DIY Kida - Our first DIY project: Kitchen remodel

When we first bought our house we were saying to ourselves that the kitchen is very old style and we'll probably renovate it. Then we settled after a month saying doing the kitchen is too much and we can probably use the money for something else. Then after somemore time we thought that a new kitchen would increase the value of the home. So since the last year we were debating about doing the kitchen or not. My house has the traditional off-white Formica type kitchen that is installed in most of the rental apartments we stayed in previously and for now we were getting bored of seeing the same thing and keeping it clean. Soooo in the peak of summer 2011 we decided that we are going to re-model the kitchen. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on the kitchen, as the house was only 2 bedroom, so eventually we would move to a bigger house. So we wanted to keep it under  budget and add value.

Everytime we said this to someone the conversation took this turn

- Have you done this before?

- NO....

- How are you going to do it? Are you using any books?

- Youtube

- Really??

- Really!!! It seems that people do this all the time so why not me

- Are you taking before and after pictures

- Heck yes! I am not only taking that but i'm going to blog about that too. 

So here I am writing about my kitchen re-model experience

Time taken to remodel: June 2011 - September 2011

Introduction:
The first run - went to Home Depot and saw this kitchen refacing section and asked them.. Kitchen refacing.. huh ... new doors and knobs and old cabinets.. use your kitchen.. no mess.. no fuss and 5 years guarantee.. job done in 3 days (max a week, 2 - 3 weeks if new countertop is being installed)

I pretty much signed on for this one and thought that if the cost is going to be less than $5000 then i'm in.. who wants to create debris in the house if this is an option. The guy came in next week, very knowledgable person. Did all the work and rough estimate was $12,000 (that was just too much for me.. refacing not re-doing thats what i was thinking and then $12,000 for just that...i had to have other opinions)

Next run was to a local kitchen only specializing store. The guy created a computerized version of our kitchen and everything looked pretty but the concern was the same. The cost of the project was rising to above the refacing only estimate (which was expected in a way)

I also ran to my favorite store IKEA. I'm telling you, everytime I go there I have a great experience; I just learn so much and they make me comfortable about me doing the job. I started asking about the IKEA kitchen designer etc and they helped me create a model of my kitchen that i could access from home and change designs and panels when i want. I quickly learned the software and came up with the kitchen design that mirrors my actual kitchen. This software helped me tremendously to choose which color/finish/design/style cabinets i should choose and how they will look. The prices werent bad either. Their highest end kitchen was for $2499 (10' X 10') and the lowest started at $999 for the same size. Pretty cheap for parts. I give them credit that their board quality was quite comparable to what others had plus their drawers and insets are much more user friendly and intuitive (they have the best organizers) and the biggest thing is IKEA gives a 25 year warranty (the highest that i've seen). Their designs are modern and give a very sophisticated/chic look. They did have quite high installation prices. I guess this is where they make the money.

The decision was obvious and the IKEA AKURUM APPLAD series is what we chose to go with. The idea now is to design and assemble a white kitchen with light brown walls with all stainless steel appliances, light beige ceramic floors with mosaic backsplash on the sink side and stainless steel blackspalsh on the gas range side. This is my journey from start to finish.

The Master Plan: 

1. To dismantle all cabinets and appliances. Take out all trash and clear the place so that i start with an empty slate. 

2. Moving refridgerator doesnt make sense so move it within the kitchen itself and work in two halves.

3. No access to gas.. so no cooking for the foreseeable month hence arrange for food 

4. Start with tiling the floor and then make your way up.

5. Paint the kitchen after tiling is complete.

6. Start installing base cabinets and keep appliances in place

7. Call for countertop installation

8. Install wall cabinets and other appliances.

9. Finish with backsplash. 

10. Enjoy new kitchen

Unfortunately we did not take a lot of picture of our old kitchen, but this one should give you some idea how it looked. 

This picture shows left half of the kitchen. It had apartment style cabinets (20 years old, but neatly kept), an old Dishwasher, over the counter m microwave. 

You can also see the eat-in kitchen with old furniture. 

This picture shows age old gas stove in pretty used condition. We had bought a double door refrigerator as soon as we had moved in. So the plan was to keep only that and let go off everything else in that room.

Phase 1: Remove all cabinets and clear out the space.

You would think that this sounds like an easy job. Get a hammer and bang it out.. but no. You see professionals do it the right way. Not implying that we are one but we started with the last single standalone base and wall cabinet which made us feel pretty good. All we had to do is remove 4 screws from the countertop and then remover the screws that went in the walls. Just after I did the thing that I'm very qualified in... putting it on Craigslist. Listed the cabinet for sale Wednesday night and Thursday morning it was gone. $20 bucks per cabinet was not a bad deal. 

