Posted on 04/08/2023 9:54:41 AM PDT by The Louiswu
Hello all. My wife and I are buying a house and we need to demo and remodel the kitchen. I have been looking for generic timeline samples and lists of things that need to be done and questions to ask of contractors but I'm not having much luck.
Question: Is anyone here a contractor or has experience with home kitchen remodels that might be willing to help me find relevant materials to make the job go smoother.
Thanks
Learn Spanish
“””First thing: take a DETAILED measure of the space. I mean EVERTHING. Switches, outlets, gas supply, plumbing, lighting, all cabinetry, Windows, doorways, moldings, ceiling height, soffit(?)....then go from there.
I agree about what others have said about cabs from the big box stores. Their “designers” are morons. Hire a designers isn’t incentivised by selling product. Get a good design for the kitchen that will serve your cooking needs, and then go shopping.”””
Good advice. Before calling a kitchen designer, do a detailed measurement of the kitchen.
Next, go to Lowes/Home Depot and pick up copies of their kitchen catalogs to look through and give you ideas of what you want the final product to look like.
Next do a detailed layout of what you want.
Once you have a good idea of what you want, then is the time to call about two kitchen designers to visit your home and get a layout and quote from them. Also contact a couple of czbinet makers to have them give you a quote.
Get a screw driver and remove the existing cabinets yourself. Kitchen cabinets can be repurposed to the garage.
“”Agreed, and do the tear-down yourself. For two people it’s a piece of cake. You may need a plumber to cap off the water supply lines. I did mine a few years ago and they quoted me $3k just for the demo, did that myself and recycled the cabinets.””
What a fantastic learning experience for the typical homeowner, when it is over the homeowner knows a lot about what the contractors will be doing and have a good idea of how things are done, and a familiarity with how things are built and installed.
We just went through a kitchen and bathroom remodel… we repurposed a lot of materials (for example, the hardwoods taken out of the bathroom were reused for part of the kitchen). Cabinets and such were reused. That saved a surprising amount of money. The cost of materials more than made up for the extra labor.
I also saved some by doing the finishing touches (staining/painting) myself
Reminder to install lights and an electrical outlet under the kitchen sink. Also room for a trash container under the sink.< Do not skimp on outlets around the room, walls and counter tops. These items had been an irritant to me in previous houses and we took care of them when we renovated, and gutted room by room, our present house.
Something that people who aren’t on a budget should think of when shopping at Home Depot and Lowes is, “am I buying the same products that everyone in town is buying?”
Whether a remodel, a landscaping retaining wall, or light fixture for the bathroom, or something for out in the yard, if you can afford it look for things the box stores don’t carry.
When you see something at the box stores that is perfect for you, just remember that everyone else is seeing it also.
The same exact item.
Gas range only. Put it in the corner of the kitchen next to an outside wall.
At our age, we’re not getting into a major remodel, but I sure wish we had a different setup.
Amen to that! Including the materials being installed, unless you watch the installation like a hawk.
Aside from other advise here, take note that this is your golden opportunity to open up a wall or two, move or add gas lines to add a gas range on an island, add a cool hood vent, and chose timeless granite selections or quartz! All such decisions can add huge value in the future for when you sell.
I’m a residential renovator, so feel free to send me your contact info and I’ll help you every step of the way! My whole job is to save $$$ on my flips! Easy!
Best, Billy
Since he said he could procure materials from his company I assume they were OK with side gigs....I guess because they’d still be making money on the stone.
I’ve never heard of a company that allows its workers to steal their customers.
I wouldn’t trust a worker that is undermining his employer.
We did our kitchen about ten years ago and it turned out great. There are only two things we would have done differently.
The big key to our success was planning, LOTS of planning. We spent a LOT of time thinking about how we should arrange things, listing our likes and dislikes about the old kitchen (which was built in the early 60s), what worked and didn’t work. I read lots of article about kitchen design. We measured all of the things we wanted to store in the cabinets and worked up design variations to accommodate them. We did the demo ourselves and then laid out the new design in blue tape on the floor. We sweated every detail like how much clearance did we want for esthetics between the range hood and the adjacent cabinets, how much space between the window molding on the window over the sink and the adjoining cabinets, precise location of ceiling can and pendant lights, how to use the space over the fridge, etc. I mocked up some of the cabinets in corrugated cardboard to give us a good physical feel for things. We specified EVERY dimension on our drawings. We did hire a kitchen designer to help us sweat some of the details at the end and make the fabrication drawings.
Think ahead about the design as you get older. Also think about things that you might want to splurge on which you can do in the design phase. We put in a heated floor in the kitchen and dining area. It is sure nice to have on cold winter mornings. We turn it off around April and back on around October. It runs a couple hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening. There’s nothing like it!
Bottom line...think ahead not just today, but some years down the road. Sweat the details. Then sweat them again. You cannot spend enough time on broad design, detailed design, and thinking about the details over and over. Take your time in this phase. Be sure to hire good craftsmen and check references.
Take care of things that will be hard to fix later on. We cut an access hold in our subfloor for the plumber and electrician. We changed out the 50 year old iron drain pipes that ran under the kitchen with ABS to make sure we wouldn’t have to deal with leaks in the future.
What were the few things we would have done differently?
1. The cookbook and microwave cabinet to the left of the range was about one inch too shallow. The microwave fit fine, but the bigger cookbooks wouldn’t fit because I forgot to account for the loss of depth caused by the mounting rail in the back of the cabinet! Check the depth of EVERYTHING you will store in a cabinet.
2. The faucet is about an inch too close to the backsplash. The faucet handle pushes back for hot water and pulls forward for cold water, left and right for on/off. There is clearance between the backsplash and faucet handle when I’ve got hot water turned on, but not enough for my hand. I should have made that cabinet an inch deeper.
3. I gave the appliance specs to the designer and builder. The GE Profile refrigerator spec had the appliance height on it and we built the enclosing cabinet to that spec. When we took delivery of the refrigerator, it was a half-inch taller!! The spec sheet that came with the fridge showed the correct height, but that sheet differed from the spec sheet the store gave us even though they both had the exact same model number and date!! I have never seen that before. If you are doing built-in appliances, be sure to measure the actual physical appliance and do NOT go by the spec sheet!
4. The electrician installed one single-gang box a couple degrees out of plumb. I saw the problem when he roughed it in and I thought he would correct his mistake. He never did fix it and I didn’t remind him. I should have nagged and nagged him on it. To this day, that outlet cover plate is slightly askew. Nobody sees it but me, but my eye goes right to it.
During construction, check EVERYTHING EVERY DAY and tell the builders about mistakes. It’s easy to fix things before the sheetrock and tile go on. I’ve still got one cabinet edge in the dishwasher recess where the cabinet maker didn’t install a small cherry panel (you have to look at the floor to see it). It still bugs me he never installed that.
Your eye will always go to your own mistakes!
I have a kitchen but don’t pay any attention to it as long as the microwave works
Do the soft close stuff…yourself. It gets easy.
Done fast, cheap, or right. Pick two.
LOL...I’ve been doing a LOT of cooking since inflation took off. Our outings to restaurants are WAY down.
BKMK
Funny we should be talking about this. A neighbor stopped me about a half hour ago and was asking about our countertops so I pulled out the paperwork.
I couldn’t remember all the details since it was in 2017.
Turns out the installer was a subcontractor for the company not a direct employee.....I guess that explains it.
I don’t see the difference, but be leery of crooks.
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