Disappointed so far with kitchen remodel plans

[Anonymous]

OP, also send your layout to Cliq cabinets. They can give you a cabinet layout and price that is reasonable. Ikea plus. Nothing wrong with Ikea cabinets, a ton of architects use them with different fronts and handles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s been years ago but we used Lowe’s kitchen designer for layout. She did a great job and tho go t of lots of things I wouldn’t have. Pulls out on every cabinet and built in pantry with pull outs. Also our neighbor used HD and had every bell and whistle. Beautiful. Of course our homes only cost $900+. I found kitchen designers overpriced and their cabinets very expensive. It’s been 11 years and they look great.

We did this too - three years ago and still love it. We did hire a kitchen designer and structural engineer for initial layout and design and then after we settled on a layout I liked, bought the blueprints and we took the them to Lowes and their designer to help us finalize cabinetry and materials and helped us find a good contractor. I did the finish selections/color myself using ideabooks on Houzz that I had saved over the years. Lowes was flexible in where we bought materials - while I bought cabinets from them (Schuler solid maple), I was able to get the flooring and copper sinks I wanted elsewhere and I bought my Thermadore package from an appliance store. I think we saved probably around 75K from what the KD had quoted us had we used his design/build, and I would put my kitchen up against any Instagram model on the internet.

[Anonymous]

Kitchen in our house is small-medium, and cabinets are from about 1960. I did a partial reno about 15 years ago with a microhood, new countertops, some other stuff. Just finished refacing them with new doors. The cabinets are super strong, high quality with shelf standards in them, no reason to take down and replace with either (a) really really expensive new cabinets or (b) crappy affordable cabinets. Bought all the refacing materials and tools online and with some practice I was up and running. Carefully did all the measuring and got all new doors and drawer fronts. Place looks great! New quartz counter coming late this month. A Pro is measuring that one! I even had to replumb the sink drain to drop it for the new sink height. worked out great, fun stuff. The gas cooktop is coming out for an induction one, I have done all my own wiring and piping too. Oh, and I reframed under the cooktop for a warming drawer. Those things are great! Keeping the 1962 thermador wall oven, its a real gem with its own mini vent hood for smoke, though I had to remake the door closure spring assemblies.

All in all, expending about $16,000 dollars on everything. It'll look like new and keep its current really very efficient and workable layout. And pick up a little extra storage space. The floor is staying the same, Armstrong laminate I did 15 years ago. Its a simple replacement to itself if needed in the future. Stuff wears like iron, and we have 3 kids.

Has kept me busy during COVID, and looks great. And isn't $50,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are starting to plan a kitchen remodel. It's the first one our house has had since the 1970s, and almost certainly the only one I'll see in my lifetime. So I am really looking forward to having a beautiful, functional space. Our current kitchen is not only ugly, but also broken in just about every way, from cabinets to appliances. The space, however, is lovely, with a lot of large windows and sunlight. It's about 200 sq ft, part of a semi-open concept home which has some midcentury modern and modern elements and is definitely not traditional.

I want to go with a Scandinavian design, with a bit of open shelving. We are not planning to move anything or knock down walls or anything like that. The cabinets go in a straight line on two sides. So far I am super disappointed with the estimates and drawings I've gotten. We've had two contractors and a design/build come and do a preliminary measure. One contractor gave us a design with a cookie cutter kitchen and no open shelving and wanted over 20K just for mid-range cabinetry. We have a small bar area that looks really dated and his new "design" was just the same bar area with different counters. The second contractor didn't give us a drawing or anything, but said they didn't know how to do LVP floors, so we eliminated them. The design/build gave us basically the same thing as the contractor and insisted they had to put huge crown molding type things on top of the cabinets to fill in the space (we currently have cabinets that go to the ceiling, which is 96 inches, so I don't get that at all), and the look of it was just really not in keeping with the house.

Am I being unreasonable? Our budget is 65K, and that's about 10% of the home's value, and I don't even want to move anything. Is that too little for something that involves more than just sticking cabinets on walls in a different color? I feel like I could do that myself at Ikea and save a bunch of money.

Spend money on an architecture and get a design you like. Design build firms tend to have a narrow design view.

[Anonymous]

OP your kitchen doesn’t sound that big so two things : limited open shelving as it looks great in a curated photograph but is a pain in day to day life. And cabinets to the ceiling. There’s always extra Holiday and party stuff that goes up there. Pull out pantry best thing I ever bought. Neighbor came over while designing his kitchen and ordered TWO for his kitchen. He also removed a wall. It was a small wall but made huge difference. We have the same house layout. Also those Schuler solid wood cabinets from Lowers we have those. Very nice.

[Anonymous]

Also the first 3 kitchen designers we talked with were extremely unhelpful. We have a beautiful back yard with gardens etc and the first designer had the sink and window facing the wall of our addition and a huge space wasting corner sink ... then wanted to leave the old soffits because would be easier for them ... goodbye!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your kitchen doesn’t sound that big so two things : limited open shelving as it looks great in a curated photograph but is a pain in day to day life. And cabinets to the ceiling. There’s always extra Holiday and party stuff that goes up there. Pull out pantry best thing I ever bought. Neighbor came over while designing his kitchen and ordered TWO for his kitchen. He also removed a wall. It was a small wall but made huge difference. We have the same house layout. Also those Schuler solid wood cabinets from Lowers we have those. Very nice.

Just popping in to say op if you really know yourself well and think you'll enjoy open shelves, you might. I have a small kitchen and I love our open shelves. I have more than enough space for the things I need, I love the way I look and I actually find it incredibly functional. I know different strokes for different folks, but there genuinely are people that actually have them and like them. We were very thoughtful about our other cabinet space and planning it so it would meet our needs, but having most of our lowers be drawers solved most gaps. We tend towards more minimalism (but definitely aren't "minimalist" in an extreme way at all) so you do need to know yourself. If you are someone that likes to have multiple different sets of wine glasses, or a different glass for each purpose then yes maybe not for you. But I just see people getting shot down on open shelves here so much and there really are people that it works very well for. I also have a good friend that has a small kitchen with open shelves who also loves it, so I know I'm not the only one.

[Anonymous]

it looks* not I