Remodeling My Kitchen

[bikeama]

We are just getting started on a kitchen remodel. Hired an architect to give us some ideas. Going to take two walls out, already checked they are not load bearing. I have budgeted up to 80K hope to stay under 50K. Will be following this thread. I did go to the IKEA workshop on kitchens, they have an online CAD you can use to make a mock-up. Did the picture below on the IKEA site.

[CoorsLight]

Originally Posted by 2legs2wheels

Subscribed, might need this info in near future.

+1

[Abacinator]

Love that subway tile backsplash, auntie

[bikeama]

Question for those in the Bay Area. Where is a good place to look at some slide in ranges or larger cooktops? We are looking at a 36" range or cooktop. Still not sure if we want a separate oven or a slide in unit. Not much to look at in Stockton. Sacramento may have somewhere to look. Looking at gas not electric.

[scootergmc]

Originally Posted by bikeama

Question for those in the Bay Area. Where is a good place to look at some slide in ranges or larger cooktops? We are looking at a 36" range or cooktop. Still not sure if we want a separate oven or a slide in unit. Not much to look at in Stockton. Sacramento may have somewhere to look. Looking at gas not electric.

We reno'd our kitchen. Ended up going with a Wolf 36" cooktop. Monark appliance, Masters wholesale, Filco, even Best Buy has some selection. Obviously Monark and Masters are higher end dealers, but they're in the same area in Rancho Cordova.

[CoorsLight]

Originally Posted by Abacinator

Love that subway tile backsplash, auntie

Sig material.

[Sharxfan]

Hope I am not too late to chime in but here is what I found from doing my kitchen.

We went to Lowes to get the cabinets because I have used a big box stores before and the cabinets they have are pretty good but I stick to Kraftmaid and get the complete plywood built cabinets. Even if you don't go with them you can get a ballpark on what cabinets are going to cost. I think we spent about 12K on just cabinets.

For counters you can buy your own granite and have someone fab it for you. Doing this we got the granite color the wife wanted and saved about $20 a foot compared to getting it at a big box store.

There is no such thing as too many outlets in a kitchen and remember if they say you need GFCI outlets one GFCI will protect all outlets that are downstream of it on the circuit so you don't need one for every outlet (GFCIs are expensive). Also spend the couple extra dollars and get the outlets that have the USB(2 amp min) ports on them it makes it nice for charging home electronics.

Make sure when you hire the contractor that everything is spelled out including fit/finish, specific quality of materials and timelines. the more detailed the contract is the better chance you have if you have to take them to court although here they just dissolve the LLC and reform as some other name to avoid paying out. I have had a few bad experiences with contractors here in the swampy state so take this with a grain of salt.

If I could have I would have gotten a 36" stove a 5 burner is just not big enough at 30" to really make use of the burners. Also if you want a griddle on the stove make sure either the burners on the side it goes on are the same size/output or the center burner is long enough to heat the whole griddle and is just not one small round burner trying to heat the whole thing.

I am pretty good with electrical and plumbing so I was able to save a little doing it myself and we did not get all crazy so we did not have to do any structural work on the kitchen and it came out pretty nice. I just need to finish it up so the wifey can stop pulling her hair out. What started as a simple let's redo the kitchen to fix what the GC screwed up when we built the house became pull up the whole downstairs flooring(tile) which killed me and by the way now we have to redo the bathroom and laundry room downstairs so it all now matches.

Good luck hope it all goes smoothly for you.

[Abacinator]

Originally Posted by CoorsLight

Sig material.

[auntiebling]

Originally Posted by bikeama

Question for those in the Bay Area. Where is a good place to look at some slide in ranges or larger cooktops? We are looking at a 36" range or cooktop. Still not sure if we want a separate oven or a slide in unit. Not much to look at in Stockton. Sacramento may have somewhere to look. Looking at gas not electric.

since you're starting with a blank slate, see if you can find some deals on applinces. we were in the same boat and because we didn't really have a layout yet, the sales lady at.... pacific sales goes "what about a built in" so we eneded up with a 48" build in refrigerator that was a floor model closeout. it was only about 1k more than the standard "counter depth" fridge we were likely going to get and i can't imagine anything else now. our layout has 3' wide walkways (minimum code) due to our space restraints, and even a "counter depth" fridge would have stuck out too far, or we'd have had to truncate the island.

as for where to look, try Monark in hayward. it's a full sales room but is also their local distribution warehouse. in back they have the Scratch and Dent returns. that's how we ended up with a 48" range and again, can't imagine how it would have worked without it. it was less than half price, full warranty we just had to replace a grate and didn't get the wok. score and a half IMO.

if you do not have your appliances and cabinets picked before construction starts, you're going to have to guess where the water pipes go, and the dedicated outlets, refrigerator water feed, stuff like that. The electrical in particular bit me, because the 50A recepticle for the stove isn't in exactly the right place which means the plug interferes with pushing it back the last 2" against the wall. as i did the electrical trim out, i wish i'd realized this and recessed the box into the wall so i now have to move that giant hunk of scratchy metal across my new floors, make a dustyass mess in a confined space, and try not to burn my house down to recess the outlet. just recess them from the get go.


