Our New Kitchen

Wow - what a transformation! I especially like how you made the cabinets taller and cleaned up the ceiling.
 
I'm just wondering where the box of wheat thins went. I love those things.

Nice job!
 
Very nice.

I had my mom's old kitchen updated not long ago. Looks 1000% better, but not of the quality shown in the pictures here. Gave it a coat of paint on ceiling, walls and cabinets. New flooring, formica countertops and a SS sink. Old neighborhood and the house was not worth a real expensive overhaul. But it should help sell the house when I'm ready to do so. Working on my Aunt's old house now. It is a project. :(
 
Very nice. Looks a lot more expensive than the <$30k you spent.

I especially like that you got rid of the cabinet soffits. I hate those soffits... and so many "high end" kitchens have them. It seems to be a way of reducing storage space by allowing shorter cabinets to be used. I'd rather have the too-high storage for those serving dishes that only come out a few times a year.

I love how the cabinets and floor are the same hue. VERY nice.

Our budget was 1/3 - but we had "free" labor. Of course, we're in year 3 and it's still not done. (Husband is putting in the backsplash as I type this.). We went with stainless counters - but we are not planning on reselling before we go off to the nursing home... so what buyers want didn't factor in to our decision... We love the ease of cleanup.
 
rodi said:
Very nice. Looks a lot more expensive than the <$30k you spent.
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Thank you. I avoid conflict, but not easy to negotiate with :) and I did $4800 of the work myself.
rodi said:
I especially like that you got rid of the cabinet soffits.
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Had to go, very dated.
rodi said:
I love how the cabinets and floor are the same hue. VERY nice.
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Not quite the same (not sure I would have liked a match), cabinets are a little darker ("Wheat") than the floor ("Natural"). We had "free" use of a kitchen designer (Degreed in interior design), she was very helpful.
 
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Are the cabinets custom? Nope, all standard Kemper cabinets.
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Just curious, Midpack et al: When we remodeled our kitchen 18 years ago (almost time to do it again :( ) we were told by a couple of contractors that we should go with new cabinet faces rather than actually replacing the cabinets. Our house was built in the 60's, and you could store bars of gold on the shelves and they wouldn't sag. Honestly, I've not really looked at the "standard" cabinets, but was wondering if you'd heard that same thing. We ended up going with the new doors and faces, and are very pleased, but again, it's starting to show wear and I'm secretly considering doing it before I retire in the next 5 years.

And Midpack, that kitchen is stunning. WOW! I'd never eat out again. (I lie).
 
Midpack said:
Already remodeled 2-1/2 baths. We're done! :D
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So, you do the baths, then the kitchen, then get ready to sell and buy elsewhere. Are you going to look for a place you can remodel, now that you have all that experience?
 
Nice job, Midpack! It really helped that you had a good layout to begin with. I remodeled an awful little kitchen about 20 years ago and the result was fabulous both esthetically and functionally, for which I had to thank my designer. Not only did she come up with three different ergonomic options, but also she got me discounts of several thousand dollars.
 
MichaelB said:
So, you do the baths, then the kitchen, then get ready to sell and buy elsewhere. Are you going to look for a place you can remodel, now that you have all that experience?
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I hope not. Our current house wasn't out of date when we bought it on 1992...
 
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SumDay said:
Just curious, Midpack et al: When we remodeled our kitchen 18 years ago (almost time to do it again :( ) we were told by a couple of contractors that we should go with new cabinet faces rather than actually replacing the cabinets. Our house was built in the 60's, and you could store bars of gold on the shelves and they wouldn't sag. Honestly, I've not really looked at the "standard" cabinets, but was wondering if you'd heard that same thing. We ended up going with the new doors and faces, and are very pleased, but again, it's starting to show wear and I'm secretly considering doing it before I retire in the next 5 years.

And Midpack, that kitchen is stunning. WOW! I'd never eat out again. (I lie).
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I know exactly what you're saying... Our house was built in 1964 - with dimensioned solid wood shelves (vs particle board more common today). Cabinets were clearly built in place... vs premade/assembled. Since the doors were plane front (slab front I think is what they call it) - we kept the cabinets, but stripped/repainted them and put new hardware on. (The fanciest front I can tolerate is a shaker - so slab front works for my taste, but everyone has different preferences.)

But if they'd had soffits, I would have yanked them out.

When we extended the counter, and redid the cabinet that the wall oven was mounted in - we tried to match the durability. Hubster built the cabinet from plywood and recycled wood from the original cabinet... Super strong, and indistinguishable from the older cabinets. And even has one of those cool lower drawers for pots/pans.
 
