Kitchen Remodelling: What do you do first?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A bit of history:

I own a one-bedroom condo which I bought for $78,000.00 in 1995 in Northern Virginia. I refinanced in 1999 to go from 8.5% to 6.5% interest. Thankfully, my condo has appreciated in value to around $125,000.00ish. I NEED to remodel my kitchen because:
[list]
[li]I have very little counter space on one side of the kitchen, and no counter space, counters or any other structure on the other side of the kitchen.[/li][li]My appliances are all old or falling apart and need to be replaced.[/li][li]I need to reconfigure appliances and move a plumbing line (if possible to achieve my goals.[/li][li]other stuff I haven’t thought through yet.[/li]
What do I do first? Should I draw up a detailed drawing of what I want? Do I line up a contractor and have him/her give me a ballpark figure on how much money I’ll need? Should I refinance first and have a home equity line of credit first before I do anything? I’m not exactly sure how much equity I can pull out and I’m not sure exactly how much this remodel will cost because there are a lot of variables.

If there are any Dopers out there who have gone through remodelling, please tell me your tips and experiences on what should happen when so as to avoid unnecessary expense and heartache. As usual, thanks for your war stories.

2

I have remodeled my kitchen.
First have a budget, next make a plan.
Make a list of all the things you want in the new kitchen such as:

[ul]
[li]new fridge[/li][li]new microwave[/li][li]granite counter tops[/li][li]Oak cabinets[/li][li]Wolf stove[/li][/ul]
You get the idea.
Make a detailed plan of your existing kitchen with accurate dimensions. Note where water pipes and gas pipes are.
Now comes the fun part go look at cabinets, and all the other stuff on the list, pickup catalogs.
draw pictures, make plans. (one thing that works for me is using graph paper and making cutouts of things and placing them here and there.

A store like Lowes or Home Depot will draw plans for you for free. (We had a set done by HD) find out how much all that wonderful stuff will cost. Don’t forget about labor if you are not DIY. Start paring the list down to meet the budget. When you see the price, you may start to like formica more and more, compared to granite. :smiley:

Once you have a pretty good idea of what you want, then go find a contractor / kitchen designer.

3

Buy a grill and live on the porch

4

A good start but I suggest going a step further - set up a temporary kitchen somewhere else in your house. If yoru house is set up so it can accomidate a 2nd ‘kitchen’ such as a wet bar, construct it before you start ripping things apart. Try to get a working sink for a temp kitchen sink, a el-cheapo small stove/oven can be had for about $200 and can make life so much easier, move the refridiator to the temp kitchen (the small bar fridge is too small for a main fridge.

If you don’t have room for it you may consider doing what I did, remodel your kitchen in parts - and mine was a total remodel right down to ripping up the sheetrock, floors, ceiling and 1 wall totally removed. Since I was moving the sink from one side to another I was able to leave the countertop with the sink while working around it (the cabinetts under had to be removed). This gave me a working sink and a dishwasher which frequently got moved for work. When one side was ready, the sink was moved to the opposite side to allow me to work on the side that had the sink.

This piecemeal system did extend the time of the project about 25% but I almost always had a working kitchen of some type.

5

Remodelling your kitchen or bath will take nerves of steel, 20% more money and time than what you planned, and more tears and misery than you ever thought possible.

I recommend it highly.

I’m serious about the 20% more time/money. Get better cabinets and flooring than what you planned. The rest is fluff. I agree with the poster who said to lay it out on graph paper (I use CAD). Some of the Home Depot people are pretty good, all things considered. Make up a Master Plan and prioritize the items to phase in, if necessary. Stick to the plan unless you want to go 30-40% over budget.

Also, this remodelling will make a mess of the rest of your house. It can take ages to get rid of drywall dust out of your sound system.

6

Wow! Thanks for your replies. You wouldn’t believe the remodelling magazines I’ve bought and drooled over. I’ll get to work measuring the kitchen and drawing in the graph paper. There’s one good thing about remodelling a small space–reality strikes and you have to scale back your fantasies. Oh by the way, I don’t plan on doing any of the work myself unless it’s painting. I do know my limitations.

7

Oh by the way, which would you all recommend? A home equity line of credit or just refinance and pull out enough money for the remodelling? My eyes keep glazing over when ever I try to understand the advantages and disadvantages of either scenario.

8

When selecting a contractor, talk to prior customers about work habits and cleanliness. I’ve learned to use isolation walls, vacuum sanders, and other control measures to minimize the mess made during a remodel.

Some people are great at their craftsmanship, but are total slobs, and seem to miss the fact that the latter drives many a customer up the wall.

9

I redid my kitchen last winter, simply put the fridge, microwave, coffee maker and kitchen table in the living room for the duration, and the grill on the porch. A reasonably good contractor shouldn’t take longer than a few days, at most a full week if the gas/water lines are being moved.

Don’t forget to think of lighting on your list of things to do. Adding cupboards and an extra countertop improved my kitchen greatly, but it’s really all the extra/better light fixtures I put in that I find myself appreciating the most.

