Updating kitchen advice (granite, Home Depot, laminate, refinish)
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Live in a house that was built in the 50's. The kitchen is outdated and my wife and I desperately want to update, but don't have the funds to do a full remodel. The countertops are especially bad, as they are tiles in a burnt orange that need regrouting at the very least. Obviously, the preference would be to destroy them.
The cabinets were actually resurfaced probably 15 years are withe a light wood laminate over what I think are the original cabinets. The doors are flat. Structurally, the cabinets are rock solid and do not appear to have any issues, except that they are boring and probably would not look great with nice counters.
We have priced new quartz counters in a grey, cement like tone. The average is about 5k demoing current counters and installing new ones. We could swing this, no problem. But estimates for the cabinets are 15k for the cheapest of the cheap. That would not be good regardless.
We have not priced the cost of resurfacing cabinets but if it was 10k, that's probably too rich as well. If we replaced counters, I imagine we could not then replace cabinets later but might have a chance to resurface later. Does that seem sound?
So what to do. Would quartz counters with laminate cabinets look ridiculous in the meantime? Should we just grit our teeth and wait until we saved enough for the full deal? Any idea the cost of resurfacing with something other than laminate versus full replacement?
Are you able and willing to do a lot of the demo yourselves? If you can remove the old at least, that should cut into the cost. I don't know how big your kitchen is or where you got your cabinet prices, but if that $15K was just the cost of the cabinets, you must have a very large kitchen. (and if that's the case, $5K sounds low for granite tops) I have been working on a cabinet design for some people doing a remodel in a large house (probably in the nearly $2M range) and $15K will be covering the cabinet cost for the kitchen, Butler's Pantry, and one of the Bathrooms. If all you have checked are Big Box stores, you might want to check an Independent Dealer. We generally beat the big box stores in our area.
As for refacing the cabinets, you want to make sure that you are very happy with the layout and features of your current cabinets. Otherwise you are going to have the expense and "still" have old cabinets. People in our area who have done comparisons in the past have found that refacing generally runs 2/3 to 3/4 the cost of new.
Live in a house that was built in the 50's.
The kitchen is outdated and my wife and I desperately want to update...
but don't have the funds to do a full remodel.
So what to do.
Start saving up the cash needed... and use that time to make good plans.
Thanks for the responses thus far. And I appreciate the tough love, even though it is not what I necessarily wanted to hear. I figured I would give some responses to questions and also add a picture of the kitchen for some more perspective.
The fact is, we may never save the 30k we would likely need to do it right. So I suppose the question could be turned to, what can we do to make it better, and make us more happy, that would not look ridiculous, using a modest budget?
Our kitchen is by no means large but it is not small either. I think the cabinet quote is high because of the fact that the kitchen has a lot of cabinets. I would consider wood countertops but what would the cost of that be compared to say the 5k I mentioned? Would it be signifcantly cheaper? What about the idea of painting the cabinets? Would take a good deal a work and be messy but could that take us closer to matching cabinets to nice counter?
Not a fan of laminate counters and would just as soon get tile. At least, based on what I picture to be laminate. That would not make us any happier.
We moved our kitchen, to a different part of the house, had new plumbing and gas installed, purchased laminate cabinets from Home Depot, tile backsplash from HD, a sink from craigslist, a faucet from HD and butcher block for the counters that we cut and finished ourselves and pulls from pulls direct and we spent less then 10K for everything. I think you can redo your kitchen much cheaper then you think. I am surprised that the cheapest cabinets you found were 15K. Your kitchen is not that big. I think you might want to look at prices again.
If your cabinets are in good shape but you just don't like the look, take off the doors and drawer fronts, buy new ones and refinish the existing cabinets (sans the old doors) as well as the new doors to match. You could potentially save even more by doing this instead of purchasing new ones.
Also, keep an eye on craigslist, the materials section. A lot of people are selling used cabinets and you might find a good deal that way. You could get something nicer then what you currently have but pay a fraction of what they would cost new. Just be ready to jump if you see a good deal as the good ones tend to go quick.
Last edited by MissTerri; 02-14-2014 at 11:11 AM..
One, If you end up deciding to paint your existing cabinets, either with the existing doors or with new ones, DO NOT TAKE SHORTCUTS in the prep work or in the actual finishing. And also, be sure you have a high ( I was going to say GOOD, but it needs to be better than that ) quality paint. Otherwise you will never, ever be happy with it.
Two, take a look again at laminates. We have one laminate top in our showroom that gets studied many times by clients coming in, who have done their research and have even been comparison shopping. They will invariably want to know what kind of stone it is. I think you really want to check out those options before you totally dismiss them. Keep in mind that some of the laminate options are proprietary and may not be available in all locations or at all dealers. Usually independents have more options available.
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