Planning my kitchen remodel

[RearAdmiral]

I'm planning my remodel right now. I received two quotes so far that will be north of 30k with materials. Based on how complicated(not very) I think my remodel will be and my current house value / neighborhood I do not feel like paying that much.

After those quotes my wife and I went to Ikea and built our kitchen using their modeler. 15% off sale going on there and 20% off sale going on with semihandmadedoors for DIY unfinished shaker doors(I would spray these) would probably save us 5 grand on cabinets while only sacrificing wood cabinet boxes but gaining wood / mdf fronts instead of laminate. We didn't really like any of the ikea fronts. They also seem quite simple to install. Man some traditional cabinet places are a rip off though...Laminate fronts with wood boxes = 9k or more.

We want to put down hardwood with some stone around the front door entry way. We will also have an island with our sink, dishwasher and a couple more cabinets. We are thinking of doing the 2-level island with seating for the 2nd level. I'll farm out drywall, electrical and plumbing but I more or less plan on doing everything else myself. Should save me about 10k or so combined with ikea / semihandmade cabs.

Seems we will have to paint the cabinets a boring color cause resale...zzz. My wife likes some navy blue fronts she saw. I could always repaint them but that wouldn't be too fun come house selling time. We will be doing all the demo including ripping up the flooring(parquet) in the adjacent hallway to replace that flooring too. We will also do all the painting.

I'll have to post some pics shortly but I wanted to start documenting now.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Awesome. Have used the ikea cabinets in a couple houses. Love the ease of install. Never knew about semihandmadedoors. Great tip.

The house I am in now needs a total gut and kitchen re-do. I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Awesome. Have used the ikea cabinets in a couple houses. Love the ease of install. Never knew about semihandmadedoors. Great tip.

The house I am in now needs a total gut and kitchen re-do. I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck.

The semi doors seem great. I'll be able to add a pretty custom cabinet look to them so that the kitchen doesn't scream ikea when you walk in. I hated the feeling of their laminate. Check that, I hate the feeling of all the laminate except for semihandmade's SuperMatte. There is a bit of texture there that really is quite nice. Their DIY shakers are wood frame and MDF panel. Painting them should look really nice, a lot of blogger people are going this route. Plus I can always touch stuff up when we are ready to sell! We have until about the 15th of August to order everything cabinet related.

Just need to verify that the wall we are knocking down isn't load bearing. Joists seem to run parallel with it so we should be fine.

 

[herm0016]

We did our kitchen last year. Custom unfinished cabinets with all plywood boxes selft/soft close, high end appliances bought used including sub zero, dacor, commercial island hood. Painted the cabinets myself with Sherwin Williams pro classic. Came out great and total cost was about 10k. We did the whole main level in solid hickory flooring for another 5k. About 1200 sqft.


Going to install yourself? Check out cliq studio as well, did a kitchen for a friend a few months ago with their cabinets, good quality with a few minor cosmetic issues that they fixed quickly. The ikea stuff is great when you put it in, but the partial board boxes don't last 20 years like a good ply cabinet will.

 

[RearAdmiral]

We did our kitchen last year. Custom unfinished cabinets with all plywood boxes selft/soft close, high end appliances bought used including sub zero, dacor, commercial island hood. Painted the cabinets myself with Sherwin Williams pro classic. Came out great and total cost was about 10k. We did the whole main level in solid hickory flooring for another 5k. About 1200 sqft.


Going to install yourself? Check out cliq studio as well, did a kitchen for a friend a few months ago with their cabinets, good quality with a few minor cosmetic issues that they fixed quickly. The ikea stuff is great when you put it in, but the partial board boxes don't last 20 years like a good ply cabinet will.

Nice, I pretty much bought all new appliances when I bought the house as it was empty(foreclosure) so I am good there. I'd like a really nice, wide plank (>5") floor, any thoughts on that? I hope to install the cabinets by myself. I may need help to install the rail that the cabinets go on but otherwise it doesn't seem horrible. The ikea stuff does have a 25 year warranty, I can't see it really failing based on that. Who knows though.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Unless you know without a shadow of a doubt you're moving in 3 years or less, picking colors or materials based on resale is just silly. You live in your house NOT future buyers.

