Planning on a floor-to-ceiling remodel. Ripping out and replacing all tile and cabinets, knocking out a wall between the kitchen and dining room and expanding the kitchen into the dining room, and perhaps opening up a staircase, and knocking out a second wall that goes into a laundry/mud room/half bath near the garage entry, keeping the half bath but moving the laundry room upstairs.
We are interviewing 3 contractors/certified designers whose work I like and who got high reviews on Angie’s List. From those of you who are veterans to this kind of a job, what should I expect? What questions should I make sure to ask the designers? I have a pretty good idea of the kind of things I want in a kitchen, I just don’t know how to lay it all out, so hopefully I can get some guidance from the people who are coming out.
I’ll be watching this thread. After renovating the middle bedroom and redecorating the living room, I think the kitchen is next.
I got a new fridge a couple of weeks ago. (That involved being a little creative with a Sawzall and a hand saw.) I want a new stove, a dishwasher, and a new sink. I may move the stove to the opposite wall where there will be a counter. That will make room for an 18" pull-out pantry next to the fridge. The sink should be a corner unit. I have some time to figure it out.
I thought I’d just get some free ideas from Sears.
There are no pleasant surprises. Everything unexpected will cost more and take longer than you budgeted for … and there WILL be unexpected stuff. So don’t set your budget at your absolute limit as that budget will be exceeded.
That said, be willing to spend more time and money for quality work. It is worth it.
You need to watch some of the design shows on hgtv. There’s several that deal with kitchen remodels.
here is the web site for kitchen ideas. Lots and lots of ideas
I strongly suggest you get multiple references from the contractor. Call them, ask if they were satisfied and if possible try to see some of the contractors work.
We are about to start that level of work ourselves. Sept 6 is the planned start date. We are also completely gutting the main bathroom as well.
I’m not doing it myself because I don’t want to be without a kitchen for as long as it would take me. I’m sure I’m going to assist though. We are buying all the appliances, tile tub everything but the lumber and drywall ourselves. We did the design ourselves as well.
It is probably a good idea of yours to use a designer. My Wife and I had trouble picking stuff out just because there is so darn much stuff to choose from.
What to expect? The unexpected. Sorry, though, no real recommendations.
This is more about things to do, than expectations.
Put in plenty of outlets. Also under-cab lighting. Be prepared for tons of dust and require the contractor to sheet the work area with visqueen and to clean up/vacuum adjacent areas daily. Try to figure out every design element in advance: change orders are expensive. Have the designer ride herd on the contractor and coordinate any problems/issues/changes through him/her: they usually have an existing relationship that they don’t want damaged. Also, it keeps you from having any confrontations with contracted personnel. Do your own inspections of the work before anything is covered up, and before making final payment. City inspectors are there to make sure things meet code; neatness doesn’t necessarily count. You want things to be better than code, if possible/practical. Tag any discrepancies with a small piece of blue tape and point it out to the contractor.
From personal experience, doing it yourself: 3 years. Having a contractor do it, probably 3 weeks.
That’s actually the question I’d ask the contractor. How long will you be without a kitchen? Is there any chance that they’ll get 3/4 of the way done and then disappear for a couple of weeks on another project?
Expect dust. Unbelievable amounts of dust. You might want to put up plastic to protect some of the rooms not being remodeled and household electronics.
If you’re moving the laundry room upstairs, you’ll have to have access to the walls for plumbing and electrical. Easy if it’s right below the room being remodeled, difficult otherwise. Make sure you put a drain pan under the washer with a drain that goes all the way to the basement.
We did it ourselves, as part of a massive remodeling/rebuilding project, but my husband is really handy, and I make pretty decent money. A lot of good advice above, Chefguy’s comments are spot-on, and Askance is too.
It took a LOT longer and cost a LOT more than expected. Partly this was due in our case to my husband’s utter ineptness when it comes to budgeting time or money, and part of it was also due to his insane levels of perfectionism.
He designed ours, and it does meet code, however, sometimes I wish we had more cabinet space. The room feels very wide open, and we have numerous windows, but we have virtually no cabinets above the counter. Except for 3: two built in to the walls above the dishwasher for dishes, and one above the fridge for storing larger crap (bread machine, blender, etc). Its not that I actually have more stuff than I can store, its just that the cabinets are a little over-crowded.
In just about every room we’ve done, we have not focused on places to store stuff nearly as much as we should have. The bedroom closet got bigger, and there is now a coat closet in the living room, but the spare bedroom was remade as an office, and has no closet now. So overall storage space has gone down. I was without my kitchen for (wait for it) 8 years, but I think we have more space than we did, I would just like a little more.
My advice would be:
Don’t short change yourself on storage space
Be Patient - the contractor will take longer and leave more of a mess than you want. Do NOT take this out on your spouse. I would routinely comment about the damn contractor taking too long and costing too much - but by this time, everyone knew that I married a loon, and understood my frustration. (8 years from start to where things have kinda stopped, note that I did not say “finish”)
Set clear expectations with the contractor - especially about clean-up. If you’re going to be living in the mess, especially when they are working on sheetrock, you will want plastic sheeting in the doorways to keep the mess from migrating everywhere. Some will still get through, that sheet rock dust is fine, but sheeting will help. I interpreted Chefguy to mean sheeting on the floor, and I am adding to that, both the floor and doorways. And close off vents that are still open in the area, so that crap doesn’t make it in to your duct work.
You decide when the project meets your satisfaction. We had a bad experience with the 1 item we outsourced on our entire project, so I do not have a lot of faith in contractors. We added a second story, replaced the roof, all the windows, insulation, siding. Some walls were completely rebuilt from the stud level up. We had a contractor install the faux stone siding on our bay window, and now he has to chisel out some of the crappy mortar they used, and re-do some of it.
