A Remodeling Adventure

[AquaticNerd]

As you folks may or may not know, my wife and I moved in the fall of 2021 to a location that is closer to her work since I work remotely with in-office days fairly infrequently. We both love the home, but the one pain point we had was the kitchen. It was very dated and not to our taste so we knew we would eventually be rennovating it. It wasn't until we moved in that we realized all the small things that would end up annoying us more than we thought - drawers would stick, soft-close mechanisms didn't work or jammed, doors were not fully attached/screws stripped from holes, etc. So instead of the kitchen remodel being part of our 5-year plan, it became more of the "need to tackle it ASAP". Like a lot of people you hear about, we had some trouble tracking down contractors to receive quotes. Of the ones we did get quotes from, they were wildly higher than anything we could have imagined. After running the numbers and looking up various trades ourselves, we decided that it would be better to be our own contractors and hire out things we didn't want to mess with, and do ourselves what we could. This ended up saving us about 45% from the cheaper of the quotes we got, which was a huge savings for us.

So - between August and November of 2022 we turned our plan into a kitchen we both love. Thought I would share the process with you all along with picutres that I took along the way.

First, a few before pictures (these are from our listing since I definitely remembered to take before pictures :D):

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[AquaticNerd]

As with all remodels, it began with demo of the existing kitchen, and A LOT of it. This demo took me 3 full days working about 14 hours per day over the weekend (Friday - Sunday) to knock out.

First step was to remove all the cabinets, appliances, trim, etc. Since our new kitchen was getting 1 1/8" oak hardwood flooring, the tile and concrete backerboard also had to be torn up as well. There were a lot of "sins" committed that these pictures don't show. Romex was run unprotected behind the peninsula cabinetry and over finished wall to provide power to the light switch that powers the pendants. There was a jbox flying in the wind buried behind cabinets that looked like it was old dishwasher location. Of course, the wires inside were not protected and live. Corrected the electrical code violations while everything was open. This took 2 of the 3 days.

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It was at this point I found issue #1. Our kitchen remodel goal was to have seamless flooring throughout our main floor, since the kitchen is the only room that doesn't already have 1 1/8" oak hardwood. However, in the two images above, the subfloor for the kitchen, and only the kitchen, was about 5/8-3/4" higher than the rest of the flooring. Instead of having a transition piece to bridge the gap, we decided to tear out all of the old tongue and groove subfloor. This was not an easy task. I think this process took me 15 hours on a Sunday.

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[AquaticNerd]

Our flooring contractor took care of the rest - installing plywood subflooring and then getting the floors partially installed.

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[AquaticNerd]

I didn't end up getting any pictures of the finished floor before the cabinets went in. We hired out the design/installation of the cabinetry to a kitchen & bath design company. They had a cancellation for one of their installs so they moved our install up a week. We only had 5 days between the floors being finished (a Friday) and the cabinetry being installed. There was also a design measurement issue by the cabinet company, so the upper cabinets above the fridge alcove had to be re-ordered, so those are missing from these images.

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[AquaticNerd]

After cabinets were in place, I painted the kitchen to match the rest of the main floor - Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee. What isn't shown here is all the prep work of patching, sanding, taping to protect the floors and cabinets, etc. I also added an old-work outlet box where the range hood will eventually go, so it will be hidden behind the hood vent cover.

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I also took the liberty of installing two new pendants that my wife picked out.

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[AquaticNerd]

While everything was still open, I installed an outlet on the inside of the closest base cabinet you can see in the image above, in preparation for the in-cabinet microwave. Once the outlet was installed, I installed the microwave trim kit mount, the microwave, and then the trim kit face plate. Once this was in, I was starting to finally see it coming together.

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Next up in the to-do list was to install floating shelves - these were also done by the kitchen design/install company. They're white oak and stained to match the flooring.

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[AquaticNerd]

At this piont, we are about 2 months into the remodel - almost the end of October. About a week after the shelves went in, our countertop contractor came in to install our countertops along with the undermount sink that I purchased online. After using our dining table as our kitchen for 2 months, it felt good to finally have countertop space to put things on. From these images, you can kind of see how disasterous out dining room had become with appliances that we still needed to use, food and dishes etc.