By Saturday everything was sold but one wall cabinet and the countertop. I cut the countertop in half and trashed it and the wall cabinet was given away free. Removing the sink and plumbing was the biggest challenge as we had no clue and the zigzag pipes looked more like an unsolved puzzle to us. We made a few trips to closest home depot to get a few tools to remove it. Somehow we unhooked those and water was still leaking out slowly so we decided to remove the sink and cap the water outlet. While the garbage disposer was out (drain is exposed open) Ajay handed over the water filled bucket to Isaac and without blinking poured it all on us from the open drain. See he wasn't thinking that much, he thought that removing the erator will still keep the other pipes connected; how innovative!! :-)

Phase 2: Tiling

When all was cleared, started with the floor. Laying tiles is by far the most tedious job; i can tell you that. Arranging each tile by itself. Putting the spacers and leveling just killed my back. But 2 weeks of hardwork and it was all worth the pain. I had to do half of the kitchen first; move my refrigerator and gas and then do the remaining half... but seriously ceramic tiles do beat the shit out of that plain old vinyl flooring anyday! Plus they look awesome! 

Eat in Kitchen

                 

Finished floors and fresh painted walls

Phase 3: Painting

We decided to go with light brown color for the kitchen walls and painted the whole kitchen. Painting was relatively easy. But prep work for painting took longer than imagined. 

While removing the countertop, some part of the dry wall was damaged and we had no clue how to fix it. But thanks to youtube DYI videos, we could fix it in no time. But sanding and cleaning was more painful than the actual repair and painting. The picture of the finished floors above also shows the painted walls. In fact all the pictures from now on, will show the painted walls.

Phase 4: Assembled all the cabinets 

The beauty of IKEA products is, easy assembly. We had to refer to instructions for one base cabinet, one top cabinet and pantry. And rest all was repeat the easy instructions. Mounting was not so bad either.

 

We got a gas range hooked in. I was a little scared to do it myself, as once we put everything in place, and what if the gas leaks coz I might have fixed it wrong? But we decided to check on gas smell every few hours, for a few days just to be sure everything is okay. 

Phase 5: Granite countertop, new kitchen sink and faucet

We always debated over which countertop to install. Ikea had a lot of cheap countertops, but I always thought of getting the best which is granite. We selected a premium quality countertop, Deep D sink and a fancy faucet at home depot and scheduled an appointment for measurement . 

Home depot took measurement of the counter space as well as the shape of sink and fitting location of faucet and returned after a week to install it. Installation was as simple as putting a lot of glue for the granite to stick to the cabinet tops. Also two half way holes to screw our new dishwasher to the granite. 

The granite adds its own shine to the kitchen. So does the fancy sink and faucet.

Phase 6: Plumbing 

Since we replaced everything in the kitchen, why use an old garbage disposal. We went to Home Depot and purchased a new one and fixed it. 

Rest of plumbing was like a dark area for us, as no DIY video was giving a specific solution to our problem. 

So we took a few pictures (like the one to the left) and ran to home depot to get help of their experts. Every time we got stuck, we would take a new picture and ask them for a solution. It's pretty impressive that they could explain us what the issue is, as well as provide us with the best product to resolve the issue. Here is an example of one of the issues we faced - Water pipe can not reach the garbage disposal. We had no clue how to fix it with a hard pipe, as you get only pre-cut pipes. 

Phase 7: Backsplash

This is the best thing we ever decided to do in the kitchen. It just brightens the look of the kitchen. We also installed a fancy over the sink paper towel holder to utilize the space and cool looks. 

Phase 8: Electric work and Installation of appliances

Once the plumbing was done, we got to the electrical work around the kitchen. Being an electronics engineer, we thought this would we very easy to fix. But imagine replacing ten plug points around the kitchen. It was rather boring job to replace it. But nevertheless, we took time to replace it so that the face plates look better.

The last appliance to be installed was the over-the-range microwave. 

After the microwave was hooked, all we had to do was fix the doors to all the cabinets.

Last but not the least, handles for the cabinet doors.

We also installed bumpers for quiet closing of the doors and drawers. This was the best feature of the cabinets. Slam the cabinet doors/ drawers all you want, it will not make any noise. 

Phase 9: Everything hooked up and working 

Phase 10: Furnish eat-in-kitchen. 

Decided to match the table with the cabinets. It gives a brighter outlook to the whole kitchen. 

This goes with Brown chairs with off white upholstery.  

This was our first BIG home project. And nothing compares to the joy of building it from scratch.