Kitchen Remodeling

[Hest88]

Triple Garden Web. It's really the absolutely best place to go. Warning, though, threads drop off after 60 pages, so if there's an older thread you find useful be sure to copy and paste it into a document or you might not be able to reference it later.

[jaynesb]

Another vote for gardenweb. I learned a ton from them and also have felt happy to have been able to contribute to others.

In terms of the postings that age out of the index, try using the advanced google search. It might be able to help you find those old posts. I think that they are there but not indexed after they reach some gardenweb limit.

jayne

[violetfox]

I've just started remodeling the 1950's kitchen in my 1790 home. I like the 50's character and want to retain it as much as possible while having a functional room. I've got a (now) fully operational Clarion woodstove, and I can't wait to play with it.

I have a few questions, likely many more as I proceed.

I'm planning to install a couple of walls of pegboard - anybody know about how to paint it? Hardware store didn't seem too sure about this.

I love the looks of the Elmira enameled stoves, but wonder if anyone has used them, or heard much about them?

Does anyone have Marmoleum in your kitchen? Do you like it?

Thanks in advance for all replies!

[MelissaH]

We have a Marmoleum Click floor in our kitchen. We love it.

MelissaH

[violetfox]

Thanks, Melissa. I've heard lots of good things about it in remodeling mags etc, and like the looks of it, but it's great to hear from an actual person who has it. May I ask if you installed it yourself? If so, was it reasonably easy?

[MelissaH]

violetfox,

Yes, we installed our Marmoleum Click ourselves. It was pretty easy, once we figured out that you really need a "tap block" and mallet to get the pieces to snap together. My husband made one out of some hard maple, routing it out to match the tongue-and-groove of the flooring. Once he did that, he didn't even need my help!

MelissaH

[snowangel]

I'm planning to install a couple of walls of pegboard - anybody know about how to paint it? Hardware store didn't seem too sure about this.

You could also go the route of Julia Child's kitchen (the one currently installed in the Smithsonian). Once she was happy with the placement of the various utensils and pots and pans, her husband Paul outlined them with a marker so it was always evident where the item belonged. As I recall, it is simply plain pegboard.

[violetfox]

violetfox,

Yes, we installed our Marmoleum Click ourselves. It was pretty easy, once we figured out that you really need a "tap block" and mallet to get the pieces to snap together. My husband made one out of some hard maple, routing it out to match the tongue-and-groove of the flooring. Once he did that, he didn't even need my help!

MelissaH

Thanks, Melissa. The salesperson made it sound quite easy. The idea of a tap block is probably going to save me a lot of trial and error!

[violetfox]

I'm planning to install a couple of walls of pegboard - anybody know about how to paint it? Hardware store didn't seem too sure about this.

You could also go the route of Julia Child's kitchen (the one currently installed in the Smithsonian). Once she was happy with the placement of the various utensils and pots and pans, her husband Paul outlined them with a marker so it was always evident where the item belonged. As I recall, it is simply plain pegboard.

Thank you, snowangel! That is where I got the idea, but I need to go and see it for myself, I think. The pegboard in my local building supply shop is brown and pretty unattractive. It's inexpensive - so I may just get a sheet and mess around with it a bit, try painting it as is, sanding it, see what works.

[snowangel]

I'm planning to install a couple of walls of pegboard - anybody know about how to paint it? Hardware store didn't seem too sure about this.

You could also go the route of Julia Child's kitchen (the one currently installed in the Smithsonian). Once she was happy with the placement of the various utensils and pots and pans, her husband Paul outlined them with a marker so it was always evident where the item belonged. As I recall, it is simply plain pegboard.

Thank you, snowangel! That is where I got the idea, but I need to go and see it for myself, I think. The pegboard in my local building supply shop is brown and pretty unattractive. It's inexpensive - so I may just get a sheet and mess around with it a bit, try painting it as is, sanding it, see what works.

If you want to paint it, try that spray-on enamel paint.

[violetfox]

Great idea, snowangel - thank you!

[Jim.Lee]

Hey Everybody,

This is my first topic post as I'm new on eGullet. My Wife recently began the start of a new career by enrolling in Culinary School last year. We've decided that we'd like to renovate / remodel our kitchen but are deciding whether to DIY it or bring in a contractor.

We live in Calgary Alberta and have looked into Legacy Custom Kitchen Designs and also Dreams By Design and are trying to decide which one would be good if we go that route, has anybody used them?

We also may decide to go the DIY route but want to know the pro's and con's if we undertake the project that way. Or maybe even a mix of contractors and DIY.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Jim

[ScoopKW]

I hope you don't read anything snarky or sarcastic into this post. I'm just asking some questions that will probably shed light on the answer.

