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As said... I disagree entirely and unreservedly.
The timeline makes it an insane choice.
$10K for a space you see and work in every single day for the next 20 years is very reasonable.
$10K for a space you see and work in every single day for the next 10 years is justifiable.
5 years or less? Absolutely not.
Then you get into the 'doing a remodel on spec' for some unknown future buyer aspect.
Doubly no.
I agree with you. There is NO way I would invest that kind of time and money into a home I knew I was leaving in such short time.
What paint colors would go well with honey oak? Originally, I was leaning toward Manchester Tan when I thought we were painting them white.
What colors do you like? I'm not fond of brown everywhere, so I wouldn't have tan or golden walls with oak cabinets. I would, however, paint the walls white and add color on the counters or elsewhere.
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Should I be replacing the sink and faucet? If so, what should I be looking for in a traditional style that is not too expensive?
Do they need replacing? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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I think I tend to have an old fashioned sense of style and really want to be more current so I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.
Just don't go all HGTV trendy. If everyone on HGTV has to have it, you don't want it. You'll thank yourself in the morning.
There's always the chance we won't be moving in 3-5 years. (In fact, hubby just said it would more likely be 5+ years.) Regardless, the work we are trying to do is work that should have been done over the past 10-15 years but didn't do because we've been busy with elder care. We're just playing catch up at this point.
Ok, if you think someone will gut the kitchen anyway, then have the cabinets painted professionally. There aren't many so it shouldn't be too bad. New countertops, you don't have to go granite as there are some nice laminate that looks like granite at less cost. Remove the light fixture it is very dated and have drop lights installed over the seating area and recessed lighting if in the budget otherwise remove the light and put a more updated light. The "awkward" cabinet facing into the dining room you can have the center of the door cut out and a glass panel installed then use that cabinet to showcase some nice glassware. On the flat side facing the kitchen hang a cute message board.
Edited to add that you are not painting the cabinets. A good cleaning with murphy's oil soap and a very fine steel wool pad (very fine, I think like 0 or something) will brighten them up. I still am in favor of cutting out that end cabinet door and replacing with a glass panel. I don't think any of this will come close to $10,000. We put wood floors granite counters and new stove and came nowhere close to $10K. Probably more like $5K-6K and it was a much larger kitchen with a center island. Of course, most of the work was done by the husband except the countertops. However, even if it did, your projected staying of 3-5 years will most likely turn into 8-10, because that is how things go, and your might as well enjoy it while you live there.
Last edited by NorthofHere; 01-28-2018 at 12:31 PM..
I agree with you. There is NO way I would invest that kind of time and money into a home I knew I was leaving in such short time.
But we don't know what the OP paid for the house to begin with, and what it could sell for with an updated kitchen. It might make financial sense to spend the money. Plus the enjoyment of the kitchen for three years or so.
Oh and I just read that the OP will be staying probably 5 years or so.
OP, one good rule of thumb is to look at comparable houses in the same neighborhood or a similar one and compare kitchens. I'll give you an example: In our neighborhood the homes are custom built and are about 20 years old, as is ours. They are above the average price per square foot and for the total home compared to our general area. Not luxury homes but not first time home buyer homes either. Nicer though than "average." We bought our house for far below market value because unlike most of the other homes in this neighborhood, the house had not been updated and was screaming with crazy jewel toned wallpapers and shiny brass and white tile in all the bathrooms and kitchen (including white tile countertops in the kitchen, white appliances that were 20 years old, etc.)
But in our neighborhood, no one does laminate counter tops when they update their kitchens. For resale value, it wouldn't have been a good choice. Some sort of natural stone is what our neighbors have gone with and we went with soapstone. With the floor in the kitchen, to be consistent with the other comparable homes in our neighborhood, vinyl anything wouldn't have been a good choice. We didn't go all trendy, but we did opt for a farm house sink and we did put subway tile in as the backsplash, but both those things can be changed out easily if someone doesn't like them, though I can't imagine anyone hating on the sink especially - it's just a nice, big, white porcelain divided sink.
Anyway my point is that we needed to match up with homes that ours would be competing against in the future for resale. We just needed to be consistent with the neighborhood. Now - if this home was a starter home, there is NO WAY I would have paid what we paid for the travertine flooring, for example. I also wouldn't have sprung for the soapstone countertops, which were a 7 in price on a scale of 1-10. That would have kept the cost down significantly. I probably wouldn't have painted the cabinets, which were a non offensive oak that I just didn't care for. That was another chunk I could have cut back on. The backsplash though just wasn't all that expensive, and the tile we chose wasn't all that expensive either.
Match up with whatever you think your competition will be in the future. Meanwhile, enjoy your updates! At the end of the day, it's not all about resale when you're talking about your home. You need to love it too. It's where you spend most of your time.
When you said you'd been sidetracked with elder care, oh how I can relate. You deserve a fun, fulfilling project that you do for YOURSELVES. Something creative, something you're going to get some satisfaction from.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 01-30-2018 at 06:42 AM..
Taking out the soffit will make it look and feel much better.
I take that back. If you take the whole soffit out you might need to remove the cabinets or it will just be a big mess. You don't need to do that. Either way if you open that up it just becomes a dust/grease collector and more to clean, lol. Just change out the light.
Hey, OP, I thought of something when ylisa mentioned the soffit.
I can't tell from the picture - I mean, it LOOKS like they're fine but I'm going to ask anyway. Is there a good amount of space between your cabinets and your counter tops? The reason I ask is because when we were planning our kitchen update, our contractor noticed immediately something that had been bugging me but for some reason I just thought I needed to live with it. He noticed that our cabinets were hung lower than they are hung in newer construction. Now in our case, we didn't have a soffit - we just had open space above our cabinets and in our case it was a LOT because we have ten foot ceilings. He recommended that we raise the cabinets I think either three or four inches because most appliances today need that much clearance.
I'll give you an example - we had to be careful when buying a coffeepot because some coffeepots were too tall to fit under the cabinets.
I was pleasantly surprised at the reasonable cost to raise the cabinets, so we did so. But like I said, we didn't have a soffit to deal with - that will increase your cost.
Just something to consider while you're looking at the whole project. IF your cabinets are hung lower than average it's something to think about. They may not be. I found out from neighbors that the original owners of our home were both very small, short people. My husband is average height and I'm a bit on the tall side. So that's another reason why that small detail in our kitchen was subconsciously bugging us.
Also, not sure if you have under the cabinet lights but they are not expensive at all and they make a HUGE difference.
Also, we added outlets so we have plenty of outlets. You may want to be sure you have enough outlets in place when you take out that wallpaper. That's another inexpensive thing to add.
Hey, I can really tell you how to spend some money - LOL.
Mr. Rational, thanks for the rep comment. I'll add to it to say that employers call me their top salesperson!
I'm all about the budget. Give me ANY budget and I can work with it and still get people excited about the changes. Heck, give me NO budget but just let me come over and rearrange things and you'll be excited!
Anyway, a lot can be done with $10k, especially if that's not including the flooring. Buyers either expect an updated home, or they expect the asking price to reflect that the home needs updates. Meanwhile, the owner has to live in the house and why not enjoy some modest updates?
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 01-30-2018 at 07:18 AM..
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