1960's Ranch Renovation Part Two: Kitchen

So, just having arrived at the house from the attorney's office, we set out to demolish the wall between the kitchen and den.  My amazing husband was a great sport.  The only downside to being a female general contractor is that some jobs are just about brute force - and that's not my strength.  Peter did a great job with the reciprocating saw and sledge hammer.  By the way, this is a NON-load bearing wall.  Don't try to remove any wall without first determining the structural integrity of the wall and room.

While we had the house under contract, I was working on kitchen plans and layouts.  If you've never been on the gardenweb forums... they are a phenomenal resource.  I found it easier to do some of the design with good old fashioned paper cut to 1/4" size to move the sink, stove, dishwasher, and seating area around.  I wanted an eat in kitchen space comfortable for seven that was NOT an island.  My last kitchen had an island (almost a continent), that although I loved it, was not as suitable for sitting down to dine with everyone, since we couldn't face each other, instead we sat in an "L".  Here's an example - but not what I needed up with:

To maximize the budget, I kept the sink in it's original position, the stove moved only a bit, and the fridge was in essentially the same location.

To keep my timeline, I chose to use Ikea cabinet bases and counter tops.  I had this "great idea" to get custom doors from a cabinet shop in North Dakota so I could have a custom paint finish over real wood cabinets.  Ikea doors are mostly wood or plastic composites.  In retrospect, they are composites for a good reason - there's much less expansion and contraction of the wood.  And finishing all the doors on my own was a lot of work.

A few great things about Ikea:

• Everything is modular - and the interior fittings are so nice (the pull outs, organizers, soft close doors)
• Everything can be purchased separately - you can get just the insides, the boxes, just the doors, any way you like it.  That means every year I can buy new doors and drawers to trade out for my current ones and have a totally different look for very little money.
• They have great sales and will give you credit within 90 days of purchase.  I bought my kitchen at the end of January, but their annual kitchen sale started in March. I went back for a price adjustment and got 20% back.

We worked all day on the wall demo - but it's very hard work. I had a crew of guys who were available to help starting on Saturday and what a different 8 guys can make in a short amount of time.

The electrician was next, to move all those pesky wires... and we ran into our first major conflict.  I love my electrician, we've worked together for years, but he loves NEW construction work - NOT renovation.  To do renovation work, you need to fish wires down walls and get into the attic and crawl space.  New construction - not so much, it's easier.  So he told the crew of guys to gut the walls and ceiling (without my permission).  We had some battles over this, even some tears.  I saw my budget eaten up by his laziness and I guess he thought I was flat out stubborn and making life difficult for him.  It ended up costing nearly $1,000 more to repair all the drywall he had ripped out (and I lost about a few days of time).  Grrrrrrh!

As much as I would have loved to continue the hardwoods into the kitchen, that just wasn't going to fit into my budget, so I installed "luxury vinyl" tile with my stepson.  You peel and stick it down, then grout the seams so it looks more like tile.  Overall, I'm very happy with it.  Yes, it's vinyl - and that has a non-luxury image.  But, it's soft to walk on, it's not cold like real ceramic tile, it's water resistant, and it's CHEAP!

Next up, cabinets...   so off to Ikea we went (the fifth or sixth of maybe twenty five trips).  We ordered the cabinets and they were delivered the next day.  I think it was 210 items that needed to be assembled.  Wow.  That was a job.  Here's my "staging" area to assemble cabinets.  They took about 30 minutes each, so really not that bad.  Ikea has a very clever design, I'm constantly amazed.

I needed Peter's help to get them installed, so the work sometimes had to wait until he was off work or over the weekend - but I think we were installing cabinets 8 days after closing.

I had a plumber lined up to start the following Monday, so I needed counter tops in ASAP (the counters go in, before or at the same time as sinks, then and only then can the plumber plumb those sinks).  It was a bit of a mad dash to get done.  

I loved the look of soapstone - but again the evil budget... so I stained butcher block counters black with India Ink (an idea I found on the gardenweb kitchen forum).  Then sealed them with waterlox.  So, about the wood counters...  they are not granite or stone - but at one fifth the price and instant installation (versus 2 weeks for stone or more), they were a fair compromise to get our kitchen done quickly and under budget.

My wood doors arrived from Scherrs of North Dakota and I set up a paint shop in the screened porch (so thankful for a mild winter!).  

Then we were able to begin installing doors and finishing things up.  You can see in the last photo we added a small freestanding island/cart.  And unfortunately, I have STILL not finished the crown moulding on those cabinets... but it's on my list.  The kitchen was "finished" in 2-3 weeks total and UNDER budget.  :-)