The Final Cost

My new kitchen is complete and the grand total for the entire renovation is $14,631.97. I kept track of every single purchase that went towards the kitchen and this includes every screw, nut and bolt.

I'm going to need some time to recover from months of hard work but I think it was worth it because I saved lots of money by doing it myself.  The only job I didn't attempt was the drywall installation and finishing.

Here's how the money was spent:

Wall Tile, Floor Tile and materials including saw rental -            $2,133.09

Extra Deep Stainless Steel Sink -                                                          $369.95

Kohler Faucet and Instant Hot -                                                           $478.08

Kitchen Lights -                                                                                        $251.00

Plumbing Supplies (pipe, pex clamp rental, fittings, valves, etc.) -  $204.36

Electrical Supplies (romex, outlets, breakers, switchplates, etc.) -  $390.26

Lumber (including Appleply for custom bookshelf ) -                       $1,017.29

Venting for Range Hood -                                                                        $62.31

Cabinet Hardware -                                                                               $288.00

Drywall, Paint and Labor -                                                                     $2,411.01

Ikea Cabinets and Caesarstone Quartz Countertops -                         $6,564.64

Misc. purchases (plumb bob, twine, plastic sheeting, saw blades,

              construction adhesive, respirator, caulk, etc.) -      $461.98
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Grand Total -                                                                                            $14,631.97                                                                            

The Big Reveal

The view to the kitchen from the dining room. The old entrance to the kitchen was where the white cabinet in the dining room is placed. The archway was there but had a wall behind it. I had been wanting to open it up since we moved into the house 13 years ago.

My favorite part of the kitchen is this custom bookshelf for my cookbooks made out of maple Appleply.

My previous kitchen had only two ceiling light fixtures. I now have five new schoolhouse style fixtures that I purchase online from LightingDirect.

I  pulled a wood shelf from my basement to temporarily house my dinnerware. It will go when I complete a future project - a powder coated steel island on wheels topped with a butcher block slab that I saved from my old kitchen.

Thanks to new electrical outlets I can run my microwave and toaster at the same time without blowing a fuse.

The Caesarstone quartz countertops are scratch and heat resistant and require no sealing.

I reused all of my old appliances to save money. My Frigidaire stove was purchased in 2002 and is still working great.

The floor is durable porcelain tile and the color is called "stone age."

The blue wall tiles were purchased from Overstock.com and offer a bright accent to the white and cream kitchen.

It is so nice to have my refrigerator set back and out of the way.

Kickplates And Baseboards

The kickplates match the color and finish of the cabinets.

I finished installing the baseboards and cabinet kickplates today. Now there's just a bit of touch up painting to do and my kitchen will be officially done.

Good thing too since I promised my daughter Eleanor that I would be done before school starts and I'm barely going to make it  - school starts on September 4.

To protect the finish, the Ikea kickplates came wrapped in blue plastic. Installing them really wasn't too hard. Just careful measuring and cutting and then snapping them onto the cabinet legs using provided plastic clips.

I used 8-inch hemlock boards painted with high gloss white for the baseboards.  This is the finished base of my pantry cabinet.

Everything Works

The tiny plastic piece that does so much. Without it, the spray hose doesn't stay connected to the supply hose.

The tiny plastic piece missing from my new Kohler faucet was delivered yesterday and within minutes I had the spray hose and supply hose securely connected and a finally a working faucet.

Mission accomplished!

It was a great moment for me because it meant that everything in my new kitchen was working. Now it's a rush to the finish line with baseboards, cabinet kick plates and touch up painting.

The big reveal is just around the corner and I'll share the final cost of my remodel.

Filling The Drawers

Today I'm filling my new kitchen drawers with the help from my daughter Eleanor. This morning we made a trip to Ikea together for organization supplies.

At Ikea we found shallow plastic trays for 1.49 each and two fit perfectly side by side in my 15-inch drawers. We also found deeper clear plastic containers for the same price and we are using them as separators in the larger 36-inch drawers.

An efficiently organized drawer. Food colorings, sprinkles and extracts could spill and make a mess so it's good to have them contained in a plastic container.

Inside each of the deep containers are sugars and sprinkles, food colorings, extracts and pastry bags. The former are items that could potentially spill and make a mess so I like having them contained to help keep the new drawers clean. I also like that the containers are easy to lift out of the drawers.