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[AquaticNerd]

I think at this point, the wife and I were both tired of having to do our dishes in a different sink - we didn't really have anywhere to hook up a temporary sink, so we ended up having to handwash our dishes in a spare bathroom sink. Doing dishes this way got old fast. I think this was the hardest part of the entire renovation - being without a large sink to do dishes, a place for them to dry, and no dishwasher. This frustration led me to knocking out the backsplash install in 9 hours. This was done all by myself on a Friday between 12:30PM and 9:30PM. If I ever do another subway tile backsplash, I'm going to hire a brother for help. It was very tedious having to go back and forth between a wet saw and back inside to install a single tile. You can also see some of the plumbing that I pre-assembled on a shelf.

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Since I had to wait for the thinset to dry for the backsplash, I also installed the sink faucet and reconnected all the plumbing for the sink. This was honestly the least amount of work, but our largest victory to date. It felt SO GOOD having a functional kitchen sink back.

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[AquaticNerd]

Grouting was next. I enjoyed this part - it was kind of therapeutic, but made a big mess.

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Close up of the groutlines:

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[AquaticNerd]

After all that was complete, the only thing left were finishing touches. My appliances were delivered, but the range was damaged from the manufacturer AND it didn't have any of the oven racks so we had to wait an extra week for a replacement. I got to work knocking out appliance installs. Not shown: I ran the water line for the fridge, hooked it up, and the fridge was pushed back in place. I installed the electrical and plumbing for the dishwasher and got it installed into the dishwasher cabinet next to the sink. The only picutre I managed to get was the install of our range hood. I had a roofer come out and cut a hole and install a roof vent. Then I cut the hole in my first floor ceiling with a drywall hole saw. Since our house is old, everything is plaster and wood lathe. As the saw cut through the plaster and caught on the wood lathe, it jumped from my hand and I made a small boo boo to the ceiling (seen in the image). I fix that later on. The area above the hole I cut out is an unfinished part of the second floor, so it was a straight shot up from the ceiling through to the roof for the 6" rigid ducting.

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Dog tax since at this point, she was SUPER OVER all the work and nonsense going on (can also peek the fridge installed without the cabinet above it yet).

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[AquaticNerd]

Finally - the finished result of the kitchen remodel. Not shown - I replaced the old, noisy fan with a new one that is controlled by a remote so no more banging my head into the chains. :D Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

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[jeep]

Nice job!! If I had known, you would have been more than welcome to come practice on mine, lol...

[LizStreithorst]

Holy Moly! What an incredible amount of work and what a superb job you did. It's stunning.

[AquaticNerd]

Nice job!! If I had known, you would have been more than welcome to come practice on mine, lol...

Haha! It was definitely an experience. I would have loved to have gotten it done faster (the contractors we originally got quotes from quoted us 4-5 weeks), but the wife and I couldn't pass up saving the amount of money we did. It allowed us to knock out a lot of other nice to haves we had for the house. Since I work full-time from home, all the work was done after work or took up entire weekends.


Holy Moly! What an incredible amount of work and what a superb job you did. It's stunning.

Thanks Liz. The wife is also pleased with how it turned out, so that was an added bonus! :D

[brewmaster15]

Wow Jake! Nicely done! I do 90% of the cooking here and would love a kitchen like that. I will not be sharing this thread with my wife though your project is awesome. That would be all that I needed! I ! At least I know who to go to for advice when I tackle mine!
:)

al

[AquaticNerd]

Thanks Al! A lot of the functional choices of the kitchen were of my own doing, since, like you, I do about 90% of the cooking for my wife and myself.

I spoiled myself a little bit with the appliances - the stove has an induction cooktop and the fridge was a bit larger than our last one. On top of that, I wanted all drawer cabinet bases because there was just so much wasted space with the regular box bases with doors. Everything is soft close. Also went with quartz countertops (the waterfall edge was my choice) since they're non-porous and hold up well.

[brady]

Sounds great, unfortunately I can't see the pictures. When I click on the attachments I get a message saying
invalid. Why is that?
Jay

[AquaticNerd]

Hi Jay,

I'm honestly not sure what happened to the attachments. I see the first couple of posts have images showing, but not any others. I'll reach out to the admins and see if they have any info.

