Remodel ideas?

[pb4uski]

The first critical question is whether the kitchen layout works for you or not. Since you didn't mention it then I'll assume that the layout does wok ok for you.

The second critical question is whether the cabinets/boxes are in good condition... since you mentioned refacing then I'll assume that the boxes are ok.

The rest is cosmetic. I personally love cherry and would stay with natural cherry. I would add some color with a tile backsplash that wold go with the existing black granite countertop or also with a white countertop. If you still don't like the look, then perhaps replace the countertops with a white countertop like in posts 7 and 11.

If you really don't like the cherry, you could keep the cherry frames and replace the door and drawer fronts and pulls..... or paint. DW painted out dated cupboard a couple years ago... special Benjamin Moore cabinet paint that was about $75/gallon IIRC... they came out pretty good.

 

[ivinsfan]

You're not in the house yet? If not I'd move in and give the kitchen a test run before you decide anything. Configuration, cabinet placement, lighting and all that stuff. Make sure it's the kitchen you want before you spend any money.

 

[Souschef]

Cherry is beautiful and a waste to paint over. Do the countertop.

I just showed this to DW, who is my interior decorator If the cabinets are in good shape, leave them alone.Under no circumstances do you want to have white cabinets.They are too garish and will show every spec of dirt.
She agreed about replacing the countertop with a lighter color.
My input is to change the sink to one large one instead of the divided sink. It is great for washing big pans.
DW also suggested fixing up the backsplash. There are all kinds of products out there now to dress the area up..
I posted a picture of our remodel. We had our cabinets refaced, and the tile replaced with a granite countertop in Madura Gold. We also went to the large single sink.

 

[RobbieB]

I wouldn't replace solid cherry cabs. But I would do a light stone counter.

 

[HI Bill]

I'd go with a light-colored backsplash, add some undercounter lighting to help lighten the room more, change the door pulls, and call it a day. That's if the cabinets and countertops are in good shape.

 

[Scuba]

Thank you all for your thoughts. Some beautiful kitchens you have!

I like the idea of moving in and using the kitchen a bit before doing anything. I suspect we will want to replace most of the appliances. I love white cabinets and have had them in all of my kitchens over the past 25 years. However, I’m willing to try something different if we can make it look more modern. I agree that under cabinet lighting and a better backsplash are necessary.

I’ll do a follow-up post once we have done whatever we decide on.

 

[Katsmeow]

I like the idea of moving in and using the kitchen a bit before doing anything.

This is a good idea. We bought a house last year and moved in less than 2 weeks after my mother died. It was a very stressful time. The house was 30+ years old and we knew we wanted to redo the master bath and perhaps some other things. But, with all the stress going on at the time we just elected to live with it for awhile.

We started our work a little over one year after moving in. We are currently in the midst of a complete bathroom and utility room remodel. I am so glad we waited to do it. Living in the house for a year really made a difference in terms of the work we ended up deciding to do.

 

[tb001]

This is a good idea. We bought a house last year and moved in less than 2 weeks after my mother died. It was a very stressful time. The house was 30+ years old and we knew we wanted to redo the master bath and perhaps some other things. But, with all the stress going on at the time we just elected to live with it for awhile.

We started our work a little over one year after moving in. We are currently in the midst of a complete bathroom and utility room remodel. I am so glad we waited to do it. Living in the house for a year really made a difference in terms of the work we ended up deciding to do.

I’m curious what you decided to do differently.

We also decided to wait on any major changes, other than upgrading some things that were ready to die. After living in the space, we’ve found our priorities have changed. We no longer care about some of the kitchen stuff I wanted to change out immediately, but instead want to change a different part of the house. More thatvour priorities changed than wanting to do something totally different.

 

[Katsmeow]

I’m curious what you decided to do differently.

One thing was that we decided not to do the kitchen. The house was built in the mid 1980s and had been updated in some ways but the kitchen still had original cabinets and probably countertop. The cabs had been painted but are still awful as they don't close well and the drawers stick and a bunch of other stuff.

I knew I wanted to work on kitchen and I knew the master bath needed to be gutted. It was mostly still original except the shower had been redone (but in the original tiny shower space).

We also wanted to expand the utility room but we planned to expand it (taking a wet bar from an adjacent room and some space from the garage to make it larger. We planned to put in a long countertop with upper and lower cabs and with a sink.

So things that changed:

We learned through the year that the storage space in the house was really severely inadequate. So in the utility room we decided to do the expansion but to put the extra space mostly to use for storage. No sink, no built in cabinets (well one over the washer/dryer and a counter over them as well). Insteadl, we just made that storage space.

I realized after a year that while I do want new cabinets and counters in the kitchen it isn't urgent. What was urgent in the kitchen was...lack of storage space. I was actually storing stuff in boxes on the floor in the breakfast room. So, we decided right now to simply double the size of the pantry in the kitchen. We did that right away and it has cured a bit part of our kitchen complaint. We will eventually do the cabinets and counters but they aren't urgent now that I have adequate storage place.

Our original master bath had the master closets in the bathroom. That left us with two tiny master closets and a small bathroom. I originally thought we would update the bathroom, remove the tub and put in a large shower and would relocate the closets but keep them in the master bath. Instead, we decided to have NO closets in the masterbath and we added a large closet to the master bedroom by shifting around a hall closet and a closet in a secondary bedroom. That allowed the bathroom to be more functional. We also realized that we didn't really have a good place in the house for our cat litter pan (it was in our bedroom) so we decided to build a large water closet in the master bath where we built a cabinet with dedicated kitty litter space at the bottom.

Oh -- there was no door from our master bedroom to the patio. This was a real pain when we would use the pool and had to come on the other side of the house and had to drip water all the way to the master bedroom. We learned from that and decided to remove one of the windows in the master bedroom and replaced it with a door to the patio. Not something we had initially thought of doing at all (and we already love this so much). Once the work is done I will have to post some pics of this remodel....

 

[Scuba]

These are great examples of things you can learn after living in a home for a while. Thanks!