Even if you get someone else to do the work, you need to educate yourself in the basics and check on the progress every day.
Examples from my reno:
They tore out a drywall closet and left a 6 inch gap in my vapour barrier. If I hadn’t known what a vapour barrier was, I would have left it (and by now, the mold would be growing).
They used white caulking in my stainless steel sink. Ugly as sin. They tried to tell me that it was all that was available. (Actually, they were out of clear and didn’t want to go out to get it. I actually gave them my tube to do it right.)
They tried to use the unsanded grout (which was for the backsplash) for the floor. Since it was after they had mixed it (and the backsplash wasn’t going in for days) I had them reimburse me for getting new grout (luckily, I was home that day and caught it before they used it.
Make sure proper permits are issued. They are usually cardboard signs that are taped to the window. The inspector will sign them after everything passes.
For a kitchen job, electrical and plumbing permits are needed. Maybe structural too if you are taking out any walls.
Inspections give you the peace of mind that the work was done to a minimum code standard.
We remodeled our kitchen last winter. It look longer than expected, but was otherwise okay.
Measure everything! You need to know the dimensions of your space cold. Know the dimensions of all your appliances and as the work is getting done measure everything again to make sure things are on track. Finding out something is wrong earlier is much better for everyone.
Our countertops are slightly lower than they should be. This isn’t a big problem, but I would have liked them to be the correct height. I’m short, so this is okay, but for someone tall, they would be a problem.
The big save was I measured the opening for the refrigerator and had concerns. I talked to the contractor and he realized that after the tile was put down there was NO WAY the refrigerator would fit. He moved up the cabinets to compensate before all hell broke loose.
If you see something confusing or not quite right – even if you are the one who made the mistake. Say something! Fix it NOW. Later is not possible or much too expensive. Your conractor should be happy to fix it for you. If you are nice he might not even charge you for minor fixes. We set the outlet boxes too low to our liking and had the electrician move it up two inches. Two inches! That’s like nothing right? NO! We would have been very mad at ourselves if we hadn’t spoken up.
This is a good time to put wires in the walls and ceiling. Want speaker wire? Internet cables? phone lines? think about what you want or might want in the future. We put in wall speakers up and I love it. (Side note, I use a cheap amp and an airport express hidden in a cabinet to drive the speakers. I use the remote app on an iphone or ipad to control my computer upstairs and push music to the airport express using AirPlay. Love, love, love it! One thing I wish I did was put the outlet on a switch so I can turn it on and off easily.)
Drawers. I love drawers. This is kind of a personal thing, but for lower cabinets, consider drawers instead of cabinets with pullouts. They will cost more, but drawers are so much easier to use.
You can’t have too many light switches. 3-way and 4-way switches are fantastic. Use them liberally.
General rule of thumb for load bearing walls - they usually run parallel to the roof line. This would be for the floor/level closest to the roof.
IOW - if your roof line runs east/west, and the wall in question runs north/south, it’s probably not load bearing.
Average size split-level homes tend not to have any load bearing internal walls. The sq. footage for each level tends to be small enough that the external walls can support everything.
Contractors aren’t interior designers. Designers aren’t cheap, but if you can’t decide on what layout you want/if you’re unsure if your presentation will be enough for them to “get” what you’re looking for, call one.
Neither are most of the people on the show. That’s why I love it.
Worst one I’ve seen so far was this guy, who had never used a power tool before. He put in a window by holding it up to the wall, marking around it with a pencil, and sawing a hole. Don’t even ask about the insulation…
Serious notes about kitchen renovations: they cost a lot. Cabinets are crazy-expensive, especially custom cabinets; you’re way ahead of the game if you can get pre-fab cabinets to work with your plan. Plumbing is a royal pain in the ass, so if you can leave sinks/refrigerator lines where they already are, you’re way ahead. And I’m sure you already know this, but the mark of a great kitchen is an efficient triangle between fridge, sink, and stove, which makes cooking easy.
That being said, put in more lights than you think you’ll need. There are at least 5 different light sources in our kitchen (recessed, island pendant, over-sink, under-cabinet, and over-cabinet, but you can probably also count the eight-bulb fixture in the dining room), and they’re worth it.
Go to the library or bookstore and get books and magazines on kitchens. Cut out or photocopy elements that you like - drawer pulls, tiles, countertops, layouts, flooring, etc.
Give these to your designer and let them know what you like. Give them your budget and they’ll help you determine what is or isn’t reasonable. Having a strong vision of what you want will help to make decisions easier.
Some stuff to consider - where will your phone go? Have a little area where all your mail, papers, messages, etc will go. When we thought of elements in the kitchen, it was always food and eating related. Designer reminded us to consider the other stuff.
Make sure you get tons of lighting. It’s really important in a kitchen.
Set up a ‘kitchen’ area in your home. You’ll need a microwave, storage, fridge and a sink. We did our renos in summer to take advatage of BBQ season and that worked out well. I’d also recommend lots of disposable forks, plates, cups, etc.
Ask questions about the way things are going, but don’t panic if you see something that doesn’t look right. You often don’t have the ‘big picture’, so don’t sweat things until you know for certain what the deal is.
I’ll second this. There are a thousand choices to be made and the contractor can’t make them for you. You have to have a good idea of the design at some point, including many fine details, and that should be before you start talking about costs with a contractor. Go to Home Depot or some similar place and decide on the types of cabinets, appliances and counter top beforehand. At least to get an idea of the types available. You should also have an idea of the type of layout you want and what is possible.
Also, don’t let the contractor get away without doing ALL of the finish work. Molding, paint, tile, whatever it is, make them do it. These little details make a big difference in the appearance of a room and nobody likes doing them. If the trim doesn’t line up properly or there is paint on the cabinets you need to be a hardass.