I like that these deep clear plastic containers are easy to pull out of my drawers. I also like that they only cost 1. 49.

At Ikea we also purchased a cool shallow spice holder for 3.99 that I like a lot. It will be so much easier to find what I need since I used to have my spices in a cabinet that was deep and inefficient. Now I won't have to practically pull every spice out to find the one I want.

No more struggling to find spices with this cool spice rack that lays flat. I also have space for all my cupcake papers. I stored them upside down so I can see the designs and sizes better and quickly find what I want.

Drawer Pulls

All the cabinet hardware is in and I'm very pleased. The stressing, sweating and tedious measuring paid off.

Last to be installed were these pulls on two large banks of drawers. I'm excited to begin putting things away and clearing out my dining room and the rest of my house that has looked like a storage locker for the last four months.

I now have lots of room for my cookie and cake decorating supplies. I can't wait to begin baking in my new kitchen.

Lots of storage space!

Hardware Hesitation

I had been putting off installing the hardware for my kitchen cabinets because I was stressed about putting them on perfectly.

There's a lot of careful measuring involved and it's a one shot deal. Mis-drilled holes can't be filled and painted because of the reflective foil finish on the cabinets. There is no way to duplicate the finish.

After pondering and pondering I got a great tip from my brother Josh who just remodeled his own kitchen - use painter's tape to mark where you want to drill. The texture of the tape also keeps the drill bit from slipping and sliding.

Yesterday afternoon I got the courage to start with the knobs which went very smoothly. This morning I started on the drawer pulls which are more complicated. I just took my time and I'm off to a great start. I have one bank finished and later today I'll tackle the remaining two.

Here are some installation tips.

Knobs:

Put a piece of painter's tape on the cabinet where the knob will be placed.

Make a template out of a square edged piece of cardboard by simply lining it up with the top and side of the cabinet door and marking with a pen where you want your knob to be placed. Drill a hole there and then line it up again and mark with a pen through the hole and onto the painter's tape where you need to drill.

Make sure you use a drill bit that is the same size as your screws.

Add the knob and repeat.  Be sure to flip the template for the second door on double door cabinets.

Pulls:

The pulls needed to be lined up perfectly so I snapped a chalk line down where each of the screws holes needed to be drilled and where the center of the handle needed to line up. My daughter helped me snap the chalk lines while I held the string in place. I then put painter's tape on the middle of each of the drawers so that I could draw center lines through the chalk lines. Where those line intersected with the outside chalk lines is where I pre-drilled for the screws.

Tile Lapse

I'm not done tiling yet, but I'm getting there.

So my wall tiling isn't finished yet but it's coming along and looking good no thanks to a big snafu on my part.

I began tiling late Saturday afternoon when I was already pretty tired and I worked until 10 p.m. when I had a good 1/5 of the wall covered. The work was a struggle because I wasn't feeling up to par but I kept telling myself to keep trudging on.

Sunday morning I got right back to work and screamed in frustration when I noticed a big mistake. Midway through the bottom row, I had placed a tile in the wrong direction. The one flipped tile wasn't hugely noticeable but I would have to repeat the mistake in every row to keep the other tiles matching.

The big mistake: If you look straight down from the right side of the outlet you'll see my misplaced tile.

It needed to be fixed and ugh...I was so mad at myself for working when I wasn't alert. The mistake was a sad setback and my poor family had to watch my meltdown.

Fortunately, my husband offered the words I needed to hear— "Just do what you need to do to fix it and we'll help."

I tediously removed ten square feet of tile from the wall and my daughter Eleanor pitched in to help clean them up.

My daughter Eleanor helped clean the removed tiles. When it's time to cut tiles to fit around my windows, I'll use these.

Looking back, I am so lucky I caught the mistake when I did. It could have been much worse.  I also know that I should only work when I'm alert and always take time to step back and periodically get an overview of my work.

Leaning over a counter, placing tiles in a mosaic pattern literally inches from your face, really skews your perception.

Finishing Details

It's been a busy few days for me, trying to decide on which knobs and pulls to buy for my kitchen cabinets.

After scouring the choices at six stores including Restoration Hardware, Lowe's and Home Depot,  I made a decision. I chose Square Bin Pulls and Tall Mushroom Knobs  in polished chrome from Rejuvenation.

The deciding factors were the finish, style and quality. Polished chrome was an easy finish to find knobs in, but not bin pulls. And, it was important for me to use polished chrome since it's the finish on my faucet and my light fixtures.

