Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
To answer, there is a basement, if that makes a difference. This wouldn't be a project undertaken with resale value in mind, it would be an appeasement of my wife. She is fine with moving to the area but wants the kitchen to be bigger. I can't imagine most prospective buyers down the line would care much about where things are located since they'll probably level the place.
I tried to draw a crude visual in MS-Paint to explain why I'm unsure if we can expand, but it doesn't seem to work. Basically, the kitchen is enclosed except for the entrance from the dining room, though it also contains the rear door to the house. That door leads to a deck and a set of concrete steps down to the yard, so expanding that way would require a lot of work and an addition. Behind the left wall is a bathroom. Behind the front wall is the steps going down to the basement.
Expanding into the dining room could be a possibility, but it's one long connected room with the living room, so I'm not sure how it would look. And to answer the other question, this would not put the kitchen at the front of the house. It's current location and the location of the dining room are in the rear.
Kitchen remodeling is an extremely high profit business. While it might be possible to "move" cabinets, they are unlikely to fit properly into a different room without layout issues, and they're likely out of style.
$10k is what I would expect at a minimum, with decent cabinets & careful budgeting, but I could easily see quotes of $50k if you call the wrong guy and hand-over your checkbook. You're in a high labor-cost area & the contractors you'll be hiring will see dollar signs in their eyes as soon as you say kitchen remodel.
Having a basement is a huge plus, but I'd still figure $3-4k for moving the electrical, plumbing & gas pipe, and that's I'f you can keep your contractors in line.
Having a basement greatly reduces utility costs to move. I still can't vision your layout from your written description but the first thing comes to mind to accomplish what I'm reading into it is the following: Why not just knock down the wall that separates the kitchen and dining room? Now you have one big eat in kitchen. No one uses dining rooms anymore for regular means anyway. But everyone loves a big dining room kitchen combo.
I believe you said you will only want to live there a short time so it's only YOU that have to be pleased and comfortable in this home. Unless you have extra money to burn in the fireplace to keep warm, don't waste it on this project.
I'm always an advocate of putting in a new kitchen but if you're only going to live there a short time, knowing in the near future, a potential home buyer is only going to knock down the house, then don't.
I moved my kitchen and it didn't cost much more than remodeling it in place. I mean once everything was down to the studs it was just a matter of some plumbing and electrical, which we were upgrading anyway. Where you hang the cabinets doesn't seem to matter cost wise. Ours was done in conjunction with a new family room addition off the old kitchen/new dining area and was necessary to make it flow well. I came up with the plan myself and everyone thought I was nuts until they saw the result. Most homes in my area get add ons that just make whatever room they are added on to a hallway or pass thru area and it looks and feels cheap and crappy. Mine looks like it was designed this way and my home is now semi-custom.
Expanding into the dining room could be a possibility, but it's one long connected room with the living room, so I'm not sure how it would look. And to answer the other question, this would not put the kitchen at the front of the house. It's current location and the location of the dining room are in the rear.
I've seen this done in a house with an L shaped living room/dining room with kitchen and dining room in the back and living room in the front. The wall between the kitchen and dining room was removed, and a wall was put up between the dining room and kitchen. Effectively eliminating the dining room, creating a large eat-in kitchen, and closing the kitchen off.
It sort of bothered me that the wall completely closed off the living room because the living room was only accessible via the entry hall and there was no door into the kitchen from that way. If there had been at least a door, a second entrance into the newly enlarged kitchen, I think I would have liked it more.
I also would have liked it more if the if the interior walls of the kitchen were torn out (the wall between the kitchen and dining room and the wall between the kitchen and livingroom), and designing the kitchen like an open floor plan with the living room. Basically creating a modern great room out of an older style home. But then you're talking big money.
