Could you remove the undermount sink and drop in an overmount sink??? Unless the hole is too big I suppose. You might have to increase the size of the hole.
Good thinking.
The challenge is it’s not a simple rectangular sink. So the hole in the granite is a particular oddball shape to match a particular make & model of sink. This isn’t the particular make or model, but it gives the idea: http://www.homedepot.com/p/KOHLER-Undertone-Undermount-Stainless-Steel-31-in-Double-Bowl-Kitchen-Sink-K-3355-NA/100003706
I should be able to find a normal sink that drops into the hole using most of it. But I’ll probably have to make some kind of adapter plate to cover the part of the hole the smaller sink’s lip doesn’t exactly cover. Pretty kludgy.
If I have to increase the hole size I’m assuming I’d need to remove the countertop and send it to the granite shop to be re-cut & re-polished. If you know otherwise for sure, please enlighten me. Being able to re-cut this opening in place would be a game changer.
Like with many large countertops, this one is made of multiple slabs that were butt-glued together on-site. The actual finished piece of glued stone is 19 feet long by 4 feet deep and weighs about 1000 lbs. It’s not coming out intact & reusable without an expensive fight.
So far the problem is not severe enough for me to have paid a pro to evaluate how to fix it. But I’ve scratched my DIY head a bunch and no good fix has come to mind. With luck it won’t progress much more in the next 20 years.
Based purely on what I’ve seen on home improvement shows, it might actually be possible to recut your granite countertop in place. I think you should contact a local shop and ask them.
I heartily second this! Our house had a kitchen remodel done by the previous owners (tile, not granite countertops or other trendy nonsense) about a year before they sold it, and the newish appliances included a double oven. I may not use it very often, but when I do it’s a lifesaver.
My project is going to be the guest bathroom, a 3/4 deal, retiled Retro Renovation style, “Mamie pink” tile and everything! No pink toilet or sink though, I don’t think I can get the required low flow toilet in the right shade of pink, so white it shall be.
(I’m planning on living in this house until I croak or have to go to a nursing home, and it will be my two nephews’ problem to sell.)
Well I just had the designer come by my house and give me her vision. She had lots of great ideas, but the cost… Oy vey! She said that it would be around $40,000 to get it done right. There is no way I could afford that.
My next stop is to go to Home Depot and see what I can have done for my measly $20,000. I know I can’t do everything, but I think I can give it a good overhaul for that amount.
The designer should listen to you and your budget. You’re not going to get everything you want, but she should be able to tell you how to get the biggest bang for your buck. If she can’t, find someone who will. And not the guy from home depot.
Sadly, that sounds about right. I didn’t ever actually do the math, but I think our kitchen came in at around that price. The cabinets alone were 12K, from HD, but I had chosen higher-end stuff.
On a positive note, I’m sure that we could have cut the total cost in half by going for the basics: basic cabinets (2-3K), a simpler countertop, and cheaper appliances (e.g. $600 for a fridge instead of 2K). Not knocking down the dining room wall would have saved. I also had replaced the windows, though we could have left the old ones.
One more way I could have saved: we could have done our own tear-out. Two guys spending a couple of days gutting the kitchen is not cheap.
Warning:
HD uses/used commissioned salespeople in the home remodel department.
I once (years ago, may have changed) asked about a price for a shower base.
I was shown a catalog with a list price of $750. For a $100 item. When I balked, she assured me that the 750 wasn’t the price I would pay - I would only pay 60% of 750. Only $450 for a $100 item.
About 5 years ago, I saw the “Whole House Carpet Install! $39!” sign and asked “How much for 1/2” 8# pad?" (this is a .50/sq yard item) Her response “That is an $8/yd item”. $8/yd is a lowball installation price.
HD works by convincing suckers that “Look! Cheap Prices!” means “Cheap Prices on Everything!”.
'Taint necessarily so…"
Please don’t go to home depot for your cabinets. Not a good idea.
I would seriously check around more. We have a couple cabinet contractors we use at work for low end kitchens. Going with laminate counter tops, thermofoil doors, plain white melamine boxes you can still get a nice new kitchen. Not particularly stylish, maybe but a nice new kitchen none the less. The house I am working in today got such a kitchen, along with quality hardware and soft close drawers on the base cabinets for about $550.00 CAD per lnft installed.
I know I bagged on Ikea, but they usually have some good installers if you do not want to do it yourself and you get much better product for your money. Than you will get from Home Depot.
