambitions.  Whatever, our kitchen is gonna rock.

For the record: No one, NOT A SINGLE KITCHEN SUPPLIER, can offer what IKEA does for the price.  We got an upgraded kitchen from IKEA for less than the cheapest fiberboard with staples junker at Home Depot.

The only beef with IKEA - listen up IKEA! - It's almost 2010!  Get with the times and make your kitchen design program compatible with a Mac.  Driving across town to use my cousin's Windows machine sucks.  WTF IKEA?

Here is the preliminary plan.  Don't judge it too much, it's only a rough draft.

Yep, it's black.  Everyone warned us not to do it, but we pulled the trigger anyway.

The plan shows stainless steel counter tops, which just happened to be discontinued that very day (yay IKEA!), so they upgraded us for FREE!  What did we get instead?  You'll just have to wait and see.

Kitchen Madness.

The contractors are already ripping down the old walls and building new ones.  We've spent waaaay too much time scouring the internet for kitchen ideas.  We need to decide NOW. Below are some inspirational photos that we both like a lot.  As usual, our aspirations far outweigh our budget.  If we owned the place, we'd go with an island based kitchen, but since we have to stay within the approved budget, we'll have to stay close to the original layout.  The only thing we're doing is adding a second "wall" of cabinets to make a "L" shaped kitchen versus the "flat" style in place now.

Wood counter tops, symmetrical cabinet pattern, stainless steel, lots of storage, Bertoia gooeyness.

Modern and minimal lines, great color combination (stainless, wood, black), is it functional?

Beautiful wood, functional design, modern design with a traditional feel, does it have enough storage?

Ultra-modern design, super bright, lots of counter space, low on storage.

So much to choose from!  We're trying for an industrial stainless steel kitchen with a modern/natural twist.  It seems that many kitchens are either functional and hideous or "just for looks" modern and pretty much useless for cooking.  There must be a balance!

The best part?  We only have one day to source it.  Busy day tomorrow.