STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

JMR · Dooney & Bourke

Thinking of redoing my cabinets...

shopgirl82 · Chanel

oh my god! those tiles, my "bachelor" bf bought a condo last year and the "bachelor" guy who was the first owner and picked everything out, had those too! we had fruit tiles.

anyways, my money savvy bf did something i would not think of. he went to www.craigslist.org (chicago) and found a general contractor to fix somethings around the place (i broke his closet with too many clothes ). anyways, he found a guy that charges $25/hr. which is SERIOUSLY super inexpensive, the going rate is usually $80. he bought all the materials and our guy just did all kinds of random things for us. and we met a great friend in the process.

there's a ton of guys you can chose from. you just call or e-mail them. and they come by and fix things (i would wait tilll your husband is home to get things fixed, just as a safety precaution).

next we're having the granite done. the guy who owned it before did one side of the granite countertops, but the side with the sink he didn't do. who does that?! so i think we have a 10x10 square foot plus the small area surrounding the sink, and it's going to cost about $600 just of the tile so our friend is going to put it in for us. yours looks much larger so i would think it MIGHT (don't quote me) cost around $2000. i would definitely check out craigslist for the cabinets (shouldn't be too hard) and then measure the counter and call some granite companies for quotes.

fyi. he has also done that for mechanics. we figured he has saved about $2000 just this last year.

i hope that helps.

Elle · Hermes

I redid my parents kitchen for them last summer . We painted out their cabinets in white and added brushed nickel hardware (they had medium wood cabs, brass hinges, and no handles before). If you're just painting, your hubby could do it himself in a few days (or faster if he had a friend help).

We removed all the cabinet doors and drawers, washed them with dish soap and a big sponge and let them dry, drilled all the holes for the hardware, scrubbed them with a scotch brite pad, sanded them down, painted them with primer (rolled it on and knocked down the lines with a sponge brush), lightly sanded, painted with 1st coat of paint (again with the roller and sponge brush), lightly sanded, painted with 2nd coat of paint (again with the roller and sponge brush).

The process would go much faster if you did it in a garage or outside - the weather was bad when we did it so we had to do the entire thing in the actual kitchen itself, which lengthened the drying time and the number of cabs we were able to do at once because of space.

You'd probably be looking at maybe $200 or $300 for paint, supplies, and hardware.

Karina · Chanel

are you nesting? lol

halleybird · Hermes

I'm redoing my "country kitchen" too -- all new cabinets/handles and new countertops this summer. It's really expensive! I have a small kitchen AND we're getting everything below mfr. cost (plus no installation charges), and it's still going to cost us about $2-$3k.

I think your countertops are nice (are they granite? or corian? I can't tell from the pic) and you could make them look modern if you changed the other stuff. As for the cabinets, what color do you want them to be? You might want to look into staining the boxes and then getting new doors (looks a lot less obvious than staining the whole thing).

shopgirl is right -- I would try to find a guy to do it on the side. My FIL is a contractor for a cabinet company, but he also does stuff on the side. He has access to all the extra cabinets the company has, so he charges a lot less. (Just PLEASE make sure they are licensed!)

For a quick, cheap fix, I think you could just replace the backsplash and the handles. If the backsplash is just tile, you could do that yourself. Maybe do something in black that's a little more modern & goes with the countertops. And they have some great handle pulls at Home Depot or Great Indoors (don't overpay at places like Restoration Hardware). Good luck!

mikacat · Coach

We won a kitchen remodel contest for the budget category at Home Depot. We got a $700 gift card and made the daily paper,

I'll tell you what we did.

We painted the walls red and put a black and white tile floor in. We had cabinets similar to yours and we painted them white and got better hardware--- stainless and more modern looking. There are so many to choose from at Home Depot, Lowes even Target. You can also leave a couple of doors off for a cool modern feel and put pretty things like dishes or wine glasses (not food). We put new lighting in from Ikea--they have some cool fixtures. We also put up a metal magnetic stainless bulletin type board for pictures, lists, notes, etc. We spent under $1000 but did all the work ourselves.

shopgirl82 · Chanel

i know it's cheaper to do it yourself, but for $25/hour it was worth not having the headaches. not to mention the bf cursing all day! we also justified it that we have spent $100 on stupider things before (we just ate in that weekend!). i love mikacat's ideas!!! i think the handles are the easiest things to replace to change the look.

alb · Marc Jacobs

I didn't read all the other posts but my initial thoughts are for you to paint the cabinets white and change out the hardware. Just substitute brushed nickel cabinet pulls. That will make it look so much better at minimal cost. My next priority would be to switch out the countertops but honestly, if you are on a budget I would just paint the cabinets for now, the countertops are not that bad and will look much better and less "country" with white cabinets. Painting the cabinets white will make the most difference IMO. HTHS!

JMR · Dooney & Bourke

Karina wrote:

are you nesting? lol

You think???

This week alone I am getting my house painted/garage door changed/and we started the nursery....my house is a DISASTER!!

Thank you sooo much for your ideas ladies...My husband and I decided to paint the cabinets white - change the hardware and go for a grey or black counter top - we are also going to get a stainless fridge to update the look.

THe only problem is my sink and the top of the stove is ivory - changing the sink is no biggie - but the stove...well that isn't going to happen right away - I guess I can live with it for a while if I have to. I REALLY want to do a mosaic on the backsplash - so I am thinking of taking a class and maybe attempting it myself....

I am not sure when this is all going to happen - but hopefully soon - I'll post pics when we do it.

Thanks for giving me the confidence to take on this project!

shopgirl82 · Chanel

it is always nice to be able to take credit for your home interior!!! good luck!!! i think the mosaic idea is great!

mikacat · Coach

the white tile doesn't seem that bad but the design on the backsplash is awful. why would someone do that?? LOL.

i think redoing that part would make it look a lot better and a stainless fridge will be fabulous.