# Stock Builder House No More...



## AndyM (Dec 23, 2010)

Back in November the fiancée and I bought a house out in the 'burbs. Great Neighborhood and in okay shape. 

However, it was put up by a builder that go run out of our market and had a knack for a lack of finish. We knew this going in and with the previous owners only putting a coat of paint on a few walls to sell it, we knew there would be some work to do.

Nothing major, right?
:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

It took one day for the fiancee to decide that the kitchen cabinets were way too short for our ceilings and we quickly discovered how much they'd been abused unpacking the house.

Thus our list went to:
- kitchen remodel
- new floors
- updated both bathrooms

in the Span of 48 hours.

Craziness.

It needs to be done and since we have subfloors and ripped linoleum on the floor downstairs, now would be the time to gut the kitchen.


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## AndyM (Dec 23, 2010)

This is what we're looking at for the kitchen design. 

The previous owners had it looking like this:










We've taken out the wallpaper, Updated the appliancesexpect the fridge for now. 

To minimize cost and based on the constraints of the space, we plan to keeping the current layout. There's not much else we could really do other than turn the island to give overhang for stools.

We've chosen to go with Lowe's and the Shenandoah Cabinets as nothing can beat the special + coupon's we can use. We've narrowed the cabinets down to the Winchester in Maple Cream.










Floors + cabinets will look like the following. The blue wall color is a failed attempt at making the dining room light gray.










We're not even close to picking the counter top (granite) or wall color yet as we want to see what the cream + floors look like in the kitchen light.

Right now the kitchen design looks like this with 9 foot ceilings and 42" uppers.

Overhead Shot:










Side Views:


















The window is the wrong size in the design. That's how close the cabinets will come to each end of the sill. The window is 2.5" inches from the edge of each sill.

China Cabinet / Hutch Area










The plan is to make this piece look more like furniture and less like cabinets. Options we're are mulling over:

- 3 drawer base cabinets instead of the traditional cabinets. * Since these will both be 24's, we're not completely sold on the idea.

-Bumping out the baseboard to make it flush with the bottom of the cabinets.

- Changing out the valence to








or getting rid of it completely. * We both can go either way on this one.</li>

- No light rail for under-cabinet lighting. Mere and I didn't care for the look of the extra inches on the bottom of the cabinet box.


-We're split on the door style . She wants the curved doors and I very much prefer the rectangle doors.

Thoughts, comments or suggestions?


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## Jim F (Mar 4, 2010)

You are new to your house. Your renovation plans look good as long as they don't leave you short on finances for the sort of costly repairs than sometimes need to be done to a house.


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## AndyM (Dec 23, 2010)

We ordered the kitchen today. A few design adjustments that make it more functional.

I also move 1941 lbs of hardwood flooring 3 times today. Need to go use the whirlpool tub.


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## bluebird5 (Jan 24, 2011)

I say its not bad if you still have a mortgage i would pay it down with the remodel money and remodel after the house is yours and not the banks but who knows if you bought the house outright then by all means remodel. the plans look great!!


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## twinAK (Jan 31, 2011)

Jim F said:


> You are new to your house. Your renovation plans look good as long as they don't leave you short on finances for the sort of costly repairs than sometimes need to be done to a house.


Andy,
This is definitely good advice here. As a homeowner you should make sure you have about $1000 set aside for emergency repairs that seem to occur when you're least ready for it, like after an expensive remodel. It happened to me after I was tapped out after a bathroom remodel. But I was able to squeak by with a little help.

On another note, I'm glad I got the chance to see how your current cabinets look on the 9' walls because we're building 9' walls and was curious how 30" cabinets would look. I guess we're going with the 42"ers.

Tim


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## AndyM (Dec 23, 2010)

twinAK said:


> Andy,
> This is definitely good advice here. As a homeowner you should make sure you have about $1000 set aside for emergency repairs that seem to occur when you're least ready for it, like after an expensive remodel. It happened to me after I was tapped out after a bathroom remodel. But I was able to squeak by with a little help.
> 
> On another note, I'm glad I got the chance to see how your current cabinets look on the 9' walls because we're building 9' walls and was curious how 30" cabinets would look. I guess we're going with the 42"ers.
> ...


We've got the money situation on lockdown. Both of us are have the bank accounts on lockdown. Buying the house was a long time coming, we definitely got lucky with the timing, depressed house prices and way low interest rates. 

The 30's look really funny on the 9 foot walls. I never noticed when we were buying. We moved in, removed the wallpaper border and realized what we had gotten into. :laughing:

I cut mock cabinets out of cardboard and hung them onto the walls. 36's looked like we ran out of money and couldn't afford the last six inches to get 42's. 

I'll post updated designs soon.


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## AndyM (Dec 23, 2010)

We've been busy over the last few weeks:

Floors came in:










and we were able to clean up the dining room walls / paint and hang the new blinds. End result will look something like this:










Photo doesn't do the wall color any justice. The walls are a light blue / green gray.


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## AndyM (Dec 23, 2010)

Last weekend was spent doing this. Fiancée made me pose for a demo picture. All work was done using proper safety attire. 























































The kitchen floor was on 1/8 inch board that they glued the linoleum to. Of course the installers shot a million staples into those boards that I had to pull up. My back hurt way too much. 

Everything's off the floor but the half bath and and the main run of cabinets. Those should come out during the next few weeks as the cabinets are due on the 2nd of March.

So much to do..


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