Looking at a kitchen remodel

mlamb01

My house was built in 1991, and it still has the original kitchen cabinets and counters.  All the appliances are at least 10 years old.  We eventually want to move out of this townhouse and be able to sell it in a timely fashion, so we think a kitchen remodel is in order.

Going to change the footprint by knocking out a wall that separates the kitchen and dining room, and combine it all into one space.  Getting several bids from contractors/kitchen remodelers now...  Also shopping for appliances now.  Any tips on what appliances to buy?  Not looking to go super high end, because we will be leaving these appliances behind in 5 years or so.  Also planning on getting a chimney hood that can deal with some smoke in the kitchen, instead of putting a microwave over the stove.

Any lessons learned from remodeling your kitchen that you can share?

Lit

We just did every thing you described. We got our appliances from an online store called appliances connection. Between the range, fridge and dishwasher it was $1300 less than the lowest big box store I could find. Its a lot of work taking out a wall moving power and water if it's a fridge wall. What are you doing with the floors after the wall is out? Are you putting in an island to get the cabinet space back? If you are losing cabinet space from taking out the wall do you have the ceiling height to replace with 42" high uppers? 

YukonRon

30K, and it goes up from there.

Lit

YukonRon said:

30K, and it goes up from there.

If you do it yourself you can save a lot of money. I am guessing we have around $16k in ours with the biggest chunk about $5k in the quartz countertops. This is a pic from our appraisal and a pic from now but it's hard to get a pic in the dark on my phone. 

theyolksonyou

@lit your cabinet pulls look just like ours. Been that way since sept. 

Lit

theyolksonyou said:

@lit your cabinet pulls look just like ours. Been that way since sept. 

Yep wife can't make up her mind. It sucks constantly trying to find a place to grab.

theyolksonyou

@lit I feel your pain. That and a backsplash. Killing me 

YukonRon

Our home is a turn of the century (circa 1907) "Caftsman" style home. Everything has to be rebuilt and re-engineered and designed. That 30K, is me doing it. Old plaster, out of date electrical, black Iron plumbing, ceiling and flooring, retaining joists, and posts, new appliances, cabinets, etc, etc,. 
Trust md on this one, I tried to contract this out. 46K was the lowest, and I still had to get appliances, cabinets, flooring, and ceiling.
MONEY PIT.

mlamb01

Lit said:

We just did every thing you described. We got our appliances from an online store called appliances connection. Between the range, fridge and dishwasher it was $1300 less than the lowest big box store I could find. Its a lot of work taking out a wall moving power and water if it's a fridge wall. What are you doing with the floors after the wall is out? Are you putting in an island to get the cabinet space back? If you are losing cabinet space from taking out the wall do you have the ceiling height to replace with 42" high uppers? 

We have nice Bruce hardwood floors in the dining room and kitchen right now, and its in pretty good shape.  But the wall we are ripping out essentially cuts the floor right in half, against the grain.  We've been told we can possibly take the spare pieces we have and fill in the gap, then have it refinished and sanded, but its only like $500 more to get a whole brand new floor.  So we'll probably just get new flooring.

We are putting an island in, but we don't really need it for the counter space.  My existing kitchen is essentially just put in a corner.  I'm going to remove one wall, removing the corner, and its just going to be a straight wall of cabinets.  Only have 8' ceilings, so I'm probably going to get 39" upper cabinets with some trim going across the top up to the ceiling.

@Lit - I see you went from a microwave style hood to a true chimney hood.  Is the hood now vented to the outside?  Do you use it alot?  Does it make a difference?  Is it loud?

fishlessman

Lit said:

theyolksonyou said:

@lit your cabinet pulls look just like ours. Been that way since sept. 

Yep wife can't make up her mind. It sucks constantly trying to find a place to grab.

put french doors going into my den in 2000, still havent put the pulls/handles on them

Lit

@mlamb01 yes it's vented outside. Our vent fan has 4 settings but even on the highest it's probably about half as loud as our bathroom vent fan. On low is barely noticeable. I just installed it last week so haven't used it a lot but it moves a lot of air. I would say vent it outside for sure it was a fairly simple install.

mlamb01

@Lit What brand/model of hood did you get?

Lit

mlamb01 said:

@Lit What brand/model of hood did you get?

All our appliances are the GE slate color. The slate doesn't show finger prints which is a nice option. The handles on the fridge are like a brushed stainless and we constantly have to wipe them I would never get stainless appliances.

CTMike

Here is a pic of our remodel when it was in progress before the backsplash was tiled. The hood has 3 speeds: 300, 600, and 1200 cfm. At high speed it will pull a vacuum on the house. All of the appliances are Kitchenaid with the exception of the fridge which is LG (had the highest rating on CR). I don't like that it is a different brand, but the handles on the fridge and dishwasher are close enough that it's not a huge deal. 

We bought all the appliances from an online appliance store - fridge msrp was $4K, paid $2200, and that includes a 10 year extended warranty. 

Abter

I am in middle of a kitchen-and-powder-room remodel right now.  With no fridge or oven at the moment, we are eating a LOT from my Egg!  ~ 4 weeks in, but things are stretching out.  Good luck: overall there so darn many choices to make;  flooring, cabinets, wall treatment, counter tops, cabinet knobs and handles, faucets, lights...the list seems endless. Some big ticket decisions, some not, but all have to be decided.  We did not want a "kitchen of our dreams";  no Viking, Wolf or SubZero appliances for us!  This was a reality based remodel of our family kitchen, with a constant eye on our budget.  No knocking out walls or additions either; we did not change our kitchen/hall/bathroom footprint at all.