You should call your city hall and see if the contractor needs to pull a builder permit and they need to get it not you . I would have at least 2 contractors put a bid in and ask for some reference letters and look on line and see if what kinds of reviews they have gotten . When I had a sliding door put in I was told by my city hall I needed and building permit and the company doing the job needed to pull the permit and if the job was no good I would $500, to get it fixed .
An easy way to judge a cabinet’s quality:
How big are the sticks used for the face frame?
What kind of reinforcement (if any) on the corners? Solid wood (including plywood) should have hardwood blocks glued. Especially nice ones will have the blocks and surfaces finger-jointed. MDF (cheap, all the low-end will be MDF by default) cannot be glued, so they use staples. The blocks should still be solid and well secured. Flimsy poly triangles with 2 staples (inserted without caring where they hit) mean: RUN!
Door and drawer hardware? Do they open straight and easily?
One thing I learned the hard way: the melamine covers many sins - including knots in the wood (which would render the wood suitable for kindling).
Can you explain this last post more, because I don’t understand what it’s referring to, and I think this information would be useful. What is “How big are the sticks used for the face frame?” What does this mean and how can I tell?
BTW, something that only matters to some people - magnets do not work on most (all?) stainless steel appliances. So if you’re used to having magnets all over the front of your fridge, be careful when selecting the new one.
A cabinet is a 5-sided box with a back, two sides, a top, and a bottom.
The front consists of the door, and the surface around the edges of the front that the door sits against. That surface is the face frame. It needs to be thick enough and well-attached enough for the whole cabinet to be rigid & strong.
So 3/4" thick wood or plywood is good. 3/8" thick particle board is not.
In each of the 6 interior corners of the cabinet there will be some kind of reinforcing where the three surfaces meet. A largish block of real wood attached with glue is good. A small piece of flexible plastic held in by staples is not.
Ref SS appliances: Some makers have recognized that people like fridge magnets and make the face from regular steel with a thin SS cladding. If this matters to the OP, be sure to check.
Oh yeah, double wall oven if you can. I wish I had the space.
If you want dual ovens, you can get ranges with them. (They seem to replace the space usually used for a storage drawer for the second oven, or make the main oven somewhat smaller.)
I mentioned this up thread, but I’ll say it again. We wanted two in wall ovens. We were struggling with where we would fit all of the appliances. Our contractor introduced us to a convection microwave so we could have an oven and a microwave in the same “footprint” in the wall above the other oven.
It took us some time, but we soon realized that other than holidays and parties we really didn’t need the second oven… but when we did it was really handy. It is also nice that if I want to bake one potato I can get the combo up to 400 in no time and don’t waste the energy of heating up the bigger oven… but I can still bake it exactly the same. Or I can put it on Convection/Microwave mode and have one done in a fraction of the time… and just as good (No, I don’t like just plain microwaved potatoes).
Most of the time it is used as a normal microwave oven, but it is built into the wall and not taking up counter space. The few times a year though that we need two ovens at once it is a godsend.
I’m looking at this web site because it has clear to understand diagram. http://kitchenkompact.com/features-2/ Is this what you mean? Do these cabinets seem adequately made?
Made a big mistake when I installed the new microwave. It comes with an exhaust fan but I was supposed to re-align the blower for room circulation and I didnt do that before installation. So now I have to take it off and do that.
BTW, mounting those is a real pain since the tolerance for the mounting screws is so tight.
Another, they have outlets now designed to plug in your electrical device. I’d suggest installing one.
Strip LED undercounter lighting is easy to install and looks really cool.
Trafficmaster strip vinyl flooring tiles go do real easy and look good.
I can’t get that to load.
The “sticks” I referenced are the boards used to make the face frame.
1 1/2w x 1/2t is cheap crap.
3w x 3/4t real hardwood is good
If the inside is white plastic, it is hiding something. MDF is usually the culprit.
This house was built on the cheap just as CA real estate prices were skyrocketing.
This one has new cabinets. Good, not spectacular.
i saw some of the original cabinets in other houses in the tract: Cardboard. 3/4 cardboard with photo-finish “wood” pattern. Cheapest “formica” counters.
There is some really crap stuff out there. I suggest using a real cabinet shop because they will tell you what is in the box. That knowledge is worth the mark-up.
Especially for first-timers.
They say you buy carpet three times before you know what you’re doing. With kitchens, that “slop factor” gets real expensive, real fast.