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Kitchen Remodel Follow up
By JLP | March 16, 2007
Well, we’re putting off the remodel for another year (could be sooner than a year but for now, it is a year).
Why?
Here’s our reasoning (most of this came from my wife so don’t think this was my idea):
1. Our best guestimate puts a full remodel at around $20,000. We don’t have the cash to swing that much and we DO NOT want to put it on payments.
2. We could cut costs by going a cheaper route with cheaper cabinets, cheaper counter tops, cheaper appliances, but we want to do this right. I’m also not comfortable doing it myself.
3. We have lots of other little projects that we could be working on and we could pay cash for all of those.
4. The kitchen has been a mess for 7 years, what’s ONE more year?
Actually, I’m kind of impressed with our resolve to not take on debt in order to get what we want. It made me think that maybe we are more frugal than we thought! WE just keep thinking about how awesome it will feel to have an awesome kitchen and know that we paid cash for it! Hey, we all have to have a vision!
Topics: Miscellaneous | 16 Comments »
March 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Having recently gutted and remodeled an entire house, I have a few pointers. First, $20k seems low if you don’t want to cheap out on cabinets. They get you for every detail…better drawer glides, drawer stacks, spice racks, you name it, there’s a surcharge. Add at least 10% to the price Home Depot quotes you for installation. Second, don’t go through HD for counters, you can get them for far cheaper through an independent installer. Same goes for tile. And don’t forget about plumbing and electrical updates – if your house was built in the 60s, you probably need to update the electical lines at a minimum while you have the kitchen gutted.
We remodeled an entire house including rewiring and replumbing for about $90k but we did a lot of the grunt work ourselves and I searched high and low for every Home Depot or Lowe’s 10% off coupon out there…and I can’t say I was any too easy for contractors to deal with!
March 16th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I’m totally with Jill – having also recently gutted, updated, and restored a 100-year brownstone, admittedly an extraordinarily daunting multi-year project at an obsene cost.
Based on experience (my own and friends), your $20K estimate feels very low. In general, add 50% to estimates (yours or contractors) for a complex project if you want some idea the real all-in costs (and double the estimated time to completion). I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but honestly, I am not.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Jill and Miguel,
This is one of the reasons I decided to blog about this.
$30,000! Holy cow! That’s 1/3 of the price we paid for the entire house!
March 16th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I was going to tell you to bring up your guestimate, but I think you heard the message loud and clear.
Kitchens are the #1 most expensive remodel for a home, yet they reap the most benefits. I spent over $10k just for my appliances. Love them though. I wouldn’t short change a kitchen – ever. It is the main room of the house in my eyes.
Good luck to you. I envy your strength to put off the big expense. I know I would cave at this one, especially being it is the kitchen.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I feel a bit like chicken little, but I’d hate for you to wake up one morning in a panic-induced cold sweat wondering when the hemmoraging from your bank account was ever going to come to an end (as I did once).
The problem with big renovation projects is that once you’ve torn up your house and are half-way thru it, if it turns out that you’ve already near burned thru your initial budget, you can’t exactly stop the work – you need a kitchen and/or baths and/or a place to live. You’re trapped and vulnerable. And you have to just spend whatever it takes to finish (and settle any disputes later).
That’s why you can never plan too much, get too many estimates, ask too many questions, do too much diligence on contractors, etc. Same as if you were going to hand a fin’l advisor $20K-$30K, because it amounts to near the same level of risk.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
It’s actually worse that that; the financial guy can only blow your $30K. The home repair disaster is more like being short on a stock that keeps going up, with the added fun that you can’t just cover the position no matter how much you want to.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
JLP,
Given all the horror stories above, wouldn’t you just rather take the kids to McDonalds for a burger and fries and forget about cooking at home? Probably be cheaper in the long run.
March 16th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Five things…
1. Kudos for paying cash! (CASH ROCKS!)
2. How big is the kitchen? Are we talking multiple
rows of cabinets, etc.
3. How about appliances? How many? Are we taking
stainless or just basic Sears?
4. How long you gonna live in the house?
5. Don’t you loved NUMBERED comments?
NCN
March 16th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
NCN,
Somehow I figured you’d like the cash idea.
I’ll post the dimensions and layout later. It’s nothing fancy – basically a corridor kitchen with a slight “u.” One end opens up into the dining room and the other end is the breakfast area.
As far as appliances go, we would like:
A double oven
A 30-inch cooktop with overhead microwave
We already have the fridge and dishwasher
March 16th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
If it’s not too large, not too fancy, and you don’t move any plumbing, you might actually get away without spending as much as I initially indicated. It’s really all about what you are willing to live with – and since you only do this stuff once every decade or two, the tendency is to want to pack in all the features you think you’ll want for the next 20 yrs.
But, as part of our reno, we turned our bldg into a 2-family (for the rental income) and did a simple eat-in kitchen in the rental unit. I’ve been trying to recall the cost and I think we did it for under $20K with HD Millspride stock cabs (very basic) and formica countertops. But since, it was part of a much bigger job, it’s hard to completely isolate the all the costs. It turned out nicer than I thought it would due to very careful selection and some nice custom carpentry touches you normally would not find in an inexpensive kitchen. Plus, there was some original historic details to give it charm.
But, to contrast, same size kitchen in our owner space, but with custom cabs, professional appliances & hood, granite, etc. probably cost close to $80K.
So, clearly it can be a money pit if you let it.
March 16th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
We had our kitchen redone a year ago. I had originally guesstimated $35-$45k.
Well, the final price was about $82k.
It was a lot more extensive than originally planned, as we completely gutted the old kitchen, knocked out part of a wall, had wood floors put throughout the entire main floor, installed Kraftmaid cabinets, and had Silestone and stainless appliances.
We love it, and have no regrets. We also had a great designer who used her own contractors, and they finished on time (six weeks) and right on budget.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Do it right if you are staying. If not just do cosmetics. I use our kitchen a lot. So it’s worth getting good quality and a great layout.
March 18th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Weekly Roundup – 03/16/07
Here’s a quick look at some of the articles that caught my eye over the past week…
JLP is remodeling his kitchen. See here for a followup.
Flexo got busted for driving like a maniac.
Jim has an interesting post about fixed mortgage paymen…
March 19th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Waiting to pay only in cash seems like a noble approach, but on the other hand life is short and every year you wait is another year that you don’t get to enjoy your nice new kitchen. Life is short and you miss out on a lot by waiting until you have saved enough to pay for the whole thing in cash. I guess you can wait until you’re 90 and have saved up enough to buy everything you want, but then you will have a lot of really nice things and be too dead to enjoy them. I just think there has to be some balance and people always have to remember that they may be saving a few bucks but they are paying with time, which we never get back.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:52 am
[...] I just received the following comment from Rob on my Kitchen Remodel Follow-up post: Waiting to pay only in cash seems like a noble approach, but on the other hand life is short and every year you wait is another year that you don’t get to enjoy your nice new kitchen. Life is short and you miss out on a lot by waiting until you have saved enough to pay for the whole thing in cash. I guess you can wait until you’re 90 and have saved up enough to buy everything you want, but then you will have a lot of really nice things and be too dead to enjoy them. I just think there has to be some balance and people always have to remember that they may be saving a few bucks but they are paying with time, which we never get back. [...]
June 25th, 2008 at 8:38 am
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