Maybe if you've never owned before you might want to wait and see, but I've had enough kitchens over the years to have a good idea of what I like and don't like in a kitchen. In the last place my kitchen needed a gut, I did it before I moved in. Didn't regret a thing. This current house (in it less than a year) what's there is fine, but it has a blank space I need to fill in. Because it won't change anything, on that I"m waiting.

We replaced everything in our kitchen without changing the footprint and it took maybe 3 weeks total. It wasn't too terribly disruptive, even with a young child around. (we did 3 bathrooms, too, along with the kitchen.)

But yeah, I would maybe say wait a couple of months because it is really hard to start from scratch when there are so many choices available. You might do the job and realize a few months later that you would have gone in a different direction.

Op here. Opinion seems divided. Budget considerations seem to favor waiting, now that I've gotten a couple quotes. Now thinking about renovating a bath...

We did our kitchen first. I say remodel first, decorate later too.

I would do the kitchen. Otherwise you will find yourself 5 years from now still putting it off. The other things can easily be done bit by bit.

I would do the kitchen first because I spend so much time in there and would like it done before moving in.

I think you can wait on the kitchen. Also, if you're keeping the footprint of the old kitchen, the remodel won't take *that* long. The painful ones are the remodels where you have to move plumbing, build a new wall, etc.

I'm not sure how much landscaping you can get done at this time of year, but if you got the deck done now, you'd be enjoying it by summer...

I agree to wait on the kitchen.

Wait on the kitchen.

Anonymous wrote:I feel your pain OP but,ostexperts would say that it's much wiser to live with the kitchen for a good while -at least 6 months or a year- and figure out what you really need in a remodel to make it work best for you and your family. Whenever you do the kitchen you're going to have to live with it for a long time, so you want to make sure you don't just slap a cosmetic improvement on that you regret in some way down the line.

I agree.

Remodel before you move in. With small kids, you want to be moving out later or living in a work zone? The other stuff can be done more easily while you're living there.

Also, if floors need doing, do those before you move in.

I feel your pain OP but,ostexperts would say that it's much wiser to live with the kitchen for a good while -at least 6 months or a year- and figure out what you really need in a remodel to make it work best for you and your family. Whenever you do the kitchen you're going to have to live with it for a long time, so you want to make sure you don't just slap a cosmetic improvement on that you regret in some way down the line.

Definitely do the kitchen before moving in, or as much of it as you can, ie if you had to move in before finishing work or painting was done it wouldn't be so bad. Congrats on the new house!!

Remodel first, decorate later.

We just bought a house and could renovate kitchen completely before moving in. Same footprint but otherwise everything new. The kitchen is beyond dated but works. It would probably run about 40k for a medium sized kitchen. Would you that or do everything else -- buy new furniture, window treatments, paint the exterior, landscape, deck? With two small children I feel it would be hard to remodel after moving in, while the other stuff could be done piecemeal. But I've never owned a house before so I don't know.