Remodeling My Kitchen

[mrmarklin]

What to expect?
What will go wrong?
Time Frame
Horror stories?

Happy endings.

Took over three months to remodel our master bathroom, and we still don't have the medicine cabinets in place. Just rectangular holes in the wall. Oh yeah, they're "custom".

Did our kitchen about 8-10 years ago. I now own a refrigerator that cost MORE than all my previous appliances did combined. Not to mention the stove, plate warmer, food warmer, custom hood etc etc. French Provincial.

It took a long time and was brutal expensive.

 

[Melissa]

I want to go with an updated version of the black and white kitchen design. It's all so overwhelmingly excitingly nerve-racking!

 

[MikeGyver]

I used www.thertastore.com for cabinets. I went with the assembled option. They came from Jersey. The quality was better than expected (plywood boxes, not MDF), the price was great, they provided a design and CAD rendering of our kitchen before any money exchanged hands. I did the install myself so I can't comment on total cost.

 

[mrmarklin]

My kitchen is galley style, no real room for an island. I would like the triangle layout but I'd need to move the fridge to an area that could be seen when walking into my house.

hmmmmmmmm

Well you can do what my wife did to the new refrigerator we put in. It's a Sub-Zero. Doesn't even look like a refrigerator because of the fascia that was used for it. French Provincial.

Actually only do this (remodel) if you are seriously bucks up. I had to take out a mortgage for the kitchen.

 

[Melissa]

I have my finances figured out. I'm not going to outrageously spend all the money I have however.

It helps that my house has just about tripled in worth since I purchased it.

 

[mrmarklin]

what's the difference between custom cabinets and regular ones?
clueless.

In general custom is much higher quality as to materials, hinges, shelving etc etc. Also they are made to fit the space you have and are not adapted to fit as standard sizes would be.

If your home is older what is "standard" changes, and custom may be the way to go. But $$$$$$$$.

 

[GPzPop]

if I recall, Connie aka GixxerGirl1000 works for a custom cabinet shop in Brentwood as a designer

also, Granite Warehouse (Emeryville / Oakland)has good / cheap import cabinetry

 

[2legs2wheels]

Subscribed, might need this info in near future.

 

[gnahc79]

We're still in the planning stages for our small kitchen, around 10'x10'. We've updated all of the appliances already, so now it's the kitchen itself . One interesting thing we found is that there's a 1-2 week wait time to get the counter made if your contractor doesn't do it themselves...I think it was more towards 2 weeks if I remember right.
The contractor that we're likely going to use does counters in-house, so there's no huge wait time for that. For a full remodel (floor, cabinets, counter, lights, sink etc) he says 3 weeks. We plan to pad another 1-2 weeks just in case .

 

[auntiebling]

wife and i remodeled the entire ding dong house but since you're asking about kitchens:

i did the easy installs such as cabinets and appliances. professionals did the countertop and backsplash. i haven't gotten to the crown molding yet... it's only been like 18 months quit asking!

cabinets:
chinese. KZ Cabinets in san jose. there are literally dozens of vendors though, and every area is going to have their own. black wasn't our ideal but there was no chance of custom for us sowe liked the style and black could be made to work. with chinese cabinets, the color and style are in lock step with each vendor. want my style in pink? you'd have to find another vendor or refinish them whcih would likely still be cheaper than custom.

layout: the first cabinet place i tried actually did the layout, even though we didn't get anything from them, and it was free. they all use the same standard cabinet dimensions that are independent of style. there is a "work triangle" in every kitchen. some of them suck, some suck less than others.

quality: i like them better than a friend that had a hookup on custom units. the downside is he has some cool features that aren't available from the chinese cabinet importers. his cabinets have cheapie construction too (part of the hookup price i assume) whereas mine have solid wood drawers that are dovetailed together, his are pin nailed plywood. we both have soft close, which i effing LOVE

drawer pulls are extra for chinese cabinets, and they are expensive. amazon had the best deals

standard height: my island is ~42" from the floor. standard is 36" which is dumb. my 5'7" wife fought me tooth and nail on the height and now loves it. i'd have elevated all the base cabinets if i could but elevating the stove wasn't something i was interested in because it'd have made a step in the floor so now i have to fight her for the 2 small work spaces at the higher height. "standard" height has not evolved as the population, in general, has gotten taller. at least make the sink taller if you can, doing dishes without having to hunch over is so much less sucky. also i know you aren't all that tall melissa. think about it anyway.

