So through a complicated series of events, I have a lot of free time on my hands - probably at least three months - during which I will not be working. I’m considering taking advantage of this time by… renovating the kitchen!
We’ve been thinking about renovating for a while, since our kitchen is very old, badly organised, and tiny, 6.7 square meters. And yet we’ve had estimates of up to $50K to update it.
I haven’t done much DIY before - putting together a few IKEA things, painting a couple of walls, oh, and I regrouted the bathroom tiles once. I took 10 weeks of woodwork in high school, and vaguely remember how to sand and hammer and all that stuff. I have no tools apart from the very basics like screwdrivers and wrenches, so obviously there would be some investment in buying and/or hiring the necessary.
Here’s what we think needs doing:
demolition, obviously - pull out the old stuff
new cabinets. (I’m thinking IKEA, since they’re designed for DIYers)
new countertops (I suppose we’d get these custom built and installed
new sink/faucets (matching the existing pipework, if possible)
new dishwasher
new light fixture
new range, possibly the kind with a built in microwave oven
Sooo… am I insane? How long do you think this project could take? My husband (hee hee! MaxTheVool is my husband now!) suggested I begin with baby steps, like replacing the vanity in the downstairs bathroom, as a trial run.
I just got done helping by BIL rehab a kitchen from top to bottom for a fraction of what you’re talking about. Everything you listed is easily doable within 3 months. If you were replacing a vinyl floor then I would remove the old one myself and hire someone to level and install a new one. It’s nice to install new cabinets on a contiguous floor.
If you’re doing a countertop range then you can have that cut out when the countertops are made. The built in microwave is easy to hang but will involve installing a vent stack in the cupboards. That would probably be the hardest thing you do unless you have to rewire for the dishwasher.
As far as tools go you won’t need a huge investment. All the water and sewer lines can be done in PVC which means you need a saw and a few plumbing tools. I think a good cordless drill and a circular saw would cover a lot of your power tool needs.
You can buy unfinished cabinets and stain/seal them yourself to save money. The easiest way to do that is to put hooks in the ceiling and hang all the door parts. When you’re done you patch the holes and paint the ceiling.
Go for it. You’ll spend 10 hrs figuring out how to do stuff correctly in an hour but that’s half the fun and all the savings.
Ikea cabinets are cheap and easy to install, I did them in my own kitchen. You need a level and a drill, and a second set of hands to hold the cabinet up. My kitchen cost less than $10,000, is bigger than yours and included buying appliances.
Ikea also sells countertops (both wood, laminate and solid surface), sinks, diswhashers, and ranges. On the Ikea website, they have a downloadable program that can help you lay out your new kitchen, based on the sizes of cabinet they sell.
Questions:
Do you need to redo the floor?
Are you moving things, like the range, sink, dishwasher and location of countertops?
If you don’t need to move anything, this project can go VERY quickly. Demolition is 1 day at the most. Installation of cabinets is 1 day as well. Swapping out appliances and installing the sink is 1 day. Having an extra set of hands around to help move heavy / bulky things is important, and will prevent you from causing damage.
I did mine about 10 years ago, similar size. It’s still going to cost a lot because there’s a lot of stuff in a kitchen. A kitchen has every kind of stuff there is in a house - plumbing, electrical, gas, drywall, woodwork, you name it. A lot depends on how much you are willing and able to deal with, work wise, and how much quality you expect in the end product.
Hanging cabinets is easy. Hanging cabinets so that they align perfectly and then doing the finish work to make them look good is a lot harder. Are you ready to do electrical work or deal with gas lines? Will it bother you if your floor has a small lump that nobody but you notices (as mine does)?
I agree with your husband, try a smaller project and see how you like it. And I agree with the other posters, it’s doable and it can be fun. Make a solid plan, sketch it all out on graph paper and measure everything three times. You are not insane to go for it but you might be before it’s done.
Here’s the secret to all remodeling: The Devil is in the details.
It’s pretty easy to buy a cabinet and stick it up on a wall, the problems arise when you find that no wall in your room is square or flat. So, my experience has been that you will spend a lot more time trimming than actually installing. The upside is that you can take the time to do a much nicer job than some of the professionals will. I’ve re-done some trim work that a carpenter did, because I wasn’t happy with the slap-it-up and pin-nail job that he did. By taking the time to carefully cut and trim using a profile gauge, then end result was much nicer.
