Kitchen...A Frugal Overhaul

When we looked at this home we knew the cabinets needed some freshening up.  We planned to paint and possibly change up the hardware and add some smoother drawer slides.  I was excited about a quickie makeover for once, after such an extensive kitchen remodel at our last house.  We finally got the keys to the house and we did the first walk through after the previous owners things were out.  I remember being discouraged because everyone that saw the cabinets were pretty much grossed out, myself included.  

There were spills inside and of all kinda of mystery stains, the cabinets were in much worse condition than I remembered, I realized they were hollow core cheap press board doors instead of more solid ones that could be painted.  It became apparent we needed new cabinets.  Not to mention we had to do something about the really scary range hood and the dingy wall paper.  Yikes!  

It was all a little much at first.  Also there was a peninsula cabinet up high that I really didn't care for, it blocked the view into the open living area and I have always disliked those type of cabinets.  The first thing we did was tear out that cabinet, mostly so we'd never have a chance to miss the storage it would have provided!   We didn't even wait long enough to take a before picture of that thing.

We priced new stock cabinets and counter tops at Home Depot and figured it was going to cost approximately $2,800 if we did everything ourselves (installation and demo of old kitchen)   We had just moved in, we couldn't really afford that much so soon after scraping up the largest down payment we possibly could.  Since it wasn't an emergency we couldn't justify taking it out of the emergency fund.  Although it did feel a little like an emergency to be honest.

Why I originally thought a simple coat or three of paint would fix it I am not sure.  I actually think it was God that softened all the "eye sores" for us so we'd go ahead and purchase it and not get bogged down with the little stuff.  He knew we needed this place, he also knew we'd get bogged down with worry and get stuck in it if he didn't soften some of those things until after we'd moved in.  Once we moved in and had fallen in love with the place and saw all the potential right in front of us it was easier to jump in and fix what needed done.  That is our theory.  Looking at this picture I am thinking God must have blindfolded me completely to have walked willingly into that mess.   It is a really good thing I have the ability to imagine how it could look with some TLC.

Tobers grins for the camera with a cordless drill in hand just waiting on the next demolition order of business.

Told you is was gross!  Spud Man is in charge of demo...just happens to be right up his alley of expertise.

Sunshine helps remove staples from the wall where the trim boards were attached.  Demo is such a messy job but we knew it would be worth it in the end.  The counter section she is kneeling on we left as long as we could to maintain water in the kitchen as long as possible.  Don't you just love the wallpaper?  Pft, yuck huh?

We decided to not put any of our kitchen things in the old cabinets and set up a temporary kitchen area in the small dining area next to the kitchen.  We left only the sink base cabinet so we could still do dishes and get water.  Everything else we gutted.

We slowly worked on what we could afford to.  We took off the wallpaper seam trim and primed the wallpaper (the wallpaper was factory applied over 3/" sheetrock so we opted to leave it and prime it well then we added tape and texture along the seams.  We textured with an orange peel finish, did another primer coat, then we painted a nice neutral light beige color.

My Dad had some basic birch cabinets that he had salvaged from an old school demolition that he offered us.  We went and measured them and determined we would be able to make them fit.  Granted it would take a lot of work, creativity, and tedious retrofitting to get a workable kitchen.  We are so grateful for this resource as it did save us about $2,000!  The trade-off was, we'd spend the next 4+ months working on getting them retrofitted, refinished, and installed.  The progress has been slow but satisfying.

Here are the cabinets before we started retrofitting them.  In an off-topic note, you can see in the foreground of the picture we are drying some morel mushrooms from a recent camping trip in the mountains.  Yum!

I really like that these cabinets had another life before arriving here in my kitchen.  The likely history is that these cabinets were built by prisoners for the schools.  They are made of high quality thick veneer over pieced solid wood, what little plywood there is, is high quality.  These are solid and well built.  They stripped down easily mostly because of the smooth profile.  They sanded nice and smooth and they took stain beautifully.

We are also very grateful that my parents helped pay a portion of the cost of the new countertops.  We only had to come up with an additional $100.  So overall we have only put about $500 into this kitchen remodel.  We used our sweat equity of time, skill, and patience.

There are things we still need to do, we need to enclose the new standard range hood to look more custom (this is not shown in the photos, we've made some progress since these pics were taken), we need new flooring, and to finish it all off we need some trims and finishing touches to make it look more custom and less utilitarian.  Trim does a lot to add character for not much money.

Ways we kept costs way down:

#1 Not letting emotion get us in a hurry.

#2 Being patient with the process of doing it the harder, but cheaper way.

#3 Being content with the idea that it doesn't and won't ever look like a showroom.

#4 Embracing the idea of re-purposed items and being creative with your materials to make things functional.

#5 Losing the sense of entitlement, thinking "I deserve this because I've worked hard."  You only get it if you have the cash to pay for it.

#6 If at all possible, don't move certain fixtures that would be expensive to move....sinks because of plumbing, and stoves because of electrical and gas plumbing issues as well.  Moving these items a few inches or even 1 ft either way might not cause any issues but major rearranging of the kitchen layout adds up fast.

This isn't really a before and after post.  It is more of a before and in progress post.  We think this improved kitchen will serve our family well for years to come until we can one day build our own custom home.  We figure all of these projects serve as a very good practice for our future dream home.

We have a few drawer fronts to install under the sink area as well as to the left of the stove.

The new flexible track lighting.  Oh and see that nice looong section of countertop?  We love that area, it is where some serious sandwiches can be built, or dozens of cookies made, or pie crusts rolled out.   Then with the raised bar right there the kids can sit and visit with me or help me while I prepare something.  Or when company comes over it is fun to prepare dinner while chatting.  It is the best part about the whole kitchen!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our so far progress in our kitchen.  I look forward to many projects around this place. Thankfully, we enjoy a good before and after enough to keep plodding away at projects as we can afford to dive into more.

Keep watching for another update, with some more trim work and finishing touches, we have a ways to go but we are optimistic that maybe this summer we can get a few steps farther.