electrical
upgrade beyond what you think you need. we don't microwave, so didn't install a dedicated circuit for it (required by code if you mention it) but i would like to have the extra circuit now. do not install any 15A outlets anywhere. you can by code, but there is no reason to do so. you'll save like.... $200 maybe.

the city/couty whatever will likely require you to upgrade the box. 200 amp is common, at that age you might only have 80 amp. it's money worth spending IMO, we're only getting more hungry for electricity and you'll want the capacity eventually. electric cars are in everyone's future.

structural
you probably have termite damage somewhere. welcome to.... california!

tile
don't skimp on the quality of the actual tile. we cheaped out a bit and went with a builder grade from a box store, it's so far OK in the kitchen but elsewhere in the house the same tile is cracking for no ding dong reason. get some kind of porcelain IMO.

 

[bikeama]

We are just getting started on a kitchen remodel. Hired an architect to give us some ideas. Going to take two walls out, already checked they are not load bearing. I have budgeted up to 80K hope to stay under 50K. Will be following this thread. I did go to the IKEA workshop on kitchens, they have an online CAD you can use to make a mock-up. Did the picture below on the IKEA site.

 

[CoorsLight]

Subscribed, might need this info in near future.

+1

 

[Abacinator]

Love that subway tile backsplash, auntie

 

[bikeama]

Question for those in the Bay Area. Where is a good place to look at some slide in ranges or larger cooktops? We are looking at a 36" range or cooktop. Still not sure if we want a separate oven or a slide in unit. Not much to look at in Stockton. Sacramento may have somewhere to look. Looking at gas not electric.

 

[scootergmc]

Question for those in the Bay Area. Where is a good place to look at some slide in ranges or larger cooktops? We are looking at a 36" range or cooktop. Still not sure if we want a separate oven or a slide in unit. Not much to look at in Stockton. Sacramento may have somewhere to look. Looking at gas not electric.

We reno'd our kitchen. Ended up going with a Wolf 36" cooktop. Monark appliance, Masters wholesale, Filco, even Best Buy has some selection. Obviously Monark and Masters are higher end dealers, but they're in the same area in Rancho Cordova.

 

[CoorsLight]

Love that subway tile backsplash, auntie

Sig material.

 

[Sharxfan]

Hope I am not too late to chime in but here is what I found from doing my kitchen.

We went to Lowes to get the cabinets because I have used a big box stores before and the cabinets they have are pretty good but I stick to Kraftmaid and get the complete plywood built cabinets. Even if you don't go with them you can get a ballpark on what cabinets are going to cost. I think we spent about 12K on just cabinets.

For counters you can buy your own granite and have someone fab it for you. Doing this we got the granite color the wife wanted and saved about $20 a foot compared to getting it at a big box store.

There is no such thing as too many outlets in a kitchen and remember if they say you need GFCI outlets one GFCI will protect all outlets that are downstream of it on the circuit so you don't need one for every outlet (GFCIs are expensive). Also spend the couple extra dollars and get the outlets that have the USB(2 amp min) ports on them it makes it nice for charging home electronics.

Make sure when you hire the contractor that everything is spelled out including fit/finish, specific quality of materials and timelines. the more detailed the contract is the better chance you have if you have to take them to court although here they just dissolve the LLC and reform as some other name to avoid paying out. I have had a few bad experiences with contractors here in the swampy state so take this with a grain of salt.

If I could have I would have gotten a 36" stove a 5 burner is just not big enough at 30" to really make use of the burners. Also if you want a griddle on the stove make sure either the burners on the side it goes on are the same size/output or the center burner is long enough to heat the whole griddle and is just not one small round burner trying to heat the whole thing.

