At least I do.
Sorry, I never bothered to take pictures before turning it into a work zone.
THE THOUGHT PROCESSES:
Plan A: When looking at the house prior to making my offer I planned to repaint the cabinets (DIY) and get a new fridge. That'd run me about $2,000 because fridges are expensive. Oh well. If (and only if) I came in under budget, I'd consider changing the counters.
Plan B: During the inspection, I discovered how nasty the range was. No way I could cook my frozen pizzas in there. Plan B became Plan A + a new range. And if I'm getting a new range, I might as well get a new dishwasher and range vent because no point in having almost all new appliances. Now I'm guesstimating around $3,500. Beads of sweat roll down my forehead.
Then what had happened was the night after closing I come over to start some projects and help my roomie move in. The more I look at or thought about the kitchen, the more I just got generally skeeved out. As in, I didn't want to unpack my kitchen stuff or store food in this place.
[Repeat after me: you are not a princess, you are not a princess. You can live like this because you are not a princess.]
The cabinets were original to the house (built in 1978) and at some point were painted from a very dark wood to white. The insides were still dark and basically black holes. I had no idea what (or who) was living back there. The counters were actually floor tiles that were slightly sticky to the touch, no matter how hard you tried to clean them. Add poorly maintained grout to the equation and it became clear the counters were goners too.
I debated getting the cabinets professionally painted (inside and out, around $500 because no way I was DIYing the black holes). Then I imagined what all could go wrong as we removed the old counters, damaging my freshly painted cabinets possibly past the point of repair. I also considered what happens if I spent all that money and the old cabinets still grossed me out. Or what if I spent all that money just to want a full kitchen reno down the line. I hate being wasteful with my money more than I hate going over budget.
At this point, I was starting to accept the inevitability of a full kitchen overhaul as well as recognize the benefits.
Have a kitchen I love right from the get-go.
Be proud to host friends or family without having to tell them how much I hate the kitchen or how I plan to re-do it.
Not paying a ton of money to half-ass something.
My mind was made up, but now I had to figure out how to do this as economically as possibly. Remember, I only budgeted about $2,000-$2,500 to make the kitchen livable when I made my offer. Every penny over that hurt my heart.
THE SELECTION PROCESS:
I looked into Ikea kitchens, but was a little taken back by the costs. While still very economical as far as kitchen remodels go (about $3,500 for basic components in my layout) I was living in a constant state of sticker shock. On top of that, I'm not in love their new Sektion cabinets. Everyone else in blog-land may disagree with me on this so don't get me wrong, they look great. They just don't feel great.
The inside boxes are MDF either in white-white or espresso, neither of which really jived with my aesthetic. Several of the cabinet faces (including all the white/off-white styles) are made of a plastic feeling material so to get the feel of wood I'd have to go for one oak style available and finish them myself. My only other option was to get custom made fronts (like Semi Handmade), but that did nothing to help my bottom line.
On top of all that, Ikea cabinets just lacked the custom feel that I hoped for. Not "top of the line" custom, but "I'm the only person in the world with this kitchen" custom.
Rule number one of Reno-Club is you do not spend money on things you don't love.
Rule number two of Reno-Club is you DO NOT spend money on things you don't love.
THE RAY OF LIGHT:
Desperately exploring other options I stumbled across the stock cabinet section of Lowe's. My brother and I had previously used some of their stock cabinets in the laundry room of the Woodward Place and we were pretty happy with how they turned out.
Lowe's does have a new line of cabinets called Nimble (similar to Ikea's Sektion), but I knew I was going in a different direction. The classic oak unfinished cabinets have real wood fronts and feel much higher quality than Sektion or Nimble. I also had a Lowes coupon for 10% off and hit up their 4th of July sale for an extra 20% off stock cabinets. After everything, to buy all the kitchen cabinets I was looking right around $1,000. Sold.
So we'll call the final iteration Plan C. At this point, I'm planning on around $6,000 for a new kitchen, top to bottom. I'm thrilled with the value of everything I've chosen so far and it's way less than I ever anticipated being able to pull off a full kitchen remodel. Still, at the end of the day that's pretty heavy for an unanticipated cost.
The last pre-demo pic of the kitchen and a glimpse at the new cabbies.
Hopefully within a few weeks, I'll have a pretty new kitchen to prepare my Ramen and Hamburger Helper in. #poorpeoplefood #houserich...
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