 

[herm0016]

We did every scrap of work ourselves. Our flooring is solid 3/4 thick 2 1/4 wide pre finish hickory made by Bruce. Nailed with cleats, not staples. Wide plank is a lot more expensive. I looked into it and it doubled my material cost. Installers wanted between 100 and 200% of material cost to install also. I have not installed the ikea stuff. It's all about getting the first one perfect, and building off that. As long as the rail is level it should be easy. Throw away the provided plastic leveling feet and build a separate toe kick frame that is perfectly flat and level, then set the boxes on it.

 

[shortylickens]

Something I learned at the current house:
Do NOT install an island. It makes things impossible when you wanna replace appliances.
If you need an extra work surface, use something with wheels so it doesnt block any space.

 

[herm0016]

Something I learned at the current house:
Do NOT install an island. It makes things impossible when you wanna replace appliances.
If you need an extra work surface, use something with wheels so it doesnt block any space.

No way. If correctly designed, it will not hamper you. We moved our range to a 5 foot x 6 foot island and love the space. There is about 4 feet between our island and the wall cabinets.

 

[RearAdmiral]

I don't really see how I can't install an island if we remodel. I cannot do an L shape unless I way complicate things. We should be okay. I did a bit more work on the ikea planner, getting my filler pieces set right. Let me see if I can get some pics from that soon.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Here are a couple ikea renderings. I've just been poking around with different floor / wall / cab / countertop colors lately. The island will not be that far away, it just makes it easier to see from a modeling perspective. We also cannot seem to get a countertop onto the second level of the island or the dishwasher so you can just pretend.

 

[herm0016]

Do you need the back of the island raised? You will have more work space if you keep it flat, also it makes it feel more open.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Do you need the back of the island raised? You will have more work space if you keep it flat, also it makes it feel more open.

Not necessarily. My wife initially wants the two level thing so people can sit and such at the island. We are talking about 1 vs 2 level still.

 

[herm0016]

We just got lower bar stools, we sit there all the time.

 

[tenthumbs]

We had a very poor experience using IKEA in Emeryville CA. They're great at utilizing technology to visualize and fit your kitchen. But we had trouble getting all the parts and pieces together. Some were sold out and we had to wait for availability. IKEA doesn't tell you when parts are available, we had to go online almost daily. In the meantime we had a gutted kitchen and a pile of stuff in our living room for two months until we finally had everything onsite. Installation took three days plus installation of the countertop. Scheduling the counter top team was also very difficult. This was two years ago. Now that our kitchen is installed, we're finding it's not very durable. I would never go to IKEA for kitchen cabinets again.

Hopefully things have changed and you have a smooth and successful experience.

 

[Greenman]

We had a very poor experience using IKEA in Emeryville CA. They're great at utilizing technology to visualize and fit your kitchen. But we had trouble getting all the parts and pieces together. Some were sold out and we had to wait for availability. IKEA doesn't tell you when parts are available, we had to go online almost daily. In the meantime we had a gutted kitchen and a pile of stuff in our living room for two months until we finally had everything onsite. Installation took three days plus installation of the countertop. Scheduling the counter top team was also very difficult. This was two years ago. Now that our kitchen is installed, we're finding it's not very durable. I would never go to IKEA for kitchen cabinets again.

Hopefully things have changed and you have a smooth and successful experience.

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. I've installed a couple of Ikea kitchens and decided they were alright for bottom of the barrel kitchens. If you build your own toe kicks and mount them solidly they work, but they're not something you can expect to last 20 years.

I went to the Emeryville Ikea once, I'll never go back again. If that place ever catches on fire thousands will burn to death, there's no way out.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Updates:

We had a third contractor come in, so now we have 3 quotes. We may end up going with this guy. We would get Wolf cabinets, which seem like more budget minded cabinets but at least they are wood. They will be a couple grand more than Ikea but will hopefully hold up better. He has been very happy with installing them thus far.

Otherwise we are looking at countertops as well, we like the look / feel of leathered granite but we are still working through that. May go with Brazilian Koa flooring to get a good mix of looks, durability, and less susceptible to shrinkage compared to other, harder brazilian woods.

Also looking at installing a whole house humidifier and sealing up my basement with some rigid foam insulation / great stuff / silicone caulk. The original part of the house is old enough to not actually have traditional rim joists, so I imagine air is just floating in / out of the basement. I'm going to seal those up and also replace my 2nd floor recessed lights with ICAT housing and cover those back up with insulation.