Should you DIY?

1) Do you own decent tools? Do you own a lot of decent tools? Can you use these tools proficiently? Does "cope and stick" mean anything to you? Raised panel? Euro-hinge?

2) Do you know what wood you plan to use? Do you know what it costs per board foot? Do you know what a board foot is? Can you square-up hardwood?

3) Do you have a big enough gas pipe to handle the new equipment you're going to want? Can you be your own electrician? Plumber? Does your insurance cover you messing around with natural gas in your house?

4) Has your wife spent enough time in a kitchen to know what she wants? Like Joe Jackson said, you can't get what you want, 'til you know what you want...

If it were me, I would DIY it. But that's because I have the tools for the job, and know where to get good prices on hardwood. I also have no problems ripping out a kitchen, demolishing walls and generally wreaking havoc in my own house. I know that when I finish, it will be an improvement on when I started.

[lesliec]

Hi Jim. Welcome to eGullet.

How much of the renovation you do yourself will depend on your skills, confidence and time, but one thing I'd strongly advise is to have your kitchen designed by a professional.

We've had two new kitchens done now (different houses) and both times the designer has been able to come up with ways of using the available space we just wouldn't have thought of. The way it works here, and I can't imagine Canada will be much different, is the designer comes round at a suitable time and talks about how you like (or would like) to use the kitchen, any special requirements and ideas you have, then makes some measurements, goes away and comes up with a design. There's no reason not to get more than one designer looking at it - we had something like five different designs, from three different designers, last time. If you like one, you can either get the designer to look after the whole project, or simply buy the design (a few hundred dollars - here, anyway) and talk to your friendly builder/cabinet maker (or DIY). If you don't like any, send them away to try harder, or find another designer.

As an example of the sort of thing professional designers can come up with, we mentioned that we'd quite like somewhere out of the way to feed the cats. The design we went with has one set of cupboard doors set further above the floor than the rest, so we can still use that cupboard when the moggies are dining.

Good luck, whichever way you go. We expect regular updates!

Bye,

Leslie

[heidih]

Good advice so far. Since you have not defined the extent of the remodel, the question certainly arises about permits. In most localities things that affect water, gas, electrical, or wall movement may need permits . If it is just cosmetic you are going to get better deals if the vendor also does the install and then they are also more accountable. Professional design advice is a good idea. They bring up things that even as experienced cooks we would not think of. Prepare to live out of electrical cooking devices and yes, you will learn to do dishes in cold bathtub water..

[lesliec]

... Prepare to live out of electrical cooking devices ...

Ah yes, I was forgetting the microwave on a box in the bath - happy times ...

In fact, the restaurants of Wellington did quite well out of our kitchen project.

[LindaK]

Welcome to eGullet, Jim.Lee! This is quite a topic to begin with.

you'll probably get better advice if you tell us more about the scope of your own skills/experience and your future renovation plans. Are you thinking about new cabinets and appliances in your existing kitchen configuration? or are you thinking about moving plumbing, gas lines, structural changes, etc.? The bigger the changes, the more likely you probably need help, unless you have the skills or lots of time to learn them on the job.

When you say DYI, do you mean "do all the work yourself" or do you mean act as your own general contractor? And again, what is your skill level, either with the trades or managing many subs?

I did a major kitchen reno 18 months ago, and it was quite the learning experience. Not only did I have no skills for the work needed, but I'd never managed a significant construction project. So being a kitchen renovation virgin, the smartest things I did was (1) spend money for an architect to draw up detailed plans in advance, and (2) hire a GC to manage the project. Having good plans in advance meant that I didn't need to stop work midstream (which costs money and screws up timetables) to figure out issues. Having a good GC is the greatest blessing I can imagine--s/he is the conductor to an orchestra of tradespeople, city inspectors and permits, etc. Mine kept a big project on time and on budget. No question, though, it's more expensive than DYI.

That said, now that I've done one, I have a sense of the juggling involved. I'll never be able to do my own electrical or plumbing work, but I now have the confidence to manage a smaller project. Don't kid yourself, a kitchen renovation takes a lot of time and attention.

I didn't document my renovation, but other eG folks have. Check out:

and

[Darienne]

DH can no longer operate the computer or I wouldn't say this. He is a genius at renovations...there is no doubt of that. He has been doing it our entire marriage...plus 50 years now...but he made some errors in the kitchen...which I now have lived with for some ten years and hate every day. With all his experience at building, wiring, plumbing, etc, he was still subject to the kind of error that a designer would have pointed out from the get go.

I say GET AN ARCHITECT OR DESIGNER IN ON IT FROM THE START.

[andiesenji]

There has been extensive discussion on earlier threads regarding this subject.

