Day 14

We've been trying to get as much done as possible before I start work tomorrow, so I haven't had time to keep my blog current. We've been working 12+ hour days on this for the last week or more. Here's a little photo update though.

First I finished moving all our cabinets into their new places, and building some that we needed. Then I turned our entire kitchen into a huge paint booth, and donned my spray-paint gear.





The sprayer was borrowed from a buddy of mine. There's nothing special about it, in fact when I picked it up I was.. 'surprised' by how simple it was. I thought it would be more, well, heavy duty. But it did an amazing job. I had to add water to the paint to get it to spray smoothly. The finished product exceded my expectations.


Here's Camila (in her lounge-around-on-Sunday clothes) breaking in our new kitchen. Of course by "new" I mean what's done so far. There's still the floor, walls, ceiling, and counter-tops left to do. And where are all the cabinet doors you don't see?? They're drying an extra day before I hang them.



We went with my buddy Will's suggestion to swap the stove and the dishwasher locations in my Sketchup model to keep the "working triangle" smaller. It was less work for me, since the dishwasher didn't have to move. Also the stove has a small amount of counter space on both sides, as you can see in the photo above. If I had put the stove where the dishwasher is, it wouldn't have had any counter-space on the right side.

..and FYI, moving the stove to it's new location 10' away was not cheap. I had to run a whole new circuit to the breaker box in the garage because the old circuit used aluminum 3-wire (no longer code). I spent $67 on new copper 4-wire. Then of course I had to upgrade the outlet and pigtail to accomodate the new wire configuration: another $35. So.....

New stove wiring: $67
New outlet and pigtail: $35
Wife loving the layout of her new kitchen?

You guessed it... "priceless"



Here's another angle of the kitchen, that shows where our "breakfast nook" used to be. The window trim has been updated to match the style we've done in other parts of the house. And if you look at the cabinet on the right, next to the stove, we actually bought that at the Rebuilding Center for $10. The doors match our doors and it was a perfect fit for that side of the stove!




I added crown molding to the tops of all the cabinets as you can see below. For you home do-it-yourselfers who want to install crown molding, rather than waste time twisting your molding around in the air trying to figure out how to cut the correct angle on your miter saw, click here and follow Dewalt's instructions. They have a great article on how to cut crown molding.





And since I'm way into aesthetics, I added outlets above all the cabinets, and tied them to a light switch on either end of the kitchen. That way I could plug low voltage lights into them and have some cool mood lighting. This was something I couldn't do when the soffets were still in place.. (evil soffets!)





And finally just a note, since I'm sorta proud of myself on this one.....

I made yes made these cabinets. The doors were reused from other cabinets that I removed. The one on the left side came from a corner cabinet that we removed (where the stove is now), and the one on the right was a wall cabinet in its previous life. As mentioned above I had to make some cabinets, these are them.





So what's next?
Now that we've removed all the cabinets and appliances from this wall that currently divides the kitchen from the living room, we can remove it and install the cabinets you see there as an island. I've pasted the before and after pics so you can visualize with me..

day 4

Today I tackled more electrical hibby-jib, and I got sheet rock over the holes left where I removed the sauffets. I hate the electrical work, it means being up in the attic. But on the bright side (no pun intended), I got my light switches done for the kitchen area. Including an extra set for outlets above the cabinets, which I installed, where we'll plug in low-voltage lighting. There are still a few more (annoying) tasks to be completely done with electrical, most notably the stove. Uhg...




I also moved two recessed lights further away from the cabinets. I installed them last year and they were well placed before I moved the cabinets. Now though, they are too close to the cabinets and cast shadows I don't like. So I moved them, which of course means that I get to cap the holes... Uhg.



Over the next few days I'm going to focus on getting the cabinets ready to paint, so we can move Camila back into her kitchen.

