Hold Me....They are tearing out my Kitchen

[The empressof all]

No cooking for at least a month.....

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear empressof all!

Try to relax and enjoy the process!

You will have a wonderful new space to cook in...

[Autumn]

2. OMG. No cooking for at least a month!!!

I envy you.

[HappyMe]

20. I was thinking the same thing.

I like to cook, but there's no harm in a little time off.

[Autumn]

21. I'm trying to convince my Husband on a kitchen make over, I want to

rip out the cabinets, counters, sink stove, and the fridge. I want to put in a small wet bar and a pool table and a wine and beer fridge. The microwave can stay.

[HappyMe]

22. That sounds like a plan.

The landlord would be a bit disappointed in me though.

[The empressof all]

27. We are talking pool table too!

The area off our kitchen is rather useless as a family room. We have been talking about putting in a pool table with a convertible table top to use for large family gatherings. The trick is finding a reasonably priced pool table (IE: used or even free!) that has legs that I can live with. God those things are hideous.

[Warpy]

3. All you need is a cheap hotplate and a toaster oven.

You'd be surprised what that combo can produce.

[The empressof all]

9. Yes. Have a make shift camp kitchen in bathroom

I have microwave and trusty electric pressure cooker/rice cooker set up. Have a pod type coffee pot for less mess and I am not opposed to take out as needed, which will be often. We are fine. I will miss cooking holiday meals but I'm getting work done at a discount because most folks don't want this kind of work done in their homes during the holiday. So the way I am trying to look at it is that I will be keeping a few guys employed over the holiday season

[angstlessk]

4. Are you going to get a new one..or just be left with a hole

where your kitchen used to be?

Got pics of your new kitchen, if there is one?

[The empressof all]

8. Yes getting a new one!

It's exciting but I'm overwhelmed. I still need to pick out back splash tiling and flooring. It will be fine when it's done it's just surviving this process and not ending up in divorce court. : :

[sinkingfeeling]

5. I know the feeling. They're tearing out my bathroom!

[greatauntoftriplets]

6. Think of how nice it'll be when completed.

[The empressof all]

11. I know...It was just one of those days where I thought I would have to contact the divorce lawyer

It will all be great in the end if we just survive the process....

[japple]

7. Who are these entities and why are "They" tearing out your kitchen?

Should we send in reinforcements? Or just wait for updates?

I wish they would tear out both of my bathrooms.

[The empressof all]

10. I am doing a bathroom next

Thank goodness I have two so it shouldn't be too bad. But am that won't be until late next year. I need to save up again

[maddezmom]

12. Yikes.....

You will be fine in the end but the next 30 days or so are going to be a killer.

[The empressof all]

14. Lets just hope it doesn't take much longer than that....

My best guess actually is that it will take closer to two months with our weather and coordinating between the experts...(plumbers, electricians, tile guys, solid counter precision template makers then the cutters and installers) It's mind boggling complicated how many fricken people are going to be involved in redoing this tiny little kitchen. And I just found out that there is in fact brick too close to extend my pantry as we had hoped....My dreams are being crushed daily........ It's Day one and I'm already sick to my stomach...

Everyone is gone now....They will be back at 7 in the morning....to what new fresh hell will find me....

[maddezmom]

19. Didn't want to say it

But my parents did a major redo years ago...was supposed to take about a month. Started in the spring and finished in the fall. They basically lived at the club. Then a few years ago after a visit to my house my mom decided she wanted she wanted to get new counter tops....was supposed to take 4 days start to finish and it was a week and a half due to some complications with the demo. They both have said they are now done with remodels or any sort. Although they were just talking about pulling up all the carpet and refinishing all the hardwood underneath....so who knows.

[The empressof all]

24. I just did my floors

They are so gorgeous they make me cry....I never thought I would have anything that beautiful in my house. Seriously worth the effort and expense. I was just glad most of my stuff is still in pods waiting to be moved in. (For those of you who don't remember...I just moved into this little house in Sept and going through a total beautifying remake.) Your parents will not regret getting the floors done. If they are refinishing rather than installing they will need to leave for two weeks at least. My guys just pulled up carpet and tile and laid floors around me as I traveled from room to room. It took one guy about a week to lay about 1200 square feet but he was a beast and worked 10 hours straight. Loved Him and LOVE my floors.

[MrMickeysMom]

13. Tell us what your renewed kitchen will be like, empress of all!

I'll have my own kitchen project this coming year, and I'd enjoy hearing!