A great deal of information, sources and photos have been posted on this thread:

Kitchen Remodeling

I have undertaken 5 kitchen remodels over the past 44 years, one being a DIY but my husband at the time was a master plasterer and had many friends in the building trades and all of the work was done by very experienced people and all necessary permits were pulled and the work inspected. It took three months because much of the work was done on weekends and at night. I had set up a temporary kitchen on the covered patio as that was the only place not occupied by piles of material, new appliances and tools.

The last remodel in '94 was actually an 800 sq ft addition to my home so I would have a much larger kitchen with more natural light. The original part of the house where the old kitchen was sited, has double-thick concrete block walls and the windows opening were not large so the place was like a cave. My main requirement was lots of windows.

I had a kitchen designer but had considerable input because I knew exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it done. My contractor had excellent references and a guarantee of completion by a certain date was written into the contract, mainly because I had purchased all of the materials ahead of time (renting a nearby storage unit to house everything) because I wanted no delays because an order did not arrive on time or was the wrong color, size, type, grade, etc., etc., etc. I am extremely picky and would not "settle" for second best simply because it was expedient. I had done that on an earlier remodel and was never happy with the result.

It took less than five weeks from start to finish and would have been done a few days earlier had we not had an unseasonal (for the soCal. desert) rain that slowed the curing of the concrete foundation.

I love my kitchen and wouldn't change a thing and it still looks good after sixteen years.

[IndyRob]

Based on the original post (but not knowing how the current kitchen is), I'd say hold off a bit. I've not been to culinary school, but if I had, I imagine it would have a significant impact on my kitchen design requirements.

The pics posted at the sites you mentioned are awesome. But I can't help but contrast them to Julia Child's kitchen - which might seem more like Grandpa's garage than an in-home Trattoria.

So is it meant to be a showplace or a workplace? Most likely, the home kitchen won't further the culinary career since, at least in my area, it can't be used for commercial purposes.

That said, my son and I accomplished a major kitchen remodel in almost a weekend - on the cheap and with good results. All of the appliances were nearly top of the line, but the cabinets were boxed DIY fare. We made only minor changes to electrical and plumbing systems.

In retrospect, I would like more electrical outlets, but in our house it's the sort of thing that could lead to a complete rewiring of the whole house fairly quickly.

But I'm pretty proud of the job we did. Except for some matters of fit and finish, I think we did a great job. I'm the kind of person who is really confident with the larger issues of design, but I lose interest when, say, mitered corners need to match up. I could have really done better to stop at the finishing steps and brought in a pro. But if, in contrast, you love to work on the the details, maybe you need to have someone come in up front for the broad brush.

So you really need to take stock of yourself, and your SO, and have a lot of discussions.

[Edward J]

Hi Jim.

You've been getting an earfull of advice, and it's all good, although I don't know if you want to make your own cabinets like ScoopW. Me, I'd probably go with bleached soft maple and raised panels on the tablesaw with only half-blind dovetails on the drawer fronts and the backs dadoed in. (Hate routers, only use them for laminate trimming and round-overs....)

Start poking around at the library and get some books on kitchen design. Do you want an island, or a galley type? How large is your existing kitchen? Do you want it larger, the same size, smaller? Do the windows need to be changed out? New floor? Or is the existing one still good?

These are all questions that a designer will ask you....

Cheap, DIY way to go, is to trott down to RONA or Home Despot and get replacement drawer and door fronts of the cabinets. You use the same cabinets but have new fronts of your choice; a new countertop and sink, maybe lighting fixtures, and appliances of your choice and you're good to go for another 10-15 years. This is pretty basic stuff, and can be done on weekends with a minimum of tools or experience.

When you start fooling around with walls, windows, floors, new electrical service, gas service, stronger ventilation hoods, etc, it starts to add up VERY quickly. And then there is no limit on how much you want to spend on appliances.....

Slow down for a minute and start to look at other people's places, what you like and don't, what You need and what you think you'll need, and how much do you want to spend.

[Aloha Steve]

Hey Everybody,

We've decided that we'd like to renovate / remodel our kitchen but are deciding whether to DIY it or bring in a contractor.

Gosh Jim, when you said DIY, I thought you meant design it yourself and have someone else, the contractor, do the work.

[IndyRob]

One thing I'd like to add to the discussion is the value of what I'd call micro design. Once we got our renovation done we quickly loaded up the cabinets with all the things that had been relocated to other rooms.

Although I had a general idea of what would go where, it took me a year or two of pulling a pile of dishes/bowls/pans out of the cabinets - in order to get to the one in the middle of the pile, to finally put my foot down and (figuratively) scream what so many would have seen at the outset...

"A place for everything and everything in its place!"

