Larissa, I emailed you! [Archive] - Baby Bargains & Baby 411 Community

bostonsmama

08-26-2005, 07:22 PM

Hi Allison! Glad I finally got your email. I actually had to print it out there were so many questions, so we'll see what I can do to answer them. As you know, I don't have a short answer for anything (in college, my professors always told me to be more concise!!) so hopefully you'll be prepared in case this turns into a novel. Also, forgive me if I jump from thought to thought.

Our kitchen remodel took place slowly over a period of about a year. First we ripped up the floor and installed ceramic tile. We tried refinishing the cabs, but it looked awful, so we invested $3300 in a mid-grade, but extremely well performing solid wood doored cabinetry. This was $1500 more than we wanted to spend, but the highlight of the kitchen. You can add design cheaply by varrying the height of your cabinetry (between 30 and 36 for us, 40s are too
big unless your ceilings are 9ft+, or you don't want counter space) and adding standard crown moulding (very difficult to do, but lovely if pulled off). To start, we gutted the kitchen while waiting for our cabs to come in. We ripped out the soffet (I'll get to that later) and replastered the dry wall--the hardest part, IMHO, and one we wish we'd hired out. Also, with all that open ceiling we decided to chuck our old light fixture and install 4 new recessed lights and a medallion light over the sink. It was harder than we thought tapping into the wires, and we spent precious time trying to get the lightswitch next to the garbage disposal to operate the light over the sink...we eventually had to go back into the ceiling and tap into
the main line.

The worst thing about demolishing your kitchen is the dust created when sawing into drywall. We had taped plastic sheeting over every entrance to the kitchen, and it still managed to get everywhere. Also, have you ever seen your living room with a fridge and range in it? To save the coils in the fridge and range from a massive post-reno cleaning, we moved them out and plugged the fridge in lsewhere. There was a lot of microwave cooking that month. Plus, do you have a place to put all your plates, cookware and food items? It looked like a mess!

The ripping out part was pretty easy. You'll need a hammer, a crow bar (big & little one), a drill with screwdriver bits and a reverse mode, and a lot of muscle. We located the major screws that attached the cabs to the studs and unscrewed them. If you kitchen is older like mine (16 yrs @ the time), grease, paint and even caulking keep the cabinets stuck to the wall and each other, and that's where the hammer & crow bar come into play. We saved a few cabs, so demo wasn't as dangerous as someone splitting them open and sledge-hammering them like on TV, and they actually came off easier with less whacking. It's a 2 person job for the top b/c someone has to catch the cabinet when it falls. We started with Pete on the drill and me catching, but those babies are HEAVY, so we swapped. It gets easier as you go along, and with all the shelving out, and spacers ripped out, it's easier to get to them. If you have built in cabs,
can't help you...that's a job for a wrecking crew! Trust me, my mom tried this...that crap is glued in there with liquid cement. Once you pry off your countertops (crowbar at seam and hammer from underneath), the bottom goes pretty quickly, but note that many cabs are screwed into each other, so before you waste energy, look at the sides. Your next step is to sweep out the area, tear out the soffet, install any lighting, and assess the walls for damage & patch them. I'll get to the soffet in a minute.

Installation of the cabs was a challenge, but we got a book at the library on making sure your level line is up and that you're spacing things accordingly. Proper planning is critical here, so I'm glad Lowes worked with our measurements and helped us order and plan every single cabinet and spacer (Lord knows we spent at least $80-$100 in simple wood spacers so standard sized cabs would fit into our dimensions). Start in a corner. You need a long level, a carpenter's pencil for drawing that line, a stud-finder, a measuring tape, wooden shims for leveling cabinets out from the wall in case you wall bows/isn't flat, 2-1/4 to 2-3/4 inch long drywall screws & a drill (perhaps with bits to drill pilot holes, esp if the cab frame is a hardwood, as you wouldn't want it to split when you push a big screw through it). DH said the screws need to be long enough to go through your cab, through the drywall and at least an inch into the wooden stud. You should NEVER EVER screw a cabinet into anything but a stud...but being handy I bet you know that. Anyways, from there we just moved left then right with the line level. The filler/spacer pieces, if you have to do that, is tricky. It involved wood glue, pilot holes and small screws screwed from the inside of the cabinet into the external side of the filler piece. The piece was glued before, and then we clamped it. After it dried we attached the other side from the inside of the neighboring cab. Some people probably just use liquid nails, but that makes me nervous.