If you're going to spend the money, I think I'd go an entirely different route than anything mentioned. Instead of moving the kitchen, bump out the kitchen wall outside. Just a few feet out can make a kitchen seem much bigger. That way you gain square footage and won't lose the dining room.
what people are quoting you in price is how much it costs to move and put in a new kitchen. Which as said above, is very variable in cost and the sky is the limit if you get crazy.
However, I'm not sure exactly what you want to know. the actual cost to do the job, or the actual cost to re do the existing kitchen, vs move and redo the kitchen. ie the variable cost.
the variable cost to pay professionals to move the utilities over and above the cost to do the kitchen is probably a few thousand $$$ up to maybe 5 or 6.
there is the cost to redo the kitchen whcih could be anywhere from 12-50-100K
there is the cost to turn the kitchen into a dining room, removing the utilities, repairing drywall, new flooring which could vary too depending on what you're doing there.
I'm having trouble picturing.... can you just take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room? leave utilities in place and put in a pennisela?
My husband and I considered this very thing with a previous house of ours. We can do a lot ourselves and we were looking at 8 grand. Ikea cabinets, basic counters and flooring. Nothing fancy at all because the house wasnt worth much. It was an older home and there was no way of knocking out a wall or even doing a tear out of the kitchen and starting over. The kitchen was 9 x 6. with 2 door ways that could not be closed off. It was considered a worker's kitchen back in the day. I never could open the fridge door completely. That left crisper in the fridge never got used. Same thing with the oven, the door just cleared the cabinets when open. It was a horrible space to cook in. It was a like a closet.
The dining room however was 11 x 11. Due to the layout of the house, it wouldnt seem odd at all to swap the rooms. In fact, most people remarked how odd the kitchen looked due to its tiny size. It made more sense for that space to be a breakfast nook. We looked into all the possiblities. In our case we had a lot of pluses. The laundry room in the basement was just below the dining room. The plumbing was there and also a capped sewer line. Perfectly in line of where we would put the sink. We are not plumbers though so I had one come in to give us an idea of what we were looking at. The plumber said it was completely doable. We never got around to it we ended up relocating out of state. It would have been a neat project though. The house was very cute, decent sized rooms everywhere else but the kitchen. Even the bathroom was larger than the kitchen.
what people are quoting you in price is how much it costs to move and put in a new kitchen. Which as said above, is very variable in cost and the sky is the limit if you get crazy.
However, I'm not sure exactly what you want to know. the actual cost to do the job, or the actual cost to re do the existing kitchen, vs move and redo the kitchen. ie the variable cost.
the variable cost to pay professionals to move the utilities over and above the cost to do the kitchen is probably a few thousand $$$ up to maybe 5 or 6.
there is the cost to redo the kitchen whcih could be anywhere from 12-50-100K
there is the cost to turn the kitchen into a dining room, removing the utilities, repairing drywall, new flooring which could vary too depending on what you're doing there.
I'm having trouble picturing.... can you just take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room? leave utilities in place and put in a pennisela?
I was speaking of the third option, just switching the two rooms, with all the requisite costs to move the appliances, the water/gas lines, the counters, etc. I suppose the flooring would need to be switched as well.
I didn't really consider knocking out the wall between the rooms because I don't live in the house so I don't know if it's load bearing or not, there's a coat closet in it, the fridge is up against that wall, etc. But it might be a better option.
I didn't really consider knocking out the wall between the rooms because I don't live in the house so I don't know if it's load bearing or not, there's a coat closet in it, the fridge is up against that wall, etc. But it might be a better option.
Definately doable. The fridge only requires an electrical outlet moved. It needs to be dedicated like the one it has. You'll have to plan on new flooring for the kitchen and dining area too.
A couple we know bought a small 1930's era 2 bedroom 1 bath home back in 1978. The home is on a quiet street on a hill overlooking the freeway below but more importantly the Pacific ocean. They were able to open the walls up to give the home an open layout. Something that you may consider.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Same thing with the oven, the door just cleared the cabinets when open. It was a horrible space to cook in. It was a like a closet. 