The square shape of the bin pull compliments the clean lines of my flat cabinets. The style actually pulls off quite a feat by looking both modern and vintage at the same time. A too modern design wouldn't look right in my house which was build in the 1920's.

The polished chrome is so bright and reflective that you can see me taking the picture.

If things go as planned, my kitchen should look quite different after the weekend. My goal is to install the hardware and add my backplash tile which will cover an entire wall.

New Countertops

The day I've been waiting for - new countertops.

My new Caesarstone quartz countertops were installed today and I'm so pleased - the color (eggshell) compliments the cream color of my Ikea Abstrakt cabinets and the look is clean and modern.

The installers were exceptionally nice and didn't seem to mind that my friend Bill and I were hovering and asking lots of questions. Watching professionals work is a great way to learn.

Things are taking shape.

A Dozen Drawers

Eight of my dozen drawers.

I spent Monday of this week assembling and installing my Ikea kitchen drawers. The process got easier after the first few but it still took me nearly a whole day to finish twelve drawers.

I think the hardest part was attaching the rails for the drawers in my 18-inch cabinet since there wasn't much room and I practically had to crawl inside.

Another frustration for me was the poor quality of the screws Ikea provides. The heads strip so easily. At first I thought I could use a screw bit in a power drill but the metal just wanted to shred. I couldn't risk stripping a head so much that I couldn't get it out that in the end I decided I'd just have to suffer through and tighten all the screws by hand.

Now that the drawers are in, I'm happy that the experience is over and excited about the next step - installation of my quartz countertops.

Ikea madness.

It was a bit of a struggle attaching the rails in the small 18-inch cabinet.

Two in, two more to go.

Looking good.

Cabinet Fronts And Sage Advice

My new pantry cabinet.

Lots of space!

The high gloss cabinet fronts still need hardware.

This past Monday, the template was made for my new eggshell colored Caesarstone quartz countertops and I was happy to learn from the template maker that I could go ahead and install the cabinet doors and drawers.

The countertop is scheduled to be installed on July 30 and in the meantime I'm just trying to keep the project progressing and work hard every day.

The foil finish on the cream colored Ikea cabinet fronts has a reflective quality that I like a lot. I want to get all the doors and drawers in for a final look before I chose the hardware. I'm leaning towards chrome Gilmore knobs and pulls from Restoration Hardware but I don't want to be hasty. The finishing touches are important so I shouldn't be impatient.

When details are important and I feel rushed, I always think of my kind high school art teacher Mr. Gaer who advised me, "Learn to take your time and consistently do your best work. You don't want mess up your project at the end just because you were in a hurry to finish."

Mr. Gaer knew me well. I have lots of ideas and get really enthusiastic at the start of a project but I'm not so great with fine details and I like to work fast. It's akin to opening a brand new can of paint and feeling so excited about the color and getting started and then in the end just slopping it on because you want to be done.

I have worked so hard up to this point that it would be a shame to not finish the kitchen right.

Room For More Cookbooks

My cookbooks are on my new bookshelf and I can't believe it but I actually have room for more.

Before, I didn't have adequate storage to keep my collection all in one place. It's so nice to have them together, organized and at hand. Yeah! Things are coming together.

My baking and chocolate cookbooks are the ones I use the most so I put them on the lower shelves so they're easy to reach.

Finished Bookshelf

My cookbook shelf— I did discover I was short four shelf standard clips so that's why there's one shelf sitting upright in the right section.

Being smart means knowing when to ask for help.

I discovered that when I tried to rip 8-foot by 14-inch pieces of heavy 3/4 applyply on my table saw. I managed to get one piece onto the saw but smartly didn't even attempt the cut which would have surely been uneven because of the unruly size of the board. Heck, while I was supporting the wood I couldn't even manage to turn the saw on.

So I put the board down and made a desperate call for help to my friend Bill.

With his help, the boards were cut down to the correct width (11-inches) in no time and ready to be cut again crosswise into shelving. After a final sanding and oiling, the new bookshelf is complete and ready to house my cookbook collection.

The sideview of the bookshelf. The quartz countertop will be flush with the back

I am so pleased with how it looks and love that it's the first thing you see when you enter the new kitchen. The grain of the maple appleply is beautiful and the tone of the wood is warm and compliments the cool blue tiles that will be the last thing I install.

The wood and tile look great together.