OH. ALSO take tons of pictures of your open walls and save them someplace safe. definitely don't store them only on your phone then accidentally throw the memory card in the trash.

Originally Posted by Abacinator

Love that subway tile backsplash, auntie

shitty tile, and a great installer. i like it too. we figured that even if we completely change everythign cosmetic in the house, the backsplash will not be out of place. similar on the black cabinets.

Originally Posted by Sharxfan

Hope I am not too late to chime in but here is what I found from doing my kitchen.

We went to Lowes to get the cabinets.....

we explored this too. it's a good compromise between full custom and the chinese stuff we went with. 12-15k would have done our kitchen, what we have is ~6k

box stores quality isn't necessarily any better than what i have, but far more options are available. the style=color thing isn't fixed for instance. i could have gotten my pink shaker cabinets... for 2x the price. (still less than half of custom tho)

Originally Posted by CoorsLight

Sig material.

Originally Posted by Abacinator

[afm199]

Originally Posted by Melissa

I am one of the humble, easy going clients and would never be mean or impatient to anyone I hired. Not in my nature.
Please keep the suggestions coming!

Lots of questions.

Permits. An issue to consider.

Is your current electrical service adequate? Typically, in most cities, if you upgrade you will need to upgrade the service as well. That takes time and money. An old kitchen will have 1-2 circuits. A new modern kitchen, by law, will have 5-10. And the new Fault current breakers cost $50 each.

Do you plan on living in the house while it is done? That's a huge issue. That means workers will be dictating when you get up and what you do.

Bath facilities. You will have to supply sanitary facilities to the workers. Are they going to get to use your bathroom ( meaning a constant mess and lack of privacy) or are you paying for a Porta Potty.

Parking.

Hire a licensed contractor. Check their license with the State website. Insist, as part of the contract, that they have their insurers send you both a Workers Comp certificate and certificate of liability insurance. Do not take photcopies from them, they must originate at the insurer office. If they don't do this, forget it. If a worker who is not insured under worker's comp hurts themself on the job, you, not the contractor are liable.

[afm199]

Originally Posted by Melissa

what's the difference between custom cabinets and regular ones?
clueless.

Get a hold of Connie and ask her to take a look. Custom cabinets are like a custom motorcycle. Off the shelf vary from cheap shit to very good, but they are all stock sizes, not built to fit the space you have.

[afm199]

Originally Posted by auntiebling

electrical
upgrade beyond what you think you need. we don't microwave, so didn't install a dedicated circuit for it (required by code if you mention it) but i would like to have the extra circuit now. do not install any 15A outlets anywhere. you can by code, but there is no reason to do so. you'll save like.... $200 maybe.

the city/couty whatever will likely require you to upgrade the box. 200 amp is common, at that age you might only have 80 amp. it's money worth spending IMO, we're only getting more hungry for electricity and you'll want the capacity eventually. electric cars are in everyone's future.

.

Good advice. The issue with the 15 amp circuits is that you are not allowed them in a kitchen as general use circuits. Only for very specific purpose, and that's the plug behind the stove if the stove is only using the power for the lights and control board. As said, don't use them. Otherwise all circuits must be 20 amp. And on both GFCI and Arc fault protection. It gets expensive.

[gnahc79]

for electrical what's considered old that would require significant updates? our place was built in 1988

[afm199]

Originally Posted by gnahc79

for electrical what's considered old that would require significant updates? our place was built in 1988

1988 is modern circuit breaker equipment, the issue is the size of the existing service and whether it has the capacity (Space and power) for the additional load of the changed kitchen. Some of the old services from then ( many) were 100 amp 12-24, and typically 2/3 of the breakers were used. If you are adding a kitchen with a bunch of built in appliances, ( and garbage disposal and dishwasher are now two appliances electrically) you will need several spaces, and depending on other load, more power (or not).

[auntiebling]

Originally Posted by afm199

1988 is modern circuit breaker equipment, the issue is the size of the existing service and whether it has the capacity (Space and power) for the additional load of the changed kitchen. Some of the old services from then ( many) were 100 amp 12-24, and typically 2/3 of the breakers were used. If you are adding a kitchen with a bunch of built in appliances, ( and garbage disposal and dishwasher are now two appliances electrically) you will need several spaces, and depending on other load, more power (or not).

Listen to this man
Microwave gets a dedicated 20amp circuit now as well, at least it does in santa clara, and standard cod requires 2 GFCI 20A circuits for general use in the kitchen as well so the minimum number of free spaces in the electrical panel would need to be 4 (assuming there is one that can be reused and upgraded ton20 amp from the existing layout. If its shared to another room, 5 free slots would be needed... unless afm199 corrects me)