Day 3

No pics today. Spent the better part of 10 hours working in the attic to install new wiring, and reroute existing wiring out of the walls that will be removed. 10 minutes in that attic is a huge pain in the butTOCKS, let alone 10 hours. Hated it! This was one of those experiences that I've blogged about before, here, where something I didn't foresee took over my whole day, chewed me up, spit me out, and made some demeaning comment about my momma.

Doug if you're reading this, thanks for taking my many calls and your very helpful "technical support"!

Day 2

Day 2, still demolition, was more arduous than I anticipated and I accomplished about 1/3rd of what I wanted to do. But I conquered (yes I said conquered) the sauffets in the kitchen. The "arduous" part was because I discovered that they were actual structures of the ceiling. I thought they were built after the ceiling and attached to it, and would be relatively easy to remove. But as you can see below, they left behind some gaping holes. Thank goodness for sledge hammers!!




I also started working on a new set of floor cabinets for next to the fridge. I'm making them from other cabinets that I won't be using. For example, in the picture below you see what used to be the lazy suzan corner cabinet in our U-shaped kitchen. I've stripped down all but the facia and the sides, and will fashion a new cabinet from it. Using that plus what used to be a wall-mounted one (sitting in the background of the pic), I'll have 42 inches of cabinets for next to the fridge.




We ripped this corner cabinet out because Camila hates the little garage thingy at the bottom. I'm going to cut it off and reinstall the upper portion of the cabinet. This cabinet sits next to the sink, and you can see that over the years, water that got on the countertops has already started to rot the wood, so this was a good move.

Project expenses

This spreadsheet keeps a running total of my expenses relating to the remodel. I've chosen to exclude tool purchases, since I'll use them on future projects. However, I will include tool incidentals, like blades or bits, etc.

Day 1

Day one involved yanking the cabinets that are either going to be moved, or simply removed, and putting them in their new locations. The kitchen is now destroyed, but believe it or not, still functional. Everything works, it's all just a little hard to get to. And all the counterspace is still available too, just most of it is now moveable. That was part of the plan, to do the remodel in such a way that, except for dust, there would be very little interruption to kitchen usage.

This image shows the wall that will be removed, now missing most of its cabinets.




The cabinets shown above have been relocated to the wall here at the end of the kitchen. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed ripping down that smug little banister railing at the top of the cabinets above the fridge!!







I'm even reusing the screws from the original cabinet installation. So far my $$ investment is zero. Of course I haven't done much yet. Tomorrow I'll be installing the electrical and water hookups into the wall where the fridge is going. I'll also try to get the ceiling lights and their respective switches relocated. The lights were centered over the area that now has cabinets. With the cabinets in place they cast large shadows (which you can see in the picture above) and need to be moved toward the center of the kitchen. The switches now sit on the wall that will be removed, so they need to be located on the other side of the kitchen entry. If I have time after all that I'll shoot to remove the sauffets over the sink, and start tearing into the sheetrock that covers the wall that will be removed.

Cost vs. Value

Are you curious about how much value you're adding to your home with your remodel? Is the $45,000 kitchen upgrade your planning going to add $45,000 to the price tag when you decide to sell? It's a valid question, and something you should explore before planning your remodel. The answer may surprise you, and will probably influence your planning decisions, such as how much to spend on your remodel, how big your remodel project should be, and possibly whether to do the remodel or not.

I've heard many an eager home-owner claim that their remodel investment dollars will be returned 100% or more. But the truth may surprise you: it is rare to get 100% of your money back on a remodel. In certain circumstances, such as a great price on a foreclosure, or a flip, you may be able to get a dollar-for-dollar match on your investment or more. But the average home-owner should plan to see less than 100% return on the dollar amount they invest.


There is an amazing online resource that can help you take the guessing out of your remodel decisions. It's the Cost vs. Value website, where they use national, regional, and city data to produce a report that shows the cost vs. value for most project types. Of course the data is derived from averages, which means that the dollar values are not going to reflect the actual costs that you may encounter. But they are a powerful tool for setting expectations before you start smashing walls.