Cabinets anyone?

[adina]

We are going to be having our kitchen cabinets put in, and I'm having a hard time dealing with a lot of the big stores consultants.

One woman asked us if we could move our doorways around, or knock out a wall. Another told me that he couldn't give me any info until we gave him a price range. I don't have a price range. I know exactly what I want, and that's what we are going to get.

Fortunately, I found a local company who's been really great to work with, and they will have a price for us by Monday. Looking forward to finishing this kitchen project, we started almost a year ago.

[another view]

That's how kitchen remodels go... ugh...

We ended up making a couple of very slight changes to our walls - extending one wall by about a foot and taking out the doorway to the pantry to make a larger opening - and it made a huge difference in what we could do. Our kitchen is obviously fairly small.

The kitchen had a terrible layout before, and that's saying something if even I noticed it. Probably why the house was on the market for a year before we bought it. Apparently all the other people who looked at it before we did knew what they would be getting into!

[walterick]

I've decided, if I ever am doing a kitchen in my own home, I am building my own cabinets. Those suckers cost too much!

We're still working on my gf's kitchen after about 7 months. We're down to one piece of crown mold, paint and floors left to do. We stipped the entire kitchen down to concrete and drywall and started over from scratch. Features we added include:
A center island about the size of the original kitchen
Custom-built (read: I built) oven hood finished in copper and faux stone
Copper farm sink
Stainless steel 5 burner gas range and electric oven
Stainless steel frig
Granite countertops
Matching crown mould & light rail
Decortive faux stone pillars
Tile backsplash

We removed 2 entire walls, redid the airconditioning ducts, raised the ceilings where the ducts used to be, and partially enclosed a window in the front of the house to make room for all that stuff.

And... we did the whole bloomin thing oursleves, with the exception of the granite and electric. And we still need to lay travertine through the whole house and paint. I'm sure we'll be at the one-year mark too before we're done. But at least we have a kitchen sink again

GL on your project! Got any before and during shots?

[another view]

Got any before and during shots?

I've got an "after" shot - who's going first?
(Can't do it until later)

[adina]

Took these this weekend to email to the counter lady.

[adina]

I'll post some before tomorrow.

[mjs1973]

A few years ago my mom decided to have her kitchen redone. She called Sears and had the guy come out and measure everything and give her an estimate to RESURFACE all her cabinets, and add new hinges and handles. She put down a deposit and the guy left. When she told me how much it was going to cost, I couldn't believe it, and her kitchen is TINY. I think it was in the range of $5000. One of my friends was building custome kitchens and bathrooms at the time, so I talked to him about it. He gave me a ball park figure of what he could do it for. Mom called the bank and stopped payment on her check to Sears, and told them not to come back. Of course, that's when they said they could do it cheaper.

My friend built and installed all new cabinets, and the counter top for her for about $1500. In the end, she was thrilled, saved a bunch of money, and got all new cabinets and countertops, instead of dressing up the old ones. I have some before and after pics somewhere. I'll post them if I can find them.

[walterick]

I just threw together a picture sequence here. I'll take some "99% done" shots hopefully tonight.

1) Rough schematic of the kitchen area when she bought the house
2) Our "kitchen" before any remodeling on it. Veeeeeery looooong and skinny, needless to say it was hard to have more than one person in it working. The previous owners had the cabinets resurfaced, but they were bad on the insides and uncovered parts.
3) View of the kitchen area after we blew a hole in the long, L-shaped wall. The kitchen itself is wrapped in plastic on the far left of the image.
4) The whole area cleaned out, tile chipped away, floor adhesive scraped, ceiling raised above the kitchen and patched, and front window taken out and framed in. This shot was take from the far right end of the above schematic, in front of the front door.

[walterick]

Now, the reconstruction phase

1) Homemade faux stone pillars to help visually divide the kitchen from the living space
2) Homemade oven hood, framed in.
3) "During" picture from the same perspective as the last shot in the previous post. This was a few months ago. Pillars getting covered with stone, hood has stone and drywall, some cabinets are in.
4) Rough sketch of the kitchen area "after." Yeah, it's a lot bigger now

Looking forward to posting a 99% shot tonight!

[walterick]

As promised, a little late 99% done pictures. 1 & 2 are how it looked last night... (sorry for the weird color cast)

#3 is how it looked about noon today. #4 is how it looks right now, after renting a hammer chisel and ripping the floors up all day. Hopefully we'll get to lay the travertine within the next few weeks!

[another view]

Very nice! Party at Rick's!

[adina]

wow, nice kitchen. Progress on ours resumes tomorrow, dh is back from Europe. We have to have someone in to patch the original hardwood floors (from 1940, they need to fill in the section where the wall was, and then where there was a bit of water damage) and then we can get the rest of the drywall up.

[walterick]

Haha Steve let's wait until we have tile so we're not standing on concrete

The good news is, I wired my Itunes to my stereo, and then ran speakers out back by the pool so we can all lounge, grill out, and listen to... well... whatever I want

Thanks bud

[walterick]

How was his trip?

Do tell me you're not making poor dh hang drywall after coming back from Europe?!

[walterick]

The saga continues..

... at a university, where it's smartest student... was its janitor...

LOL Floors are cleaned! Ready for travertine!

[another view]

Haha Steve let's wait until we have tile so we're not standing on concrete

Naah, I'll invite some friends over and you'll be glad that the finished floor isn't in yet...

Here's my - I mean our - I mean my kitchen. Old, not so good shot, but you get the idea. Notice the decoration just to the right of the stove.:thumbsup:

[walterick]

Nice job! Did you remodel this yourself?

Steve, tell me you didn't sign your kitchen.

[another view]

Didn't do too much of it myself - the demo part and some of the basic stuff like electrical but the rest we pretty much hired out. Plumbing causes headaches and naughty words.

No, I didn't sign the kitchen. It's the logo off the hood or trunk of a Muntz Jet which was built by my great uncle in the early 50's. It came up for sale on ebay a few years ago and that's about as much of one of those cars as I can afford! He was a little, well, eccentric I guess. Fourth picture down shows his son and daughter, and yes her real name is TeeVee after his original business of building TV sets...

[walterick]

Well, that link explains a lot

I hate plumbing.

Drywall, painting, masonry, concrete, tile, and roofing.

Carpentry's cool though