[SidJones]

Post 6 on, no photos for me either. Project looks very nice. Heck, the before pictures would have passed as the new completed project to me.

[AquaticNerd]

Hopefully now I've fixed the images that were attached that somehow went missing. :D

[Second Hand Pat]

Totally gorgeous Jake and very well done :D
Pat

[AquaticNerd]

Thanks Pat! :D

[pastry]

Okay, in our previous house, I would have loved that ever living hell out of this thread! It had the worst kitchen layout and Design. I love our current Kitchen in our new house, but still nerd out on diving into your details and mind process. Lots of brilliance between you and your wife! I love the balance of doing it yourself and realizing certain things probably should be contracted out. I love her drop down lamps that look like stars and a whole functionality of your new layout. If I had to figure out one thing that I questioned and it would be the color choice olive green with dark marble/slate top ( both our colors I love but just curious... have the same time, totally not kicking the two of you in the balls because I can only hope to have brilliant thought processes like that and skill. Even your taste with tongue and groove, knowing what you like in sliders, lay out, etc... definitely a standing ovation from me! I will kick myself in the balls for bringing up the Wonder on the choice of army green and if you are close enough then I'll let you kick me in the balls too but please don't let that get in the way of how awesome I think you all did!

[AquaticNerd]

Elliot - I appreciate your insight.

The cabinet color doesn't really come across very well in the picutres. If I recall correctly, the color is 'Eucalyptus', and it is much lighter in person than in pictures (almost like a sage green). My wife loves the 'country' style kicthens, and I wanted full modern, so we compromised at mid-mod. Some of our inspiration came from images such as these: https://www.countryliving.com/home-design/color/g4295/green-kitchens/. Our reasoning behind getting dark countertops was that everything else in the kitchen was going to be super bright, so wanted to have some contrast between the cabinets and countertop, along with the bright white subway tile and light paint color. I think the additional, practical bonus, is that since it is a dark countertop, stains aren't noticeable at all where white quartz could potentially show stains.

We went back and forth a lot with countertop options. My wife was really sold on butcherblock counters until we discussed the amount of maintenance they would require to appear and keep clean. You gotta baby that stuff with oils, water stains, etc. After nixing butcherblock, we discussed white/white w/ grey, and black w/ white, and ultimately chose black for the contrast. :D

[pastry]

"I think the additional, practical bonus, is that since it is a dark countertop, stains aren't noticeable at all where white quartz could potentially show stains."

Ok... THAT freak'n makes a ton of sense and I love that angle/thinking. I go nuts with my boys dirtying up our very light gray painted walls, especially up and down the staircase while yelling at them the same question over and over: "...why the hell do you two and your little turd friends have to touch the damn walls?!?! Growing up, I didn't need to touch the damn walls going up and down the stairs!" LMAO

As for the butcher's block, I don't have one but I am definitely a fan! What about one of the two following options:
1. Butcher's block on wheels at the same counter level or whatever level is best? ( it can even be a very stubby 30 inches long by 16 in wide yet on a dark charcoal powder coated metal frame with three or four inch coated iron cast Wheels they can keep around the kitchen and wheel it in and out as needed?)
2. ...or, a 20-22"L x 12-18"W x 3-4"H block now you can store in the kitchen when you're not using it

Hell, I think I'm really asking myself those two questions. I want one!

[AquaticNerd]

I have a large butcherblock that I add on top of the countertop when needed to do a lot of chopping. Bought a 4' section from the local hardware store and it measures 30x24. :D

[Charlyc11]

Nice job looks great and I like the contrast in colors from dark to light. It gives me memories when I bought my house in Stony Brook LI NY. I also got ambisius and ripped the kitchen to the studs and became my own contractor. I could use a remake of the kitchen in my house in MD but I have some do first projects. Bathroom needs it the most.
Enjoy your hard work Jake.

[jwcarlson]

Very well done, I like a nice, bold cabinet color. My wife convinced me to re-finish the ones that were original to our house (early 70s). We didn't do a full rip and replace, but we used some sort of "chalk paint" in a fairly dark blue and changed all the hardware. It's held up better than I expected and less bland. Also used white tile for back splash, but octagons. Nice contrast.