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I discussed a little bit about our kitchen remodel and shared some inspiration but today, I'm going to really get down and talk about all the nitty gritty details. We had always planned on remodeling the kitchen down the road but then, I got knocked up and down the road became “Um. NOW.”. The kitchen was workable but several factors all came together at once to make remodeling this room something that needed to happen right away.
Actually, it was three big things. First up, I insisted that before the baby came, the laundry needed to be moved from a shed outside and into a room inside our home. This was a must (remember the old laundry shed?) and entailed remodeling a weird, narrow room off the kitchen into a mechanical/laundry room. And, in order to remodel the laundry room, we had to start install our hardwood floors… which would run throughout the entire house (including the attached kitchen). Initially, we were just going to run the hardwoods in the laundry room and then stop at the doorway and add more flooring once we got to the kitchen but then… the fridge started leaking.
The fridge was ooooold so this wasn't a complete shock but it was a major blow to our finances. We really hadn't planned on buying a new fridge until well after the baby was born. But now, we really need to get one, well, NOW. And to add to it all, the fridge had leaked through the old flooring and into the subfloors so we had to tear up all the old flooring immediately so we could check the condition of the subfloor. Which meant that the cabinets had to come out. It was the snowball effect for sure.
We immediately started talking about a kitchen remodel, After a lot of discussion, we decided to try and do a full remodel in three stages as opposed to just bandaging up the problems and making things work. Our thought process was that the money we spend trying to patch the problems could just be used to gut and fix the whole thing upfront. Sure, we're doing this whole thing on a shoestring budget but we might as well do it right from the beginning than try and put lipstick on a pig. Here's our plan:
Phase One: Gut the kitchen (but keep the cabinets and working appliances), buy a new fridge, install flooring, paint and rearrange the old cabinets, new hardware, new countertops, new sink, backsplash.
Phase Two: Add a pantry, add a desk area and small TV, create a dining area with a new banquette and tables, add two windows to dining area, trim doors and windows, add small pony wall between kitchen and living room, add baseboards and toekicks.
Phase Three: Add crown molding, install lighting, add faux beadboard and beams to ceiling, decorate.
We tried to split up the phases into manageable chunks defined by how much the would cost + the order that things needed to happen (i.e. countertops before backsplash). And this was totally our plan…
Until we got declined for a payment plan for a fridge at Best Buy. We went in, picked out a fridge for $1,500 and… were told no. And not told why (the group they finance through never tells) which was frustrating because we have good credit. Needless to say, by this time, it was nearly 9PM on a Saturday and all we were able to do is look at each other helplessly. We headed home and tried to figure out what to do – we needed a fridge but couldn't keep ours in the house since it was leaking everywhere. And then, my husband got his redneck on. When we got home, he moved the old fridge outside – through the old front door and on to our new porch. Then he flipped the front of the fridge around so that when you opened the old front door from inside the house, you could reach out and open the old fridge's door to access the contents. And we lived like that for nearly a month while we sorted out a new fridge.
Check back in later and I'll tell you all about how we ended up replacing all of our appliances!
Have any of your remodeled a room in stages? How did it go?
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