To cut down on the drywall dust, change your filters, presuming the AC is running. A full filter can’t trap much dust, and it’ll fill up amazingly fast.

IANA financial consultant, but one advantage over pulling the money out of the equity is that it’s a finite amount. You can force yourself to stick to a budget easier that way perhaps? I’m not too sure how home equity lines of credit work, I might be way off base.

10

:eek: Without knowing the scope of the project, I submit that statement to be part of the perception problem in remodeling. Drywall compound needs to fully dry before painting, etc. The kitchen fairies cannot make it happen overnight.

Even if I’m using subcontractors, which I try to avoid for quality control reasons, there is a limit to how many people can safely and effectively work in the same room. For example, if the customer wants a ceramic tile floor, there is zero-no exception-foot traffic on that floor until it has fully cured. Perhaps I’m overly cautious, but to date knock wood I’ve never had a callback on any of my ceramic jobs, and I’ve fixed problems for those who did rush the project.

Are there two 20 amp small appliance branch circuits in the existing kitchen? If not, an upgrade should be performed for compliance with the 2002 National Electric Code©. Does the existing cooking appliance vent to the building exterior? If not, it should for indoor air quality reasons. If the footprint of the kitchen is being changed, that may be an easy or not so easy venture.

All of this stated, if the contractor has pulled permits with the Authority Having Jurisdiction, it is a crap shoot regarding having rough plumbing & electrical inspections performed in a timely manner such that the walls can be closed. Some municipalities are out the next day, some may have a several week lead time.

My preference is to err on the side of reality.

11

I’m a former kitchen installer and kitchen designer. I’m going to assume you are using a GC who has different subs for their respective trades. I’m a bit :dubious: of guys who claim to do it all.

A week? Maybe if they are just doing a quick swap the cabinets with no improvement in design, no work on the floor, HD postformed counters with no templating. And of course, painting is right out, that’s 3 days minimum right there!

I wouldn’t do that to my kitchen, Its just cosmetic wouldn’t help you who wants to improve counter space and reconfigure mechanicals.

Lets see…assuming you have a plan, cabinets ordered and on schedule, counter people who can drop whatever they are doing and run over to your place as soon as your bases are set…and the kitchen fairies are in full swing:

Demolition:4 days+ depending on what floor you are on. This includes isolation walls, setting up temp kitchen, pulling all the old fixtures and casework.

Rough Carpentry: Any framing or structural work needs to be done now before the wood butchers get in there. 1 day is ideal but I’d give it two.

Rough mechanicals: These guys can’t work at the same time. So say 2-3 days for the plumbers, a day for the electrician (more like 4 if they have to upgrade the service), remember by this time you have eaten up 7-9 days, so you have to add in at least one weekend, maybe two.

Drywall: at least a couple days, plenty of time to cure, then back again for sanding, wait some more, then second coat and sanding. PREP IS ESSENTIAL! a sloppy job drywalling will ruin the best painting job, at best it will add 3 days to the painters estimate as he will have excessive amounts of paint prep to do. Yes, the drywall guys prep AND the paint guys prep.

Whoops, another weekend.

Floor: talk to dances about how long that will take. Tile you are looking at a loooong day to set and another to cure. Wood floors you can set, then cover with kraft paper and masonite. In any case we are looking at a couple days, prob 2.5 by the time they are gone.

Cabinets: depending on the guys and the complexity of the job, your bases can be set in a day, maybe 1.5. This allows the counter guys to come in, do there template and get to work. Then the walls, talls, and trim can be done. 3 piece dentil moulding, light valance, decorative posts and stuff? Add a week.

Oh this is a good time to come in with the finish electrical, so you can see a bit better and correct any light placement problems before its too late.
We are also setting the appliances now, no hooking up yet!

Hey! another weekend!

(we at a month yet? I forget.)

OK, the counter guys are back, If we thought ahead, we had them mount the sink and faucet to the top so we just have to hook it up without killing our back. We can do our appliance hook ups now.

In the ideal world we would be done now, but if you’ve read this far, you surely relize that never happens, Give a couple weeks for punch lists, missing/damaged/ordered wrong items to show up and be installed.

A week? sorry to deflate your hopes, but good kitchen installs are big complex, messy, and frustrating affairs. I’m damn glad I don’t do project management anymore!

12

One more chuckle at the one week comment. We just did a total tear out and remodel this spring. We were back in cooking in one month, but we still aren’t 100% done. My only advise is to get lots of estimates and designs. We had one designer who drew up five different designs, and none worked for us. Finally, a contractor who came from a word of mouth recommendation came out, and in about two hours we had our dream kitchen design.

We did a refinance so we basically let our house pay for the new kitchen. Probably the thing we like the most is something that several people told us was crazy… we put in hardwood floors. They are beautiful, and with the new finishes are guaranteed for longer than linolium. My wife really wanted a solid surface countertop, but it would have cost over $5,000 more than the formica. We got a beveled edge on them, and most people assume they are the solid surface.

If you need tips on how to re-heat pizza on a grill, let me know.