[The empressof all]

15. Well the basic foot print will be changed just a bit

My kitchen is small and there is no way to make it larger so I am actually increasing my storage by removing cabinets....Crazy right?

I went with an Ikea kitchen which will give me more drawers and organization on the bottom cabinets. I am removing a useless peninsula and adding a rolling island and new lighting as well. I am Moving the dishwasher and adding a corner cabinet. So I am doubling my storage below. I got a big honking faucet and double sink in front of my window and beautiful quartz countertops. I am going with GE Cafe series appliances including the double gas oven and counter depth trio fridge.

The upper cabinets were awkward and hard for me to reach anyway so I am taking the whole wall by the stove and adding a big chimney hood and covering that entire wall with tile. It will be the showstopper in the kitchen. I am putting down tile floors in the kitchen and little dining area next to it.

This will probably be our final home and so I am trying to fulfill some dreams while staying within a relatively reasonable budget. For me it's a grand expense....but I am putting people to work and trying not to feel guilty about spending money on something frivolous.

We had hoped to enlarge our small pantry closet but looks like that may not be possible as of right now... Hopefully they will figure out a work around.

I'll try to get a before picture up tomorrow to show you what was taken out

[MrMickeysMom]

16. I find this interesting for similar needs...

I have a small house, period, but the kitchen, which I would love to spend quality time in, has similar needs. I'd like to see the pictures when you do it.

Right now, I have to run down to the rec room (finished basement) to get to my pantry. I have wasted space and frankly, I need to move cook materials without killing myself anymore. We don't plan to move again, either.

[csziggy]

28. If you room to put in one or two of the IKEA pantry cabinets

That might take care of your storage needs. I have IKEA cabinets and in the hall I have one 30"wide x 24"deep x 80"tall pantry cabinets, with a small 15"wide x 12"deep x 80"tall on the side. Between those two, I can store just about as much as I did in the 6' x24" full pantry our old house.

In the big pantry, I put in full depth drawers up to the height I could see in, then doors above. The drawers make it so much easier to store stuff and to find things! The small pantry is mostly canned and bottled storage - perfect for soups and jams.

With the two pantry cabinets just outside the kitchen in the hall (tucked under the stairs), they are handy to access. In the shorter area under the stairs behind the pantries, we built in a broom closet, then behind that is a set of drawers for our tools. The really short space left under the stairs is for the cat box and cat litter. We used every inch of space!

[The empressof all]

29. Yes doing something similar now to my pantry closet

We had hoped to get an Ikea pantry in there but our current closet pantry wasn't deep enough and we hit brick so we called a local closet guy and he will be able to retrofit the current space with drawers and it will have an Ikea door to match the cabinets. There are only two of us here now so we don't need to keep the Costco stock piles any longer. Sigh....Maybe if I keep telling myself that..I will eventually believe it..

[csziggy]

30. Yes, the IKEA doors can be retro fit to other cabinets

If you need help for ideas on customizing cabinets or drilling templates to put doors or drawers in, check out the IKEA Fans forum - http://www.ikeafans.com/

They are IKEA fanatics and have loads of ideas on how to use IKEA cabinet components in innovative ways. I got a lot of great ideas for my kitchen - for instance, putting deep drawers above the refrigerator for storing cereals. Deep in that they are 22" front to back, not tall. It is so handy to be able to pull out those drawers and reach up for the boxes and not take up lower cabinet space for them!

And you know that you can change your cabinets interiors after they are installed? I switched some drawers around after we were moved in. I love how flexible the IKEA components are!

[The empressof all]

31. I am totally in love with the cabinets so far

And they aren't even installed! I will be pretty much doubling my storage just by using the drawers and the corner organizer cabinets. Plus I will have a dedicated spice cabinet and more cutlery/tool drawers. On top of it I will have some of the pull out wire bins. I also got some of the rail systems for the wall...Thinking herb garden next to the window.

I love love love the idea of the drawer above the fridge. But alas I can't reach that high anyway so I will be using that space for stuff I never use but can't quite let go of yet.

I searched high and low for cabinets and looked at custom built as well. Hands down for what I needed Ikea couldn't be beat for quality and cost. They will be easy for me to keep clean and give me enough storage to keep things off the countertops.

