'We' being zorthage and I.

This is the kitchen beforehand, ready for remodeling, on the day we left for our roadtrip. It was supposed to be done when we came back, but of course, with stuff like this, nothing ever goes according to schedule.



And this is the kitchen when we came back on Monday night


And this is the kitchen now


I had countertops picked out, until he gave me a price. So I'm going today to pick out countertops.

Everything except countertops is supposed to be done by Saturday, so we'll have a short-term working kitchen. Excitement!
Thank god.

5/29/2008 10:50:29 AM

Holy shit, your kitchen's not stuck in the 70s anymore!

5/29/2008 10:52:44 AM

I know

5/29/2008 10:53:00 AM

i dig the color and the can lights

also, you two should watch some DIY network if you havent already

5/29/2008 10:54:26 AM

You do realize how little TV I watch, right? (less than an hour a week, average)


But I did grow up, in my parent's house, on a steady diet of HGTV

I think we might be repainting and reflooring the living room this summer. It looks soooooooo drab now!

I get a spice cabinet, too. You definitely can't see all the kitchen, but in the first picture
- there's a large doorway to the living room
- where the fridge is, there is now a cabinet. there is a spice cabinet drawer under that.
- the drywall stuff on the left? zorthage attempt to make a usable pantry. That wall now houses a smaller pantry, and the fridge.

The contractor is going to more those can lights so that they're centered, relative to the cabinets

I'm so excited.

5/29/2008 10:58:22 AM

I must say, it's looking pretty good so far. We want to do new cabinets, but it's so damn expensive! So far, we've just replaced the appliances.

Oh and we did put down tile in there too...

[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 11:03 AM. Reason : tile]

5/29/2008 11:00:33 AM

I have seen the kitchen before and after IRL and I gotta say

getting rid of the wood panels and adding more lights makes the room look 1000x better

5/29/2008 11:02:27 AM

Thanks

Both friends I've had over since this has been going on have literally said WOW.

The contractor is elise's old landlord. We knew what type of work we were getting beforehand. She's found lots of stuff that was just TERRIBLE (like two fires waiting to happen - something with the stove vent, and lots of bad wiring), and no insulation, water leaking from another room. She just fixes that stuff (most of it, for free), and tells us later, instead of calling us, pricing it, and asking if we want to pay to have it fixed.

I can't wait to have her re-do the bathrooms (that's our next project. Water leakage + poor design = high priority)

This kitchen has a lot of us (e.g., red walls, lots of counter space) and her (helping choose cabinetry, the shade of red, good use of space)

^

^^Tile is SO nice! That's actually one of the cheapest tiles Home Depot offered /jewjoy

[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 11:06 AM. Reason : asdal]

5/29/2008 11:05:54 AM

I like it

Wish my kitchen was that big...and clean

5/29/2008 11:09:41 AM

You can come pay me to clean your kitchen?

It's small, so it won't take too long

5/29/2008 11:10:21 AM

dammit.. my work computer blocked all but the "now" pictures...

i'll look when i get home *grumble*

5/29/2008 11:11:03 AM

What the hell

They're hosted on the same damn website

hang on, and I'll rehost them for you

Ok

Before pics, hosted on flickr




[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 11:14 AM. Reason : dsgfs]

5/29/2008 11:12:38 AM

yeah, i don't know.. my computer blocks retarded shit..

but then i can still see things like tubgirl and shit

5/29/2008 11:13:45 AM

Quote :

"You can come pay me to clean your kitchen?"

I would honey, but I can barely afford food to put in said kitchen

5/29/2008 11:18:12 AM

you guys own a house together?

5/29/2008 11:28:11 AM

That looks very nice. Not the route I would have taken, but still very nice.

Is that tile on the floor or linoleum that looks like tile?

5/29/2008 11:29:25 AM

its tile

5/29/2008 11:31:09 AM

that's a huge improvement

good job, missy

p.s. i think i spottingsed you the other day

5/29/2008 11:31:14 AM

Quote :

"also, you two should watch some DIY network if you havent already"

There is a lot that could have been done for next to nothing if they didn't want to spend any money. It looks very good the way they did it though.

