Kitchen nightmare

[wildernesslodgelover]

I feel your pain! With a few differences...don't know if my situation is better or worse than yours, OP!

We also have a 70's ranch. Bought it almost 2 years ago (got a steal, it was a short sale) and we plan on living here at the very least 10 years, probably much more. We had a good amount of $$ leftover from the sale of our other home, but after we put in hardwood floors and various other upgrades, we did not have enough for the kitchen. Fast forward 2 years (now) and I don't foresee it happeneing anytime soon...and our cabinets are GROSS! Plus we need appliances. I *love* to cook and have always wanted a "dream" kitchen so I have been holding out.

The difference with you is that you plan on selling your house soon, so you don't need everything perfect, just aesthtically pleasing. Have you checked out Pandakitchens.com? Please do. Also, google "RTA cabinets" which means "ready to assemble." Many many people use these companies!

Ikea is known to be cheaply made...but their kitchens are something else! All there hardware is "blum" which is some of the best. There are many designers and upscale homeowners that sing the praises of Ikea.

here is a link to get you started, there is actually a message board forum like the DIS that is linked on this page. You just have to poke around to find the info you need...

http://www.ikeafans.com/guides/kitchen-planning-design-remodeling-help.html

Good luck!

 

[golfgal]

I would look into staining your cabinets vs painting. Talk to your local paint store about gel stains. It is similar to painting where you just have to clean the cabinets, lightly sand and then apply the stain but you keep the wood look. Doing that with some new countertops can change your kitchen dramatically. There are also laminate floors that look like tile-so real you have to get down and touch the floor to see if they are tile or not. Get a nice laminate for the countertop and you have a new kitchen. Depending on the size of your kitchen, this can be done for under $5K or even less.

 

[ameraumi]

I feel your pain too. I have my old house on the market and it was hard to list it knowing that the bathrooms and kitchen needed some updates but it just was not feasible to put that much money into it. I am already going to lose money on the house, I didn't want to go more into the hole.

The previous owners did update, but that was in the 80's. I changed out the flooring and repainted the walls. I also redid a few tiles in the back splash as they had fruit painted on them. We had already replaced appliances a few years ago. I also put in a new ceiling fan to update it and give it more light.

While it was not ideal, it spruced it up enough. Good luck no matter what you decide to do. Have you thought about refacing the cabinets? That might be a much cheaper option for you.

 

[tiggersbombed2]

Have you looked into just refacing the cabinets? The base of the cabinets stays the same, they just change out the hardware and doors/drawers. It's much cheaper than replacing the whole cabinet. Sears does it.

 

[minkydog]

Lots of good ideas, folks. I really appreciate them. I haven't looked into refacing, but I'm going to do that. I don't know if staining the cabinets will look any better than painting them. These are cheap old cabinets. I'm thinking that painting them a light grey might be pretty and practical--it would probably lighten up the room. All the baseboards are stained a warm pecan color. I had thought about painting all the trim white, but I think I'm going to keep them the same. Thankfully, we don't need flooring. We have beautiful hardwoods in the kitchen, dining room and Living room.

 

[rcraw45425]

We have wood cabinets in that lighter warm brown color. I think that both black and stainless go well with these.

The idea of a stainless stove with black is interesting. We also have a (broken) built-in microwave above the stove and I guess that should be stainless too....

I like IKEA countertops. I checked them out recently and they have some nice granite choices.

http://www.kitchenaid.com/flash.cmd?/#/product/KESS907XSP/
This is the one we went with, I love having a warming drawer!

 

[SOnotLayuh]

I'm also a big fan of Ikea kitchens.

 

[2binak]

We got our kitchen (cabinets, counters & lighting) 3 years ago from Home Depot for $10,000. The cabinets are from Kraft Maid, which is a high quality cabinet maker. We have a wall oven & some of the speciality cabinets with pull out shelves, lazy susans, etc. Our counter is granite-looking but everyone who visits thinks it's granite.

We also shopped at 2 private kitchen design centers and both of them wanted double what our kitchen cost at Home Depot and neither of them had exactly what we wanted in style or color. Shop around OP.

 

[loveysbydesign]

Anyoen know how much it costs to reface instead of replacing cabinets?

 

[Praying Colonel]

We fixed up our kitchen knowing we were doing it to sell, so we didn't worry we didn't have our dream kitchen. We bought everything at Lowe's. We took advantage of specials they had going on appliances, and bought in-stock cabinets and countertops. Our awesome realtor said that we didn't need to be putting granite or corian countertops or top-of-the-line appliances in our little house--it would be overkill and we wouldn't recoup our investment. A contractor we know from church came in and did all the work.

Ended up costing about 11K which felt like a lot, but I know it could've been a lot worse. And everything looked so nice in the finished product that it really helped move the house even though we didn't go for the best of everything.

 

[Gigi22]

Habitat for Humanity has a store where they sell good quality recycled building materials--perhaps there is one near you?