On the bottom cabs, we had to do a lot more shimming, and we even wound up bringing the cabs out farther than the old cabs to give us more counter space in the end. This required extensive blocking and shims, but screwing, positioning and placing was very easy (except for the kitchen sink-lining it up with the pipes, the stove slot, and the dishwasher return--this last piece being a $200 strip of wood with particle board on the side so your dishwasher isn't out in the open when you move your fridge out of view). Very soon afterwards, Corian came and made up a template of the lower cabinets from carboard and 2-4 weeks later (can't remember), they were installed in less than an hour! Until you get the c-tops put on, don't expect to have use of a sink. We reattached our ripped out ones and put our light stainless sink back in for running water, but for most this isn't an option. After Corian, we installed our over the range microwave, re-installed the dishwasher, & slid in the new fridge and old range. Tiling the backsplash came a month later (we were exhausted). Paint came 3-months later.

Okay, as to the soffet, I know it was very messy. Breathing gear, enclosed clear eye protection, and coveralls are par for the course. We started just swinging a hammer at it to break up the drywall. The soffet was framed out in metal (some are just wood). It was futile to try and rip much of it...the metal strips had to be unscrewed. A metal hacksaw (handpowered is fine) works where will to find the screws doesn't. A mini crow bar is helpful, also...and yes, I think a reciprocating saw is a fine tool if you meet resistance...just please turn off the breaker switch when hacking through it. Also, start it by hand b/c there could be waste water pipes, electrical lines, plumbing and all sorts of other damage-escalating vessels in that soffet. We actually had to re-route a waste-water (read, toilet line) back into the wall. Pete's plumbing experience
really helped here, but it was only about $2 in plastic parts plus some purple cleaner and glue to make the line not branch into the soffet. The biggest obstacle we encountered was the ducting for our kitchen's exhaust fan. Needless to say, this wasn't something we were planning on, but we eventually decided to rip it out for aesthetics and run the microhood's fan on recirc through heavy-duty grease filters. Recirculating kitchen air won't vent a high-powered
6-burner stove, but it's just fine for our little gas range. My little tip to you would be 1) don't rip out the bottom cabinets until you've ripped out the soffet. It provides a great place to stand on if they are under the soffet. And 2) Don't install the opposite wall of cabinets and then attempt to do kitchen demolition unless you want to spend another couple of hours masking off with sheeting...and then still taking a broom and damp sponge to every workable surface on them when you're done. Drywall dust gets EVERYWHERE!!!

To answer your final question, I have no regrets except that I wish I had more money to spend. I would have gotten granite counters instead of fussy Corian; I might have done an undermount stainless sink (I bought a more expensive porcelain-enameled cast iron sink that scratches too easily for my tastes), and I would have had someone professionally do the crown mouldings...that was a nightmare, actually. I'm glad we installed a dimmer switch on the recessed lights...that saves us lots of money. Also, our new lighting cast lots of shaddows, so we had to install under-cabinet halogens and while it looks fine, I wish the wires didn't show like in other homes I've seen. Finally, I think toe-kick boards look great and add polish to a finished kitchen...it's worth the extra $150 or so, IMO.

Okay, anymore and I'm going to write my own darned book! HTH some and feel free to ask more specific q's. I was hospitalized this morning for some awful stomach flu and I think I expended all my energy for the day.

Sincerely,

Larissa