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Paint the cabinets white, new counter (even a new Formica if that fits the budget), new backsplash and stainless appliances if you don't already have them.
Thank you for another demonstration of your altruistic concern.
However... I suspect the Op can, and I know that I can, do without them in the future.
I'm going to side with him on this one. You really seem to be taking this off topic. But I'll answer this final question and then ask that you stay on topic. My wife and I have no intentions of selling because we believe getting cash flow is much more important. The SF Bay Area is extremely expnsive and if we decide we don't like our new locale, we would like to have easy accesibility to come back (there is no relation to that and 20 years).
The 20 years relates to our children and the future net worth of the property as we would like to eventually will the house to our children. Like our other investment property, we will have a property manager taking care of it for us (so little involvement from us on the process). We've done this before and are comfortable with the process. Hopefully, I've answered all your questions and we can stop with this nonsense. I'm here to talk about our kitchen. Thank you.
Last edited by Independentthinking; 08-04-2017 at 09:14 PM..
OK, apparently I needed to resize the picture (looks like it worked). So one of the biggest problems is, some of the drawers are actually falling apart (the front of them). Its like the face of the drawer was simply glued to the rest of it. Can you actually go out and just replace the drawers? If so, where do I go to do that. And then of course, I would need to figure out how to match the drawers to the rest of the paneling.
P.S. Meant to also say earlier that I agree with many of the comments talking about keeping it cheap and cheerful. That's why I balked at the price on refacing and am attempting to keep the cost down (but clearly I can't have drawers falling apart).
Last edited by Independentthinking; 08-05-2017 at 05:49 AM..
Sometimes you can get lucky and find someone selling old cabinetry pieces on Craigslist. Longshot but maybe you can find someone selling drawers. You might see if there's a carpenter who can rebuild your drawers.
Unless you are ok with putting in enough money to actually update that kitchen, you are mostly talking about lipstick on a pig. I'd go ahead with getting a handyman to fix the drawers and then maybe try to restain the existing cabinets to clean them up a bit. But nothing short of a reno is going to change that from being a dated kitchen. The cabinet style is dated, and the counters and backsplash are dated. If you want to rent it out as an updated kitchen, you'll need to put in the money to actually update.
That's not an opinion on whether or not you should actually do that - it will depend on the market in your area and if an updated house rents out for enough more to justify it or not.
I know people (especially men) freak out about painting WOOD....but we just did it. We wanted to freshen up the kitchen but didn't have $40,000. Cabinets were in good shape internally, but worn finish. They were upgraded cabinets when we bought them but they were natural oak. Very dated. We painted them white ourselves and I'm really pleased. Figured, I'll either move in a few years or replace them later.
The painting of the cabinets necessitated a counter top change, where we switched from laminate to granite. It's made a huge difference. Between the new countertop (I have a lot) and the paint, I've probably spent $6,000 so far. I have a thread on here where you can see my progress. It's titled something like "What type of granite with white cabinets..."
We did the painting but if you didn't want to tackle it, our painter quoted us $1600 for the labor.
I know people (especially men) freak out about painting WOOD....but we just did it. We wanted to freshen up the kitchen but didn't have $40,000. Cabinets were in good shape internally, but worn finish. They were upgraded cabinets when we bought them but they were natural oak. Very dated. We painted them white ourselves and I'm really pleased. Figured, I'll either move in a few years or replace them later.
The painting of the cabinets necessitated a counter top change, where we switched from laminate to granite. It's made a huge difference. Between the new countertop (I have a lot) and the paint, I've probably spent $6,000 so far. I have a thread on here where you can see my progress. It's titled something like "What type of granite with white cabinets..."
We did the painting but if you didn't want to tackle it, our painter quoted us $1600 for the labor.
First off, I'd like to thank everyone for their very useful suggestions. But Christine, you take the cake! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I just looked at your thread and your cabinets are almost identical to ours. That made it extremely easy to see what it would look like if we painted them white. I have a very good painter that just finished painting the outside and interior of our house and had asked him about possibly painting the cabinets before he finished up. Looks like I'll be going that route and then finding a handyman or carpenter to fix the broken drawers. Once again, thanks so much.
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