I am pretty good with electrical and plumbing so I was able to save a little doing it myself and we did not get all crazy so we did not have to do any structural work on the kitchen and it came out pretty nice. I just need to finish it up so the wifey can stop pulling her hair out. What started as a simple let's redo the kitchen to fix what the GC screwed up when we built the house became pull up the whole downstairs flooring(tile) which killed me and by the way now we have to redo the bathroom and laundry room downstairs so it all now matches.

Good luck hope it all goes smoothly for you.

 

[Abacinator]

Sig material.

 

[auntiebling]

Question for those in the Bay Area. Where is a good place to look at some slide in ranges or larger cooktops? We are looking at a 36" range or cooktop. Still not sure if we want a separate oven or a slide in unit. Not much to look at in Stockton. Sacramento may have somewhere to look. Looking at gas not electric.

since you're starting with a blank slate, see if you can find some deals on applinces. we were in the same boat and because we didn't really have a layout yet, the sales lady at.... pacific sales goes "what about a built in" so we eneded up with a 48" build in refrigerator that was a floor model closeout. it was only about 1k more than the standard "counter depth" fridge we were likely going to get and i can't imagine anything else now. our layout has 3' wide walkways (minimum code) due to our space restraints, and even a "counter depth" fridge would have stuck out too far, or we'd have had to truncate the island.

as for where to look, try Monark in hayward. it's a full sales room but is also their local distribution warehouse. in back they have the Scratch and Dent returns. that's how we ended up with a 48" range and again, can't imagine how it would have worked without it. it was less than half price, full warranty we just had to replace a grate and didn't get the wok. score and a half IMO.

if you do not have your appliances and cabinets picked before construction starts, you're going to have to guess where the water pipes go, and the dedicated outlets, refrigerator water feed, stuff like that. The electrical in particular bit me, because the 50A recepticle for the stove isn't in exactly the right place which means the plug interferes with pushing it back the last 2" against the wall. as i did the electrical trim out, i wish i'd realized this and recessed the box into the wall so i now have to move that giant hunk of scratchy metal across my new floors, make a dustyass mess in a confined space, and try not to burn my house down to recess the outlet. just recess them from the get go.


OH. ALSO take tons of pictures of your open walls and save them someplace safe. definitely don't store them only on your phone then accidentally throw the memory card in the trash.

Love that subway tile backsplash, auntie

shitty tile, and a great installer. i like it too. we figured that even if we completely change everythign cosmetic in the house, the backsplash will not be out of place. similar on the black cabinets.

Hope I am not too late to chime in but here is what I found from doing my kitchen.

We went to Lowes to get the cabinets.....

we explored this too. it's a good compromise between full custom and the chinese stuff we went with. 12-15k would have done our kitchen, what we have is ~6k

box stores quality isn't necessarily any better than what i have, but far more options are available. the style=color thing isn't fixed for instance. i could have gotten my pink shaker cabinets... for 2x the price. (still less than half of custom tho)

Sig material.

 

[afm199]

I am one of the humble, easy going clients and would never be mean or impatient to anyone I hired. Not in my nature.
Please keep the suggestions coming!

Lots of questions.

Permits. An issue to consider.

Is your current electrical service adequate? Typically, in most cities, if you upgrade you will need to upgrade the service as well. That takes time and money. An old kitchen will have 1-2 circuits. A new modern kitchen, by law, will have 5-10. And the new Fault current breakers cost $50 each.

Do you plan on living in the house while it is done? That's a huge issue. That means workers will be dictating when you get up and what you do.

Bath facilities. You will have to supply sanitary facilities to the workers. Are they going to get to use your bathroom ( meaning a constant mess and lack of privacy) or are you paying for a Porta Potty.

Parking.

Hire a licensed contractor. Check their license with the State website. Insist, as part of the contract, that they have their insurers send you both a Workers Comp certificate and certificate of liability insurance. Do not take photcopies from them, they must originate at the insurer office. If they don't do this, forget it. If a worker who is not insured under worker's comp hurts themself on the job, you, not the contractor are liable.