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They're engineered hardwood. However, if they were solid hardwoods, I would refinish them in a heartbeat instead of replacing them. I'm on a slab so only engineered hardwoods for me.
Same with us in our new house. However, I must say that we had glued-down engineered parquet floors, the cheap ones from Standard Brands quite a few years back, and we actually did have those sanded and re-finished. Just the one time, but they turned out very well.
We've been busy busy installing new lighting. After much thought, we decided to do this the right way and go ahead with new recessed lighting. In addition, we have some new pendants for over the peninsula and a new chandelier for the kitchen table. I'm excited by the lighting but it's hard work because of the funky issues in our ceiling - namely poorly planned HVAC.
We're about halfway through pulling wire, etc now and should have some pictures up in the next day or so. Oh and we did get LED recessed lights - super super easy to install but took me a while to figure out which bulbs to get! This is our first foray into LED lighting.
I'll admit, I'm excited about the new lighting. I think it's one of those things one shouldn't skimp on because proper lighting can really make or break a room. I say this after living with a pretty crappy florescent light that made everyone appear a tad bit jaundiced when they were in the kitchen. Talk about bad light! New pictures soon - I promise.
Glad to hear you made the right call on the lighting...
Quote:
Originally Posted by southbel
We've been busy busy installing new lighting. After much thought, we decided to do this the right way and go ahead with new recessed lighting. In addition, we have some new pendants for over the peninsula and a new chandelier for the kitchen table. I'm excited by the lighting but it's hard work because of the funky issues in our ceiling - namely poorly planned HVAC.
We're about halfway through pulling wire, etc now and should have some pictures up in the next day or so. Oh and we did get LED recessed lights - super super easy to install but took me a while to figure out which bulbs to get! This is our first foray into LED lighting.
I'll admit, I'm excited about the new lighting. I think it's one of those things one shouldn't skimp on because proper lighting can really make or break a room. I say this after living with a pretty crappy florescent light that made everyone appear a tad bit jaundiced when they were in the kitchen. Talk about bad light! New pictures soon - I promise.
It would have been a mistake to try to wedge that chandelier for a rectangular dining table into the space. I sympathize with your HVAC issue -- many times I have seen similar issues. Even with "new construction" I have seen electricians and sheet metal guys come to an impass that required the GC to "mediate" a solution that would work for both.
I was thinking of suggesting "micro cans" that already have the LED emitter in place as a reduced clearance option though if this is a flip those are probably too costly and likely to modern for generic tastes. The LED replacement bulbs are getting better and better as costs come down.
Lighting is especially crucial in a kitchen with no exterior windows. I frankly would not have gotten involved in such a project, but that is a whole other issue...
I'm getting ready to re-do a similar kitchen (orange-y oak cheap cabinets) so I'm really looking forward to seeing the paint go on yours. I've gone back and forth between painting (doing it correctly so that the paint lasts and is scrubbable is my big concern) and ordering new doors from the kitchen refacing website. Paint would be SO much cheaper, but I just don't know if it'll hold up.
Kashmir White is my current choice for the granite we'll be putting in too, and we also have issues with lighting placement. I haven't decided on a backsplash but don't want anything dark or too trendy. Looking forward to seeing what you chose.
So I'm loving your thread! Keep the updates coming!
I'm getting ready to re-do a similar kitchen (orange-y oak cheap cabinets) so I'm really looking forward to seeing the paint go on yours. I've gone back and forth between painting (doing it correctly so that the paint lasts and is scrubbable is my big concern) and ordering new doors from the kitchen refacing website. Paint would be SO much cheaper, but I just don't know if it'll hold up.
Kashmir White is my current choice for the granite we'll be putting in too, and we also have issues with lighting placement. I haven't decided on a backsplash but don't want anything dark or too trendy. Looking forward to seeing what you chose.
So I'm loving your thread! Keep the updates coming!
Sounds like our kitchens are similar! My painted cabinets in the bathroom are holding up okay but I think it wouldn't stand up to kitchen mess (I love to cook so I need super durable too). We're going with an acrylic paint this time from Sherwin Williams since latex tends to be more prone to scratches, etc. When I paint, I'll be sure to document the process and products we use. One thing I highly suggest that has really helped us tremendously is the HVLP conversion gun. My husband is even able to use his smaller pancake compressor with it and still get a great finish. We even painted the outside of our house with it and it saved us about $9000 doing that (I'm one of those super frugal people).
I looked into new doors as well. Quite expensive but they are so darn pretty. I like the layout of my kitchen and my boxes are in great shape. They have all pullout doors, etc so painting (or getting new doors) makes sense. Personally, I would have preferred the full overlay but as many other people here have pointed out as well as my husband, very few people would notice the difference.
For my backsplash, I'm either going with a white subway tile with gray grout (I hate hate hate cleaning white grout) or a subway tile in carrera marble.
It's a bit of a long process because we have to get around quite a bit of obstructions in the ceiling. The LED cans are super easy to put in once we get through the arduous process of pulling wire. More cans and the pendants (yay!) are upcoming soon.
Thanks for the tip on the paint sprayer. I think I will end up at least trying the paint. I have fewer cabinets than you, so at $70/door and $45/drawer front I would end up around $2200 for the whole job. A lot cheaper than new cabinets, but a whole lot more than just painting them.
I am one that doesn't think refusing to pay $10000 to have my house painted is "frugal" so much as "sane", lol. I hate to paint, but the cost of a professional paint job makes me choke every time. I will never have the steadiest hand, but I think if you do your prep work and use good materials you can get a good result. I've done bathroom cabinets too, but never kitchen cabinets. I just don't want it to look cheap or get chipped and junky looking.
The pendants are in and they are truly delightful. Lots of pictures coming so fair warning.
To determine where we wanted to place the pendants, we first mocked them up with paper plates. I like this method because it allows you to get a visual understanding of what it would look like with the pendants in place. Normally, pendants should be about 32 inches above the counter. However, because of our HVAC in the way, instead of placing them near the back of the sink, we placed them closer to the middle of the sink. Thus, we decided to go a bit higher than normal. The plates let me see if that would look silly or not.
As I've mentioned before, we had issues getting around HVAC in our ceiling. Our current task light (which was truly in a stupid location) was a simple can light and we used this electrical run to wire our pendants. You can see in this picture, the large round hole is the location of the previous can light and the location of the vent. To keep from hitting the HVAC, we had to mount the new boxes almost directly next to the joist. It was a matter of very careful placement to get these things to work. We did have to remove an extra hole in the ceiling to get access to the joist where my husband used a 3/4" spade bit to drill through it. Then it was just a matter of pulling wire. The blue chalk line is where I originally wanted the pendants but you can see how much we had to move them in order to compensate for the HVAC.
And finally, the pendants installed! I love the way they look. They are quite a bit higher than normal but I don't think it looks bad. I kind of like it.
Now that we have those in, we can continue with the rest of the can lights to get rid of any dark spots (specifically over there in the corners). So excited the lighting is getting close to completion. It's amazing that even those tiny holes can create SO much drywall dust!
looking good so far! Useful thread for me because my wife and I are making some very similar changes in the near future.
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I would only take out the bar and give the walls some color.(I'm frugal, lol)
Glad to hear you made the right call on the lighting...