As I analyzed the situation, the solution was simple. More shelves. Usually in a stock cabinet you get two shelves. Few things in a kitchen will take up the vertical space between them. Simply putting in more shelves will give you much more storage area for the cost of a plank of wood/particleboard and a few shelf pegs.

[daves]

Hi eGulleters

We hate our kitchen. Well, the kitchen itself isn't so bad. But we really hate our downdraft exhaust. Like most of them, it doesn't suck and that, well, sucks. We have a island with a 36" 6 burner NG cooktop with a 36" motorized downdraft behind it. The thing has broken a few times, and parts are getting harder to find to fix it. In short -- we're done with it.

The last time this thing broke, we started talking seriously about putting in a real hood above the cooktop. We even went so far to get a kitchen designer in because we thought it would be a challenge to vent an island hood. Kitchen is on the 1st floor with a bedroom above it on the 2nd. Kitchen is in the corner of the house, but the easiest run outside (with the joist directions in the ceiling) would put the vent exhaust over our deck. The only other outside wall would require venting through quite a few joists...

So we put the idea on ice for a few years. Then our wall oven failed (a KitchenAid) and it was replaced with a Miele double oven. My wife, who had just finished up in culinary school (pastry), was and still is very happy with it. I should have known that double 30" temperature-stable ovens would come back to bite me, but my excuse is that she was 8.5 month pregnant when the oven failed 3 days before Christmas. Replacement (and happiness) was a priority!

Finally, the downdraft broke again and we said that we're really done with it. This time we were more serious. We're approaching our 15th anniversary, and a few months before that will be my 20th year at the same company. We can't think of a better reason to rip apart the kitchen to the studs and be cooking on the bbq all summer. Oh yeah -- and hopefully have our dream kitchen at the end of it.

At this point, we're about 1/2 way through the design portion. We've done layout and we're getting into materials at this point. I wanted to share our story with the hope of feedback (many more sets of eyes) and that this might help someone else.

We start thinking about cooking appliances. The initial idea was to go with a double Miele wall oven (again) and a Wolf 36" or 48" rangetop (with the open burners), and a real hood above the cooktop. We would move the rangetop/hood to the exterior wall where we have a fridge now, and the island would become prep-only. The fridge would end up where our oven was, and the only problem was where to put the ovens. And we really really didn't want to move any exterior walls and raise the price of this remodel.

Long story short: there was no place to put wall ovens that didn't seem shoe-horned in. We cut out templates in graph paper and moved them around. The designer tried a few ideas, including giving up a real fridge and moving to drawers (which we veto'ed). We finally decided to give up some lower cabinet space and move to a dual fuel range: a 60" Wolf dual fuel with frenchtop.

And that's the first question out there: anyone have a frenchtop? We're going with the FT because I can't see using a grill or griddle since they both seem like they'd be a constant mess, and my bbq is ~40 feet away outside under cover.

The other point for the Wolf was the electric ovens. They are apparently as temperature-stable as the Miele, and my wife (the baker) wants the dry heat from electric ovens. I would prefer to have one gas and one electric, but Wolf doesn't do that. We looked at Bluestar and Jade, and their ranges are either gas only or non-self-clean. When I saw a price sheet, I consoled myself thinking that it saved us from expanding the kitchen. That would probably have cost 5-8x more.

The designer also worked it well into the plan. The far wall of the kitchen will be the range, some cabinets on either side, and a whole lot of tile. It'll definitely be the centerpiece (so to speak) of the kitchen. So the hood needs to support the aesthetics.

The hood. That is the real motivator for this remodel, and we really wanted something that worked. If we're putting that much potential heat under it, we'll want something that can deal with the heat and the occasional cast-iron pan steak sear. We're planning to extend past the side edges of the range, so we're looking for a 66" x 24" hood. Venting with be from an external Abbaka 1400 cfm blower mounted on the outer wall.

Anyone with any experience with that blower?

We're looking at 2 possibilities right now: a Modern-Aire P31 66"x24"x18" with about 11" of vent cover; or a Abbaka Classic 66"x24"x20" and about 9" of vent cover. Either of these will have brushed SS finish with polished SS accents. Both vendors seem to make the hoods to order, and it seems that just about anything can be customized.

Any success stories with Modern-Aire or Abbaka?

Looking over this, I see I've written a long first post on this project. I'd love any feedback on the Wolf or our venting ideas. As this solidifies, I'll post more info on it. We expect to demo the kitchen in June and have our kitchen back before school starts. We'll see how well that goes

[Dave the Cook]

On first glance, 1400 CFM seems like overkill, unless you've got a long run of duct (it would be great if you could post photos and a floor plan). However, if you're really sold on something that powerful, make sure you've got a serious source of make-up air.