Krista' sister Kendra had an empty basement apartment. So went to look at it for a potential remodel job. It needs updating and finish work. While we were there, we noticed a sag in her first level kitchen floor. It would compress at least a full inch when walked on. The cabinets would sag with the floor as it was walked on, leaving a distinct gap. So before any other improvements, it had to be fixed.
It's a 1928 Bungalow that's been added on to and modified countless times. The plan was to discover what was under the joists, as no sagging could be detected below.
dOnce we got the floor open, it became clear that the kitchen used to be a carport, and was an add on. The floor had been (poorly) framed to match the level of the main house. Many of the 'joists' had one nail in them or were completely disconnected, resulting in the sagging of the kitchen floor. Fortunately, it wasn't a structural thing, and only needed to be replaced with joists of the proper size, and secured well.
We took this time to address the plumbing and remove the sink drain, which had been running through the kitchen cabinets. Obviously custom work. We moved the drain pipe to the floor, where there was plenty of fall.
The floor got new subfloor, and new flooring.
We used an average priced flooring from Home Depot, and it went together really quick and easy.
Initially, we were just going to install a laminate prefab countertop. But with the larger corner cabinets, and the limited resources at the hardware store, we could not get the area covered. This meant we had to do tile.
We chose pre-finished hickory cabinets, in stock at The Home Depot. They had all the sizes we needed to replace the current cabinetry.
Unfortunately, we did not look at the product prior to getting it back to the site, and we found several were damaged in some way.
Now, there were not enough pieces to finish the cabinetry, so we had to replace the old cabinets until we could order new ones.
We picked up cabinets at the Home Depot. 2/5 were damaged and had to go back. We were running out of time to finish this project, though we knew it would have to be done in phases, our calendar was filling up with obligations.
We began with the outside wall of the kitchen and decided to work in phases around to the other side. We replaced the lower cabinets and stove, and got the countertops tiled on that side of the room. When we return we will hang cabinets, tile the backsplash and wall, insert new window coverings, and new light fixtures.
PHASE TWO
Phase two included the upper cabinets on the west side, as well as the backsplash. We chose a white honeycomb to compliment the entryway into the kitchen from the dining room. It ended up being a lot of tilework, and a lot of sealing. We enlisted the homeowners help for that.
PHASE THREE
Phase three included removing the counters on the east side of the room. Originally, we were only going to refinish and replace the cabinet doors. But as the cabinets were being pulled it was clear there was no rehabbing them. We were hopeful that the cabinet bases we would purchase would cover the same footprint of the previous, because otherwise we'd be in trouble with the new flooring. Turns out, it wasn't. We had to pull the floor all the way back to the wall at the oven, and re-lay several rows, but it would've looked silly had we not.
New lighting was installed to match the appliances and fixtures, and brighten up the room. The lighting was recovered from a remodel Dave's brother was doing.
It became clear at this point that the cabinet in the right corner was not going to work. Given the space for the new smaller- sized hood vent, and the gap at the corner. We removed the cabinet and replaced it with a larger one, filling the gap at the hood vent, and maximizing space to the corner.
Typically, when we do a project we like to use as much repurposed material as we can. We hadn't anticipated this project to be a full kitchen remodel, so we hadn't put a lot of time or attention into saving items that could be used for this project. However, we were able to take the cabinet doors, that we had originally planned on planeing down, refinishing and reinstalling, and rip them down to 4 inch boards to be used as the toe kicks under the cabinet bases. Toe kick boards in store are prohibitively expensive, but everyone wants that finished look. We also used the salvaged ceiling lights, and remnant undercabinet lighting from the carriage house project.
(We also added a new threshhold transition to the door)
Start to finish, materials only, this project cost less than $5000USD