I like the shape of the old cabinets. It's just the knotty wood that dates it. I would have probably scuffed up the existing cabinets, painted them, and put on some nice brushed nickel or stainless hardware. I'd also cut out that curvy valance over the window. That would have probably saved a few grand in cabinets. The leftover money could be used for nicer countertops or new appliances.

You can paint wood panel walls too. Just use good primer. I've found that Zinsser sticks to it really well.

Still, it looks very nice and you probably got things at a very good price considering the market today. Upgrades like this are worth the money as long as you have it to spare.

[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 11:40 AM. Reason : l]

5/29/2008 11:39:36 AM

Quote :

"I have seen the kitchen before and after IRL and I gotta say getting rid of the wood panels and adding more lights makes the room look 1000x better "

not irl after

but i can tell from the pixels

and having seen a few kitchens in my day

5/29/2008 12:23:21 PM

awesome remodeling job.

5/29/2008 12:25:26 PM

I really like the wall color.

I hate how people puss out and just paint everything white, I lived in an apt with a couple friends a few summers ago in a friend's parents basement, and we painted that place several different colors. The living room was blue, computer room was red, and my bedroom was a forest green.

5/29/2008 12:32:43 PM

Quote :

" I hate how people puss out and just paint everything white,"

that sucks considering that at my last house i put mosaic tile under the cabinets with lighting, which was far superior to white paint.

now i can't decide what i want to do with the kitchen, since it's open and cookie cutter. how do you improve on that.

i like what you've done with the place. i would have seen what you could have done with the existing cabinets though. just for kicks.

5/29/2008 12:43:07 PM

the color looks similar to the red we just did our kitchen a few months ago

picture right after it was done being painted - a bit messy

5/29/2008 12:56:27 PM

^^^ Apartment complexes buy white paint in bulk and get it dirt cheap. Very few apartments are going to do anything other than white since they usually have to repaint after each tenant anyway. They're just eating into their profit margins if they try to do colors.

You have to realize also that some people are just terrible with colors. There are probably over 200 variations of yellow when you walk into Home Depot. Most of them shouldn't go in any room and the others will look stupid most of the time if not coordinated with trim and the other colors in adjacent rooms. White is 100% safe and cheap as well.

I had some friends whose landlord actually paid for all the materials and gave them rent deductions for work that they did to a house. The girl was pretty good with her color choices and it's not like painting is rocket science. They'd paint one room per month and get a decent discount on their rent. Worked out for both them and the landlord. When they moved out the house looked very nice and the landlord was probably able to command a higher rental price to the next set of renters.

[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 1:03 PM. Reason : s]

5/29/2008 1:03:05 PM

Quote :

"I would honey, but I can barely afford food to put in said kitchen"

I'm having a kitchen-warming when this is done, and cooking for folks. Bring Metricula, and that's one less meal you have to worry about paying for!

Quote :

"you guys own a house together?"

He owns it.

Quote :

"p.s. i think i spottingsed you the other day"

O rly? What's 'the other day'? Because I've been out of town until Monday

Quote :

"There is a lot that could have been done for next to nothing if they didn't want to spend any money. "

Yup...but for the amount of work done (and the importance of the kitchen...you can't just live without it very easily, like you can a spare bedroom), our skill level, and how much he works, it was worth it to have it done professionally - especially given the things she found and corrected, about which we knew nothing.

Quote :

"not irl after but i can tell from the pixels and having seen a few kitchens in my day"

LOL <3

Quote :

"I hate how people puss out and just paint everything white"

I KNOW, RIGHT?????
I also don't want any pastels. That's the "I don't wanna paint it white, butttt..." copout! For the living room that adjacent, we might take that red, and use it on the two exterior walls, and do something else for the interior walls. Included in this remodel, because of the fridge placement and the air intake placement for HVAC, she's giving us built-in bookcases on the other side of the wall, in the living room (I'm angling for white beadboard in the back of the bookcases)

Quote :

"now i can't decide what i want to do with the kitchen, since it's open and cookie cutter. how do you improve on that."

Post pictures!

Quote :

"i would have seen what you could have done with the existing cabinets though."