MBAustin said:
Both times I bought Kraft-Maid cabinets at HD and had their designer do the cabinet layout BUT I had my own contractor do the installation. I really like the Kraftmaid features and construction.
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We also used KraftMaid on the first kitchen (pictured elsewhere in this thread) and are currently remodeling another kitchen using KraftMaid cabinets. Unfortunately the quality is not up to par and KraftMaid has agreed to replace all the doors and drawer fronts.
 
check6 said:
We also used KraftMaid on the first kitchen (pictured elsewhere in this thread) and are currently remodeling another kitchen using KraftMaid cabinets. Unfortunately the quality is not up to par and KraftMaid has agreed to replace all the doors and drawer fronts.
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You are lucky it is just drawers/fronts. We did our kitchen ~ 20 years ago, lots of cabinets that I installed myself (with FIL help). I noticed one minor ding in a door later, but that might have been my handling.

Fast forward 12 years, I order a set of KraftMaid to do some built-ins for our bedroom. These are from their 'furniture' series - bookshelves and such, that I mixed with the same style cabinets and drawers to make a whole system.

Man, there were so many flaws in those things I couldn't believe it. The guy came out, apologized, ordered a bunch of new drawers/fronts, aligned a bunch of misaligned pieces - but the two big (expensive!) bookcase units had flaws in the face frame. He tried rubbing them out and other finishing tricks, and they got worse...

So they send replacements - these are worse than what I have! So I said I wanted the next set delivered to their nearby warehouse first, and I'll inspect them there before having them delivered. OK. And they agree that these will get special attention to assure they are top notch. I open the boxes in their warehouse, and I can see flaws right away. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We settled on some monetary adjustment instead. I wasn't happy with it, but I couldn't see wasting my time on another set either. And of course, our bedroom is all torn up while I'm waiting.

Fortunately, the flaws that are there didn't stick out so very badly when all was said and done - I've been able to ignore them for the most part. But the whole experience was bad, and I can see the flaws and know they shouldn't be there.

I don't know if they've gone downhill, I just got 'lucky' or what.

-ERD50
 
We want to remodel the kitchen in our retirement home - hopefully before we move back in. I'm sketching it right now. It's fun!
 
golfnut said:
Beautiful kitchen. We are thinking of remodeling ours. Out of curiosity, what is the $5,900 figure consist of ? Thats alot of coin.
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Online rules of thumb suggested we should plan on 25% for labor, so not out of line on that basis, what have you seen?

The total job was $28K (I misstated earlier with $29K, hardwood was $6.5K, not $7.5K). I noted which items were installed separately (countertops, floor, tile) in the earlier post, not included in the $5925.

The $5925 included $750 for construction materials and the rest labor. If you figure $50/hr (I assume that's low actually with store cut), works out to 103.5 hrs or 12.9 8-hr days. The installer was here for at least 13 days. He removed the soffits, put in drywall & patched/taped/mudded/sanded (at least a half dozen times), redid electrical (relocating lighting, a new island outlet and reconfig switches), installed cabinets, redid plumbing, replaced all the moldings/trim, rerouted furnace exhaust, hooked up 5 applicances, primed/painted the whole kitchen, did some kitchen floor demo (I did about 2/3rds), and about a dozen other misc jobs I am surely forgetting. Having watched him work and the time & care he took, I am fine with the expense.

I got a separate quote and it came in at $4400, though it did not include everything above. So I think we were in the ballpark for what's reasonable. YMMV
 
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Midpack said:
Online rules of thumb suggested we should plan on 25% for labor, so not out of line on that basis, what have you seen?

The total job was $28K (I misstated earlier with $29K, hardwood was $6.5K, not $7.5K). I noted which items were installed separately (countertops, floor, tile) in the earlier post, not included in the $5925.
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I'm awful at any type of home repair job. Replacing leaky toilet fixtures is about my limit, so I am not going to do any demo much less finishing work.
My sister was in Portland, and looking at Ikea store, and crying at the differences in price. Granite $70/foot in Portland, $100 in Hawaii.

The price of paradise tax I guess, but it does look like if you spent $33K (counting 5K for demo). Then my $50k guesstimate is sadly going to be realistic and hopefully not to low.
 
clifp said:
I'm awful at any type of home repair job. Replacing leaky toilet fixtures is about my limit, so I am not going to do any demo much less finishing work.
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Anyone can handle demo IMO, watch a few remodeling shows on HGTV, it's not difficult. DIY videos, articles and (library) books can provide details as needed.

I removed the countertops (cut them into manageable pieces), all cabinets (2 base cabinets and 3 upper cabinets are now in my much better organized garage), pulled all the base, crown and other molding, took the carpet/pad up in the family room and the vinyl and 2 layers of subfloor up from the kitchen and laundry room, disconnected all appliances and moved them to the garage (donated to Head Start) plus other odds and ends. I did only vert easy finishing work, drawer pulls, some molding, touch up painting. Most of it just took time (I must have pulled a billion staples up one at a time in the family/kitchen/laundry rooms), not a lot of skill or tools. I put in a lot of hours, but saving $4800 made it all worthwhile IMO, and I enjoy knowing that I put some sweat equity into the final result - it will only add to our % resale.
 
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Very nice! We would like at some point to do something similar. Congrats!
 
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