I did a lot of research on both cabinets and appliances.  Cabinets are a big ticket item (biggest cost item in many kitchen remodeling jobs), and I found there was both a wide range of costs, a lot of hidden costs and loss-leader-price-with-up-selling, with poor quality to great quality products often made by the same parent company. We ended up with Schuler cabinets.  Schuler is one of 8 cabinet brands owned by Elkay, and Schuler is only sold at Lowes. Want to guess how similar Schuler cabinets are to MasterCraft (also owned by Elkay and sold only at Home Depot)?  The other  uber-parent company is Masterbrand: I was able to identify 12 different brands they make, and probably missed some.  IMHO cabinet makers deliberately make it hard to shop and compare. Realistic price comparison is darn near impossible.

Example 1:   Thomasville is a very well respected furniture manufacturer.  Thomasville leased their name to Home Depot, who then got Masterbrand to make a model line exclusive to HD.  The Thomasville furniture company has NOTHING to do with the cabinets bearing their name. The Thomasville model may be the lowest quality semi-custom cabinets sold nationwide, and are IMHO the lowest quality brand sold at HD...but not the least expensive because of the allure of the Thomasville name.

Example # 2:  all of the companies offer a lot of upgrades...at more cost of course.  So Brand X's entry level cabinets may have a lot of composition board material in the non-visible parts of the cabinet.  X might offer an upgrade to "all plywood ends" for the where they use 3/8" plywood on the sides of the cabinet but still composition board on the back.  A different Brand might have their entry level using 1/2" plywood all around, with upgrades to 3/4".  Heck...some companies don't even make solid backs and sides on the cabinets at all, but only use frames (hey its hidden so who cares).  They sell these as "frameless" or "Euro-style" cabinets (most Ikea cabinets sells this type of cabinet).  Similar stuff in drawer construction (one offers all solid hardwood sides with dovetail joints and 1/2 inch plywood bottom, while another uses veneered particle board sides and particle board bottoms,and the third brand has all plastic drawers),  size of doors, veneer or solid wood doors, etc. This stuff matters!  If you are going to be putting a granite or marble counter top (easily 500 to 1000 pounds, depending on how much counter space you have), plus all the plates, pots and pans inside, plus the occasional Uncle Lou sitting on them, or the occasional late night adventure with your spouse, and plan on living there for a long while, construction materials matter!!! Buy today, sell tomorrow...who cares.  Guess which tract home builders use? Or your contractor/designer if you let them pick it all out?

Lowes and Home Depot both had a lot of discounts and rebates going when we ordered cabinets about 8 weeks ago.  I am pretty sure they still do, even if the details vary from time to time.  We got about 25% off the list price of cabinets.

For appliances; based largely on Consumer Report we ended up selecting a matching set of stainless steel Samsung appliances.  CR was really high on Samsung for bang-for-buck and frequency-of-repair stats, which got them a check rating.

sorry for long rant.  Good luck, and ask for advice from anyone you know who has gone through this form of self-administered torture.

mlamb01

Interesting CR rates Samsung appliances favorably...  I've had several people warn me about them, and a google search for Samsung appliance issues brings back alot of horror stories...  But for that matter, searching for any brand appliance brings up some dirt, if they are at all popular.

Abter

I have a love-hate relationship with consumer feedback posts.  They can be extremely valuable information.  However there is a tremendous selection bias problem;  people with bad experiences are MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more likely to post than people with good or neutral experience.  Plus it is certainly possible that some of the posts are pure fiction put up by the company itself.  I laugh when I see some posts that sing the praises of a company and product to the high heavens...and are written with such bad english you realize they were probably written in some "brand reputation management" company hiring writers who work in some backroom office in Asia somewhere.

Abter

We decided to keep the microwave over the stove, but to vent the microwave exhaust fan outside.  I was told almost all microwave fans can be installed either to use the (nearly useless IMHO) filter which vents right back at you, or into ductwork going outside.  I can't say yet how it works; with any luck I may have appliances in by next week.  or not 

Davec433

I sold my house in NC last year and had it remodeled for less than 10k. The house was built 1992 and basically looked like Lits before the remodel. Had the cabinets sanded down, painted white and crown modeling and pulls put on them. Backsplash put in and new laminate counter tops. Looked good enough to sell a week into being on the market. I wanted to put in granite and put in new cabinets but I wouldn't have made my money back from it if I had done it.

tonyled

Lit said:

YukonRon said:

30K, and it goes up from there.

If you do it yourself you can save a lot of money. I am guessing we have around $16k in ours with the biggest chunk about $5k in the quartz countertops. This is a pic from our appraisal and a pic from now but it's hard to get a pic in the dark on my phone. 

amazing work!!!

Lit

Thanks @tonyled

I just remembered a couple other things I would really recommend. Any of the touch free faucets it's great when prepping meat and a company called Legrand has an under cabinets lighting/power system to get your plugs and switches out of your back splash. I went as basic as I could but they have systems with iPod docks and speakers. You see in the one pic the double paddle 1 gang box for the disposal and sink light and we have 3 other seperate plugs. The one double in the pic you can add more outlets or they have USB ports or lights and different options. For the couple hundred dollars this was a nice option. 

theyolksonyou

Haven't done it yet, but definitely going the legrand route. 

henapple

We used these on our kitchen cabinets... 

tarheelmatt

henapple said:

We used these on our kitchen cabinets... 

You find yourself stroking the knob a lot? 

theyolksonyou

Polishing the knob