See, I was okay with that. Doing something like just getting new doors, or refinishing those. Except...
The reason we remodeled was that the subflooring had gone bad. We had a slow pipe leak last year, and got that fixed, and we knew that either the floor would dry out, and be fine, or else dry rot. It began to dry rot, so everything was going to have to come up to fix it. This wasn't remodeling just because we were sick of how the kitchen looked. If it were, we would have gone a different route with flooring, appliance placement - just about everything. Knowing that everything in half the room has to come out anyways makes it a LOT easier to say "You know, let's go ahead and get that corner cabinet, and move the fridge".

Omar, that red you have is very near to the red I had originally envisioned (long before any remodeling was spoken of. Like, right after we moved in, and were just talking about repainting) for the living room. Obviously, that won't happen now

Quote :

"You have to realize also that some people are just terrible with colors"

Uhm, zorthage. We saw a greenish blue car one day, but it was more like Carolina blue with a touch of green, and he called it blue. Light red? He calls it orange. I dunno if he's technically color blind, but goddamn, he sucks with colors.

5/29/2008 2:23:13 PM

Jees a flip I HATE WOOD PANELING!!!!

That looks nice!!!

5/29/2008 2:25:24 PM

Thank

I, too, hate wood paneling
Painting over it was simply not an option

What we have picked for the countertop, in all likelihood. Also getting a quote on granite, but I doubt we'll get it.

[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 2:29 PM. Reason : lkjdfg]

5/29/2008 2:26:14 PM

i thought you and zorthage were no longer an item.

5/29/2008 2:37:51 PM

Quote :

"SUBFLOORING GONE BAD"

5/29/2008 2:39:25 PM

^^old news

is that color called roasted pepper by chance?

5/29/2008 2:40:41 PM

^^^really old news

we've already been together longer than we were broken up

I don't think that's what it's called

5/29/2008 2:57:53 PM

here is a shitty pic of mine while unpacking... had better ones but lost them during the TWW purge



[Edited on May 29, 2008 at 3:51 PM. Reason : d]

5/29/2008 3:48:23 PM

how much is all of this costing?

my mom and stepdad just redid their kitchen. she said they saved like $10,000 by doing most of the work themselves (except for building the cabinets and installing the cabinets & counter top), because my stepfather is very handy and dedicated to that type of thing...

5/29/2008 3:55:31 PM

That's a number I'll let someone else post

5/29/2008 4:16:58 PM

yeah, the kitchen looks really good. Love the cabnets

5/29/2008 4:28:25 PM

"we've already been together longer than we were broken up

I don't think that's what it's called"

The Get Back Together.

5/29/2008 4:33:12 PM

we're having our bungalow kitchen redone, 133SF and it'll be near $20k, ~$150/SF, not including $5k in appliances.

5/29/2008 7:48:53 PM

The tile was a good add.

5/29/2008 7:57:18 PM

GORGEOUS

That makes me want a house even more now

5/29/2008 8:02:16 PM

5/29/2008 8:10:45 PM

looks nice

5/29/2008 8:12:08 PM

Oh fuck I can't wait to see this in August. LOVE it.

5/29/2008 8:28:44 PM

def looks amazing.

the old kitchen was wood paneling like whoa

5/30/2008 12:07:08 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nap

5/30/2008 12:14:22 AM

i like it.

we are redoing our kitchen now too. got quotes of 14k plus materials! so we installed the cabinets and appliances ourselves and had habitat for humanity come do demo and take with them all the old stuff.

5/30/2008 7:34:55 AM

Matt and xtine, the kitchen looks awesome!! I must come by and see it when i get a chance.

5/30/2008 7:45:10 AM

Just finished renovating my kitchen as well. Did all the work myself, got extra tile and materials from some of my subs for free and bought all new appliances for $1400

5/30/2008 8:02:01 AM

We need a TWW cribs part two thread. A lot more people own houses now.

5/30/2008 8:16:33 AM

^^, ^^^^ Very nice. GG.

I wanna see all these kitchens yall are talking about!

They're installing baseboards now. Stark white up against that red, and the tile, looks stunning

I am such a visual whore.

[Edited on May 30, 2008 at 11:43 AM. Reason : ^Shit, and it can't even go in old school]

5/30/2008 11:43:11 AM