What style did you get? I went with the Lidingo which is pretty traditional. My Ikea offers quartz counter tops as well so I am getting mine there as well. I got Wild Rice which is sort of a greigy brown. Much more attractive than it sounds. I really also loved the Adel cabinet which was very Shaker-like...and of course I agonized far too long over color. The one thing I learned about myself in this entire process is that I really didn't like having a world of choices open to me. It was just too hard to not second and third guess everything. It was a bit of a frightening revelation.

[csziggy]

32. Same with me - I looked at a lot of cabinets

And even tried to talk to local builders (who couldn't be bothered to return calls!). For the cost and flexibility, the IKEA won hands down.

In addition, the IKEA cabinets are low VOC and with my allergies I had to have that. Some of the local cabinet builders advertised oil finish only or other materials I can't be around. Even straight out of the box the IKEA cabinets didn't set off my allergies.

I used Tidaholm oak in my kitchen, a style now discontinued. It's sort of a Shaker style with finger joints at the corners and a perfect style to go with my house. I used STÅT in the bathrooms so they were neutral colors. Oh - my kitchen sink is the IKEA Domsjo sink. We got the original for $99 in the As Is room - it had a small defect under the bottom that didn't show at all. The tile guy broke it and had to replace it, but even by then the price on that big farm apron sink was only $299.

I went against current wisdom and used tile counters - a dark blue 18" square tile with very precise edges so the grout line is tiny, then put the darkest blue grout make in. The building inspector thought it was soapstone, which is exactly the effect I wanted. I couldn't find or afford soapstone and the tile has been great.

The back splash is mostly white Georgia marble we bought from a state surplus sale. It came out of the Florida capitol building when they restored it. My husband's step grandfather had sold the marble to the state so it is a sentimental thing for him. I found a place that prints images on tile and PhotoShopped a picture of our farm with our horses and had that printed on tumbled marble. That's the back splash behind the cooktop.

I was going to send you a link to my blog with the kitchen pictures, then remembered I never took photos of the finished kitchen. I need to clean it up and do that!

[dem in texas]

17. I'm Jealous

I wish I could afford a kitchen makeover. My kitchen is time warp - 1970s/

[The empressof all]

33. I hear ya....

We did a minor cosmetic renovation on a 70's kitchen in our last house before we sold it. You might be surprised at what you can do if you or someone you know is a little handy. We resurfaced our countertops with a product by Rustoleum....Here's a link:

http://rustoleumtransformations.com/

Our kitchen came out great and allowed us to sell the house at a much better price.


On this house...I am spending more than I ever thought I would on home renovations but it's my final home and I am spending the kids inheritance. And thanks to our sweat equity in our last house I have a bit of cash to use now. I never had this kind of opportunity to indulge myself. And even though a number of contractors wouldn't touch us because we couldn't spend "that" much....it's still a lot to me and I would imagine many people.

[pinto]

18. Hang in there. My sister & BIL did the whole gamut a while back. Cooked outside when feasible (CA).

Set up a mini kitchen in the garage - crock pot, microwave, electric skillet, etc. Already had a refrigerator and freezer there so stuff was at hand. Did a fair amount of take out meals.

After it all, they were ecstatic with the space remodel.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

23. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt

As far as I was concerned, the worst part was doing the washing-up in the bathroom sink.

[The empressof all]

25. Here is the before picture just prior to tear out

[IMG][/IMG]

To the left is a small walk way through the room and a wall that houses the fridge and a small counter with upper and lower cabinets. The peninsula in front here is now removed and will be replaced by a rolling cart that can be moved out into the eating area as needed. I actually really love a white kitchen but this got to be a bit much. I am removing the upper cabinets shown here and replacing the lower cabinets with Ikea in white. Where the stove is will be tiled in glass tile with a large hood. The black dishwasher is moving to the other side of the sink and all the appliances are being replaced. There will be storage where the dishwasher is and another additional set of large drawers for dishes and flatware next to the dishwasher....The cabinets next to the fridge will be replaced with pot drawers and upper cabinets for glassware and microwave cabinet.

I think what I am most looking forward to is not having to clean the grout in the tile counter top

[Phentex]

26. It's exciting!

and we get to live vicariously through you.

Yeah, tile counter tops was an idea that most people later regretted.

Look forward to your progress reports!

[spinbaby]

34. We had that done in 1998

Right down to the studs. I dealt with it by abandoning my husband to the contractors and leaving town until it was done. Wish I'd stayed, though, because they installed one of the cabinets upside down so the door opens the wrong way.