What is the worst case scenario? It may take longer than you plan, it may cost more than expected, but eventually you (or someone you hire, should you throw in the towel) will have a spiffy new kitchen.
The only way to find out is to dive in!
I have no doubt that you can demolish the existing kitchen and install IKEA cabinets, if you take your time and plan out how you’re going to do it in advance. The question is whether or not something will come up that you can’t deal with. You’ll have plumbing and electrical work to do, like wiring up a dishwasher, that you might not feel comfortable doing, can you afford a plumber to do these installations, if you can’t hack it?
For instance, my kitchen had some unsafe open wiring that I didn’t notice until the cabinets came out. Now, I was planning to have electrical work done anyway, so it wasn’t a tragedy, but it would have been really tough if I was planning to keep the electric as-is.
From my recent experience listed above, most of the time was spent staining the cabinets and removing the old flooring. If you’re installing pre-finished stuff and the floor is done then hell yes you can do it.
Lets look at the pre-planning that will bite you in the ass. Can you shut off the water just to the kitchen? Is it already wired for a disposal unit? Do you have GFI circuits where they should be installed?
Personally, I would want to install new cut-off valves at the sink and I only use ball valves. If you’re doing copper then I recommend you use ball valves with ferrule fitting ends to reduce the need to solder in tight spaces. Mennards carries them as well as a number of other box-stores. They’re about double the price but worth every penny. If one fails (doubtful) you can swap it out in minutes with a wrench.
If the sink traps are currently metal then I would replace them all with plastic which holds up better and can be tightened/loosened MUCH easier then metal ones. Newer designs use fittings that have wings on them so you can tighten all connections by hand. I can’t over emphasize this. Plastic drains rule. Plastic drain lines don’t gunk up as quickly as metal ones do. I would also think in terms of using large radius curved pipe fittings versus standard curved pieces. I had a bathroom sink with 3 hard bends in the sewer line and it was always clogging up. Problem solved with plastic large radius fittings. Also think in terms of putting in a clean-out tap. If you do plug a drain line then you just unscrew a cap and run a snake through with taking everything apart.
Not sure what plumbing parts to buy? take a digital picture of what you currently have and use that as a guide to buy replacement parts. You now have something you can point to and say “I need one of these”. It’s handy to have something you can scribble prices on and make notes.
Moving on to electrical, if don’t have an outlet box for disposal or GFI outlets around the counter and don’t feel comfortable installing them then pay an electrician to wire them up. Same for a electric counter top and microwave outlet. An electrician can do this stuff quickly and correctly so it won’t be some monstrous bill to avoid.
Once you’ve got a handle on the plumbing and electrical then everything else is carpentry and common sense. If you want to hang all the cabinets level than screw a straight 2x4 into the wall and use that as a base to set them on. One person holds them up and the other person screws them to a stud (which you’ve already located with your newly purchased stud finder). Once the first cabinet is is in place you repeat the process and also screw the cabinets to each other. This is done by making a pilot hole between the 2 cabinets and then making a larger pilot hole in the cabinet receiving the screw first (makes it possible for the screw to counter sink in and then draw the 2 cabinets together).
Cabinetry work can be done with manual tools such as a manual miter saw but you might consider a circular compound miter saw along with a vibrating trim saw for any tight baseboard work. You can buy these tools as you need them and think will use them in the future.
If you have to do any serious demolition then a good sawzall is a godsend. You can buy blades that will cut both wood and nails and blades that will cut through 8" cast iron sewer lines.
My advice would be to think of the kitchen as a series of projects and attack them one at a time. Use a camera as a tool to visualize what you’re doing ahead of time and research each project as you go. when you’re laying out your cabinets keep in mind that they are grouped in different sizes(widths) to help you space them into a room. I laid out all my gutters by photographing the house and then drawing in the parts I needed. It really shortened the planning time.
Sorry for the ramble but I’m trying to throw out stuff that I learned as I worked on various projects. This website is a good place to ask questions as you go as are friends who have done similar work. You could also volunteer your time with habitat-for-humanity and learn how some of this stuff is done.
